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June 07, 2005
Black Googlewhack
A couple years or so ago, I got twists. It took me about 9 months to grow my hair out. My wife thinks that I'm insane. I'm one of those guys who could grow a foot of hair out of my head but I shave my head. A complete waste of talent, says she. At the time I figured I'd go all the way to dreads.
The reason I'm bald today is because of the dearth of information I could get about locking and so forth. I liked the way my twists looked, but I was basically told that I couldn't wash my hair. What!? After about 3 weeks of itching out of my skull I went back to level zero, and I've pretty much been there ever since with a few one or two month exceptions.
Part of the dearth of information had a lot to do with what Google was then. I can tell you without question that the searching has gotten better, but not good enough. I put in half a dozen searches for black men's hair care and the only thing you could get off Google when you put it 'black men' was porno. I'm talking about Google Images here. People can say what they want about hair, but it doesn't mean anything if you can't see what it looks like. Well I've got news for you, you still can't - not from Google. It's nice to know that they've put a porno filter on, but there are no pictures.
Do you remember that picture that used to be on the wall of your barbershop in the hood? The one with all the crazy afro styles that nobody in their right mind would get - well in the days before Kwame. Well, you're never going to find that on Google. At least not today. It's easy to find just about anything you want on Google, except pictures of black men that aren't porno.
Your best bet? Find a name that sounds like the name of a black man, like say 'Kwame' and then search that. 'Leroy' works. 'DAndre' does not. 'Nigga' works. 'Homey' does not.
I'm not particularly disturbed about this Googlewhack fact. I'm very happy with my head the way it is, and I actually do know what black men look like. Besides, there's always Wikipedia.
By the way, some of y'all need to do something about Wikipedia's blank spots. Are there or are there not 10 thousand Black Studies grad students out there? Tsk!
Posted by mbowen at June 7, 2005 08:37 PM
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Comments
What about Googling for images of NBA rosters? Wouldn't that work?
By the way, are we just now witnessing the birth of the black mullet - cornrows up top, dangling braids down the neck?
Posted by: Anonymous at June 8, 2005 01:08 AM
(That was me just then; forgot to sign in. I didn't mean to look like an anonymous coward.)
-LF
Posted by: Latigo Flint at June 8, 2005 01:12 AM