Racial Fingernail Politics
Blacks and Asians find a strange harmony at the beauty shop
At Fantasy Nails in Boston, black women in bus-driver uniforms loll around like spoiled harem girls, being pedicured, manicured, and waxed all at the same time. None of these women think it the slightest bit odd that it is a Vietnamese woman before them hand painting a black-power salute or kente cloth design on their fingernails. Nor do the customers blink an eyelash about then going down the block to the Korean-owned beauty supply store, because they know that if you're black and trying to lighten your skin, the "Chinese stores," as they're called, are the places to go. A typical one offers seven kinds of bleaching unguents with names ranging from unapologetic (Skin Whitener) to self-hating (Skin Success). They also have at least one aisle of chemical hair straighteners, all with their schizophrenic names (Bantu, African Pride, African Royale) and kente cloth boxes. CVS can't compete.
When most people think of Asian-black relations, the more common image is of black men targeting Korean stores during the Los Angeles riots or of a Korean grocery owner shooting in the back of the head a black girl suspected of shoplifting. Yet black consumers have fueled an amazing proliferation of Korean-owned beauty supply and Vietnamese-owned nail-painting shops in cities throughout the country. In Boston, where I live, there were a handful of nail shops in 1980, 60 in 1994 and there are nearly 200 today, most Vietnamese-operated. While some African-American women do avoid these stores because they're not black-owned, there has been strikingly little controversy associated with them. Indeed, the odd comity and warmth between the Asian owners and black customers in these shops stand in such pointed contrast to the atmosphere in Korean grocery stores--sometimes right down the block--that it raises a question: Are hair products and fingernail painting good for race relations? If so, why?
In the case of the beauty supply stores, part of the explanation for the goodwill is that the Korean immigrants are making a concerted effort to blend in with their surroundings. They play R&B music and have black staffs. When an employee trails me around, it feels like she's there to help, not stop me from shoplifting. Also, there just aren't many men in these stores. Perhaps the relative lack of testosterone keeps things calm.
Most important, shopping for nail polish is just qualitatively different from trying to feed your family from the tiny neighborhood grocery, which is more expensive than the chain supermarket you can't get to without a car. Women often visit beauty supply shops for the quick pick-me-up of impulse shopping. My sisters and I try on wigs and funky new lipsticks and amuse ourselves with the inexpensive trinkets. When's the last time anyone found a trip to the grocery store amusing? Standing in the aisle of one grocery in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, a black patron explains, "Here, you just want to get in and get out. Maybe your kid's crying for candy, you gotta get dinner ready, and you ran out of milk. This ain't no fun."
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