Most African-Americans have a natural hair texture that is tightly curled and kinky; therefore when you tie this type of hair into a ponytail, it doesn't hang low, it's pulled into a puff. Naturally, these families felt they were being racially targeted because they were, in a sense, forcing parents to relax and straighten their children's hair to resemble the Caucasian texture in order to attend this school.
Since then, the school has released a statement apologizing not for banning these hairs styles but for the community taking their initial statement out of context. They didn't intend for that part of the dress code to be addressed to African-American women; it was supposed to be addressed to African-American men.
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How is that any better? I can understand wanting a clean image for students attending this school. Banning tattoos and sagging pants is a rationalized rule but when you ban something that comes natural, that's discriminating. I don't understand how a group of educated individuals approved such a statement to be released to their community and think that it was justified in the first place.
The black community already has pressure to straighten their hair because no one wants to be "nappy". There are many people in the community who want to lighten their skin and dress like their Caucasian counterparts. They are constantly being told, mostly by their own people, that that fake version of themselves, that individual modeled after the white person's image, is more beautiful than the natural traits they were born with.
This situation proves how even though we've come a long way in race relations, we still have an even longer way to go.
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