My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah I adore it
Hallelujah Mary loved her son
Why don't my mother love me?
-From the musical Hair (1968)

While I was walking out of the theater after viewing Chris Rock's documentary "Good Hair," the young lady I was with commented, half jokingly, "Why'd he have to give away all of the secrets?" But in the back of my mind I said, These were secrets?

She, like my BV colleague Carmen Dixon, seemed a bit flustered with the movie and its message and what audiences were supposed to take away from it. As a guy, I was entertained by the film, and I didn't take it that seriously because after all...it's Chris freakin' Rock.

But looking back, I've seen what an issue hair is for women of all colors: How for some it's about self-esteem, and for others' it's about men. I've seen it used as a social barometer, as a weapon and even as a sex decoy-take that any way you want.

I've seen people fall in love over it and learn to hate themselves over it. It's been behind so many family stories passed down through the generations and has been the subject of shed tears in nightclub ladies rooms for the better part of a century. If it weren't for hair and the products we use to groom it, we never would have had Soul Train.