For as long as schools have policed hairstyles as part of their dress codes, some students have seen the rules as attempts to deny their cultural and religious identities.
Nowhere have school rules on hair been a bigger flashpoint than in Texas, where a trial this week is set to determine whether high school administrators can continue punishing a Black teenager for refusing to cut his hair. The 18-year-old student, Darryl George, who wears his hair in locs tied atop his head, has been kept out of his classroom since the start of the school year.
To school administrators, strict dress codes can be tools for promoting uniformity and discipline. But advocates say the codes disproportionately affect students of color and the punishments disrupt learning. Under pressure, many schools in Texas have removed boys-only hair length rules, while hundreds of districts maintain hair restrictions written into their dress codes.
Schools that enforce strict dress codes have higher rates of punishment that take students away from learning, such as suspensions and expulsions, according to an October 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office. The report called on the U.S. Department of Education to provide resources to help schools design more equitable dress codes.
I don’t believe in dress codes being of benefit, but this is strictly Texas being a dick.
I was in the Army (for school, the cause sucked), and African American soldiers were often CORRECTLY given a shaving profile, aka a waiver due to ingrown hair shaving issues especially in field conditions, and it wasn’t a deal. At all. In the fucking military, the (understandably) pedant, rule follower, uniformity kings.
The Texas government just doesn’t want to make reasonable accommodations because they’re racist pieces of shit who believe they can legislate those outside their rigid, white nationalist, stepford aspiring in-group out of existence.
People from the outside see stuff like the drill teams and forget that we’ve been known to fight in body armor, helmet, and our underwear. They think uniformity has some magical property and miss all the real reasons behind it.
sorry can you expand a bit on the ingrown hair part? It doesnt make sense to me why one race would have issue with that while the rest doesnt
sorry can you expand a bit on the ingrown hair part? It doesnt make sense to me why one race would have issue with that while the rest doesnt
Good question! Would that we were all comfortable expressing our ignorance and asking for edification.
As I understand it, black people (and others with similar hair type) have a tightly curved hair follicle. The hair grows out of the follicle springy because it kinks before growing out. Like an extreme version of people with curly hair (who also have a curved hair follicle). This means that if the hair is shaved completely it is more likely to become ingrown.
"Pseudofolliculitis barbae (razor bumps) is a common condition of the beard area occurring in up to 60% African American men and other people with curly hair. The problem results when highly curved hairs grow back into the skin causing inflammation and a foreign body reaction. Over time, this can cause keloidal scarring which looks like hard bumps of the beard area and neck. Shaving sharpens the ends of the hairs like a spear. The hairs then curve back into the skin causing pseudofolliculitis barbae.
A 100% effective treatment is to let the beard grow. Once the hairs get to be a certain length they will not grow back into the skin. For most cases, totally avoid shaving for 3 to 4 weeks until all lesions have subsided, while applying a mild prescription cortisone cream to the involved skin each morning. Shaving every other day, rather than daily, will improve pseudo-folliculitis barbae. If one must use a blade, water soften the beard first with a hot, wet washcloth for 5 minutes. Then use lubricating shaving gel (Edge, Aveeno), and the Aveeno PFB Bump Fighter Razor or the Flicker razor. Shave with the grain of the beard and do not stretch the skin. Use only one stroke over each area of the beard."
It’s not just black people, it’s just more common with them.
I have curly facial hair and I have to leave a few mm instead of shaving, or else I get ingrown hairs.
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To expand on the other response, the Army doesn’t deny shaving waivers to white guys either. I had one every time I went overseas because my face is right on the line. With a weekend to rest it, hot water and all the products, it goes okay. But without all that I get rashes. So allowances were made.
I come from a country with school uniforms and I hated it.
Felt more like a way to control us and/or it was all about the schoool’s image.
Our hair had to follow certain rules, short, no colour, no gel.
School uniforms are a related, but different, issue. School dress codes in the U.S. do allow freedom to wear some of what you want, but many of the restrictions are arbitrary “no hats” or antiquated “skirts must be below the knee.” And many of the dress codes are intentionally designed to favor things like white people’s hair without caring about the legitimate physical issues black people might have with those hair codes. Many are also designed to shame girls.
Even the military has recognized that certain hairstyles are worse on different ethnicities hair, and has subsequently relaxed the standards since I’ve been active.
The military, which is all about uniformity and “discipline”, can see that different cultures have different hair treatments/needs, and not everything has to be “all Caucasian, all the time”.
And yet our K-12 schools can’t seem to do that?! Like wtf?
Even better, the principle in Texas pointed to the military as a shining example of uniformity. Not realizing the real reasons behind that. (Easy field hygiene)
Yet again a military larper ruins it for everyone around them.
I’ve been teaching for almost 20 years. Dress codes do not promote discipline whatsoever. Administrators mete out disciplinary measures when students don’t follow the dress code, to be sure, but the only thing the dress code serves to do is promote conformity.
Bruv, how you gonna punish a black kid for his hair? That’s fucked.
I think some codes are reasonable, mainly those that promote hygiene, which kids are notoriously bad at.
can you give me some examples of that? I’ve never seen a policy that your clothes had to be clean but maybe that’s because I never went to look for that sort of thing
It’s not school rule. It’s parenting rule to provide your kid with clean clothes as much as you can, or at least, it should be.
I’ve never heard of it and didn’t realize it was necessary. dark if true
dark if true
why?
because probably it was not bad enough for them to enforce it. But there is always that one kid…
There is no helping children’s hygiene except through education, rules won’t do shit
Rules are an enforcement method instilling education of the consequences of not following the rules.
Dress codes are a great excuse for racism against anyone you hate, if they really want it it should be more like ‘wear simple and not overly colorful clothes’ or something like that, rather than ‘that hairstyle is not allowed, noo how dare you cover your head!’, this can be done in numerous ways
I’m native on my mother’s side and I’d get the same thing about Mohawk style haircuts and how they’re “inappropriate and against code”. Back in those days you couldn’t do much but deal with their racist rules
I went to highschool for 1 year in the UK, where a uniform was mandatory for every student.
I can assure you, it does not promote discipline in any way. Kids fight, do stupid things, and skip classes regardless of how they’re dressed.
discipline is a bullshit virtue to promote. innate subjection to authority is not something to foster in children
Fun fact. You can take your old school uniform, rip it up with a knife, and mail it to your principal with a note scrolled on it saying “this is what I think of your fucking uniform, shithead”.
We should difference between racism and victimizing here. I don’t know which of these two is.
If the dress code apply for white and black kids I believe it’s just victimizing and shaming racism.
If the dress code apply only for black or white kids then definetly it’s racism.
