The same week his state outlawed racial discrimination based on hairstyles, a Black high school student in Texas was suspended because school officials said his locs violated the district’s dress code.
Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, received an in-school suspension after he was told his hair fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes. George, 17, wears his hair in thick twisted dreadlocks, tied on top of his head, said his mother, Darresha George.
George served the suspension last week. His mother said he plans to return to the Houston-area school Monday, wearing his dreadlocks in a ponytail, even if he is required to attend an alternative school as a result.
The interesting thing with these type of news stories is for me, that any time I look up the haircut the school banned, it’s mostly a really good looking cut.
It always cements for me that it is never about what the hair actually looks like esthetically, but that it is a predominantly “black” haircut, like an Afro or tight curls.
But even if it was garbage, who cares. It’s just so below what anyone should be spending time caring about.
Some schoolteachers become that to feel themselves important. Or powerful. After all, they are in charge of a whole group of little people. Almost like an army officer (I got a really indignated and hateful look from one such teacher after politely pointing out that teachers are not, in fact, similar to army officers, they do not command and do not bear power and responsibility).
That is, they come for obedience and feeling of self-importance (“I’m teaching them, I must be very smart, yeah, or at least they fear me”), and even bad wages do not make them try and find another trade.
So they just envy kids who have a differing look from other kids, especially if it’s a good one. It makes them feel that those kids are less obedient.
(Sorry for that tone of disgust and contempt in my comment, Russian schools and all that.)