I'm glad someone started this topic because with the truckloads of money Black women spend on their hair it is important to think about where our dollars go. Personally, I avoid Asian-owned BSS. The customer service is usually fine on the very rare occasions when I go because I weeded out the ones with poor customer service a long time ago. Unfortunately, a lot of Asian owners and employees have clear contempt for their customers though as others have said there is an element of their clientele who bring it on themselves with rude, ignorant behavior.
I avoid Asian BSS, first, because they do not have what I want (I don't need jars of colored Vaseline and that's what most of that crap amounts to!) Secondly, because the industry as a whole (not necessarily every last individual) does practice unfair and discriminatory practices designed to keep Blacks who want to be BSS owners out of business. I used to think Black BSS owners, the one or two I ever found, had high prices because they were trying to take advantage of other Blacks. Now I know that it is because they're paying retail or near retail prices for their products because Korean distributors either won't sell to them or mark up the products when they do. I don't begrudge anyone the opportunity to make a success in this country, but to make it on the backs of other honest people because you don't like their color or they are not "one of your own" doesn't fly with me.
As for the person who mentioned that integration is the worst thing to ever happen to Blacks, I agree on some level. We have dropped the Black BSS ball as well as a lot of others. Prior to integration the Black community was lacking in freedom, true, but it was forced to be self-sufficient to a large degree. Our communities were worlds within a world, with all of the structures and institutions of the dominant society though their quality was suppressed by the effects of discrimination.
We took the wrong message from integration. Rather than helping to see ourselves as equals to everyone else, it inadvertently reinforced our sense of inferiority. One example... Brown vs. Board struck down segregated schools on the basis that separate is inherently unequal. Why? I never understood that point. If a Black school really had all of the appointments and money as a white school, how was it inferior? The only difference was the color of the student so it seems to me that the inferiority was being attributed to that fact. Subconsciously, I think it left the message that we couldn't do for ourselves without whites around and that their presence and willingness to deal with us conferred equality upon us. Too bad that in most cities, whites just fled to the 'burbs or put their kids in private schools. Now that the schools are all Black again, are we back to being inferior?
The sad fact is we let our own institutions crumble in favor of the pipe dream of integration when a wiser strategy would have been to interact selectively with the larger society while maintaining that which is uniquely ours, in other words building communities that you wouldn't have to mandate others to want to interact with. When cultures do this (as most Asians and many Latinos have) the stigma of inferiority fades naturally over time and a level of integration comes about naturally, stably and without force.
I'm ranting again... so I'm gonna stop!
- Just a joke, y'all, I'm just trying to make a point.
erplexed (that's what happened yesterday when I was @ the African neighbourhood in Brussels). To be honest, Asian or black, I just want someone who KNOWS & UNDERSTANDS what they're selling (and being black doesn't mean you understand what kinda product is good for what type of black hair). The best advice I ever got about my hair was @ the Aveda store from a white woman. Anyhoo, I'm now giving my money to black BSS by mostly shopping online for my hair products, I don't feel bad about that 
And they haven't seen me in a long time 
