by
Black Girl With Long Hair
Aron Ranen is a Los-Angeles based documentary filmmaker and film teacher who in 2006 completed a 4-part series on the Korean takeover of the black haircare industry
Among the things he found were
I posed some questions to Ranen about his documentary:
How did you get interested in the black haircare industry?
AR: I am interested in this subject because it is so wrong, yet fixable.
Your documentary talks about the Korean takeover of the black haircare market. Did you ever get to the bottom of WHY this happened? I mean, why Korean immigrants? And why black haircare? How did blacks lose their grip on their own market? Where did the breakdown begin?
AR: In my film I trace it back to 1965 when the Korean Wig merchants targeted the US Black consumer, and lobbied to have the Korean government ban the export of the Raw hair…giving the Koreans a lock on manufacturing human hair wigs and extensions. In the documents exposed in my film, it only describes the black market as it’s target..not why.
Your portrayal of Korean immigrants was mainly as part of the problem, i.e. contributing to a lack of black ownership in the haircare industry. But did you ever find anything in their collective story that you were sympathetic to?
AR: I understand the daily beauty supply employee works long and hard hours, it’s the folks at the top that have been behind keeping African Americans, and Black Londoners out of the industry.
In a few articles I’ve read you point to ‘micro loans’ as the answer for black business. Why did you come to that conclusion?
AR: I believe the only solution is to open 100-500 stores right next to pre-existing Korean owned shops. That means investment, not loans..we need the Black Capitol to realize this is a good investment..open the stores, create the distribution channel, and keep the dollars in the communities as well as getting rid of the “criminalization of the consumer” which exists in many Asian owned stores. This will create a rainbow of jobs from $10 in the stores to $100,000 running marketing and distribution. I can see Reality shows on BET where people compete to get their products in the Black Owned stores!
In everything you saw and heard, what were you most shocked by?
AR: The lack of interest by Oprah, Bill Cosby, the Black Churches in seeing this as an opportunity..and creating buzz and economic action around the Hair and supply business.
Here is part 1 of Aron’s 4-part documentary:
14 Responses
Why is a white man so concerned with black women’s hair and dividing the Black and Asian communities?
Your documentary talks about the Korean takeover of the black haircare market. Did you ever get to the bottom of WHY this happened? I mean, why Korean immigrants? And why black haircare? How did blacks lose their grip on their own market? Where did the breakdown begin?
AR: In my film I trace it back to 1965 when the Korean Wig merchants targeted the US Black consumer, and lobbied to have the Korean government ban the export of the Raw hair…giving the Koreans a lock on manufacturing human hair wigs and extensions. In the documents exposed in my film, it only describes the black market as it’s target..not why……..”
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Why did the Koreans target the Black community? This is when Blacks were deeply engaged with yt America in the Civil Rights Movement; while ‘we’ were waging a valiant battle at home, another group was planning an economic attack on Black America, from abroad. Sucker punch. We never saw it coming .wow!
This looks like a well formulated strategy by way of acquiring all their competitors in order to gain the competitive advantage in the market…. and all the black owned businesses need to do is sit strategize and ACT! they can easily wipe them out… pricing strategies, distribution strategies and targeting …
I still cant get over why this would not be interesting to Oprah but the Chris rock documentuary, which did not do much in educating or finding a solution, made it to Oprah. I am interested in this documentary because this is truely madness. In Brooklyn on every block is a beauty supply store, nail salon and chinese food. Yes it’s cheaper but the quality of the food and the way the food is handled, is enough to turn your stomach and the same with the cleanliness of the nail salon. They do not care about us as customers, they treat most of the people bad and speak to them however. I agree its hard to support small bussiness because some products are overly expensive like Miss jessie, which has mineral oil and other ingredients is not worth 50 bucks. But their are products that are all natural and uses the best ingredients like Oyin, just to name a few. I dont think is just black business thing, but it alot of small business that over charge. I want to get away from always making assumptions and not giving voice to the black companies that are affordable. The company Beauty 4 ashes have geat products that I tried and really loved and they were so natural that they had a shelf life, but a bottle of conditoner was like $35. I think that way too much and its not a black company. I personally make alot of my own products and buy from some companies on products that are reasonable but I try my best not to go to the beauty supply store if its own by korean. I found two Beauty supply stores own by Africans. So I support them if I need something or go to the drug store for other things. I am not trying to be racist,but wrong is wrong, We have been building these people empires for the longest they are sending their children to college off of our insecurities, with their beauty supply sotes and their nail shops. I go to the panamanians in my community to get my nails done and not only is it cheaper for colorful hand designs but I feel good helping people that actually live in my community. I am so sorry sistas for all of the mispelling and errors I am at work and am sneaking to wirte this response cause I could not wait to get home to do it. JC, I love the informative topics, keep them coming sis!!!
So true Jc!
I’ve studied a bit of economics myself and companies/entrepreneurs will charge as much as the market will allow. There are of course other contributing factors to price: If the product is high demand or the ingredients are in abundance the prices go down, if there isn’t much of the of the item in question or the demand goes down the prices go up.
WEALTH. Wealth is the only reason to support a “Black” owned business. The amount of money put back into a community indicates the amount of money that stays in that community. To achieve this it means that the community will have to pay higher prices and receive poorer service for a certain amount of time. I saw a doc about 10 years ago about this.
If you have to buy greeting cards and 1 card costs 60 cents at hallmark but your sister is selling greeting cards too but hers cost 1.00 and are not as nice you would do better to buy from your sister because that money is staying in your family increasing your sister’s wealth and thereby your family’s wealth.
@laela – actually many of the ingredients used natural or synthetic are equally cheap. For example shea butter and coconut oil – extremely cheap at source (circa $10 for a kilogram (2 pounds).
Hair conditioner ingredients for high end and store products (note that they are usually very similar), cost around $2 a jar. The extra amount that you see is set for profit and ‘prestige’ – i.e how much you does the manufacturer think that you should pay
Sounds like Korean-owned businesses started selling Korean hair to the black haircare market and it subsequently lead to Koreans owning beauty and hair supply stores in black communities. If it’s Korean hair coming from Korea, I can see how they’d have a lock on that, and honestly, shouldn’t they… it’s hair from the head of a Korean person who lives IN Korea. As Chris Rock demonstrated, you can’t really sell black hair to black people. Chris Rock also revealed that many black haircare products once owned by blacks were sold to larger white-owned companies, giving us a big FAIL on keeping it in the family.
What IS in the family? Black-owned hair salons, up and coming black-owned hair care products catering to natural hair (yay!), black-owned restaurants, etc. Look around, check out Black Enterprise, you’d be surprised to see what we’re doing and how we can be supportive of those businesses… my girlfriend is a contract web-designer doing her own thing. Luckily, it isn’t just overpriced “luxury” clothes made in sweatshops overseas… FAIL.
I don’t mind the prices so much as not having a local option, plus if I want to buy some when I’m out of town I’d have to check my bag and pay extra on the plane, and some of companies don’t even ship US mail!
I agree with the pricing dilemma. This issue extends even beyond haircare products. I recently became frustrated with the overpricing of black-owned businesses when I went to a local music festival and the jewely, natural beauty products, and clothing were 2-10 times more expensive than products you would find at general fairs, often from white owners. For a long time I bought into the whole “small businesses can’t get wholesale prices” claim, but at that moment, I put it all together in realizing that the non-black festival table business owners have businesses that are just as small. It all comes down to understanding the principles of business and the fact that you can’t always make a 400% return on your money! Same goes with clothing lines, especially once they are widely sold such as in the cases of Baby Phat or Ecko.
As I wrote in my post to the “supporting black businesses” question, I’m all for supporting businesses within the black community. HOWEVER, black business owners: don’t try to punk me.
Great post! I stopped shopping at these spots because yes, I’m usually treated like a criminal! I definately agree with JC though, price of these black-owned beauty products are a bit steep. But at the same time, if they are the all-natural kinds without the cheap mineral-oil fillers, than yeah it’s going to be expensive.
It sucks that so much of it revolves around location and geography. How many whole foods stores with the Kinky Curly products do you see in predominately black neighborhoods anyway? Ugh, I think all the stakeholders – Korean businesses, black businesses, hair salons, businesses that distribute quality black products, and consumers all play a part….sigh.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting this. I will definitely think twice before shopping in a Korean owned beauty supply store. I was already on the fence about it without having the facts. It never sat well with me to shop somewhere that don’t use the products themselves and can’t tell you anything about how it works. An issue that should also be addressed in terms of black businesses being more competitive. CUSTOMER SERVICE. I have left several black hairstylists because no you’re not doing me a favor by doing my hair. Thank goodness I can do my own hair know with all this information sharing. I am so happy to see many of the players in the natural haircare are black, socially aware and from what I hear have good customer service – Oyin, Jane Carter, Afroveda, Curls, Curl Junkie, Carol Daughter, Karen Body etc. Maybe as the natural haircare scene grows and black women see other black women with beautiful maintained hair it will allow the market to naturally shift.
THANK YOU JC! I totally agree with the statement. I would think that a HUGE part of where we shop and what we buy has to do with price and convenience.
I find it interesting from a business perspective that black business owners wouldn’t address the fact that price and convenience matter to the consumer. Surely it would make business sense to think that if your target market (ie black consumer) is not going to pay $25 plus shipping for product then it should be the case that you either sell to a niche and be content with it or you make a cheaper product?!