I’m so glad the racism at my former high school is being exposed and getting national attention. (if you seen anything about the Massachusetts charter school punishing students for braids I sadly went there), this isn’t new at ALL. and honestly they have had this policy for years about “extensions”. I remember when I was in the middle school and the administration or the office would call me out of class to accuse me of having fake hair. they would threaten me with detention and even suspension if I refused to take the hair out by the next DAY. not only was it humiliating to be taken out of a learning environment for this but it was flat out disrespectful to my culture.
these rules disproportionately affect black students, as there were MANY white students who clearly wore clip in extensions and NOBODY accused them of having fake hair. the rules don’t stop at extensions though. there are also rules against hair height and even haircuts and how your hair could be cut. the coded language in these rules made it so that basically only black students would be targeted and victims of the punishment from these rules. black students couldn’t have natural hair, black boys would get in trouble for the way their hair was cut and you’re not allowed to have any kind of braids. it restricted us as black students to only be able to have a perm or VERY short hair because otherwise it would be labeled as a distraction or they would find one of the many nonsense rules to reprimand us for it.
as a black student it was an absolutely degrading experience going to that school as we had NO kind of representation. out of the almost 200 staff members there is only ONE black teacher currently, and in my 13 years at the school maybe I had 2 or 3 black teachers total. and on top of that the entire administration is white. there’s absolutely no black representation anywhere, and because of that you have white people trying to strip black students of their culture in the name of “socioeconomic division” and “distraction”. but for a school who wants everyone to feel “included” it’s going against everything to strip culture from black students with their hair.
anyway, this is why it will NEVER just be hair to me because I was targeted for years because of my hair at school. and punished for it.