new thread
It's not what you think. This time, the hair was too short.
Boy suspended for short hair
It seems like Texas is now the only state that is regularly still obsessed with hair length of students. The issue went to the state's supreme court there in the 1990s, and the court said discrimination is okay, contrary to the trend of decisions elsewhere. That decision has created a very different and hostile environment in some places in Texas.
Bill
In this case, although the story isn't mature yet, it seems to be a case of a particular individual (principal or vice-principal) having it in for a particular student for whatever reason. Others at the same school allegedly have the same haircut and are left alone. The mother alleges that her son is being singled out due to race. She has also spoken with several lawyers about the issue but doesn't know what suing would accomplish. I think she just wants her son's good name to be re-established.
Apparently, her son was also chastised by the same principal for wearing gang colors (orange and black) on Halloween.
Others in authority at the school seem to be siding with the student, so I think in this case, it may be a principal that is out of line.
ROFL!
There are only a few colors in the rainbow. Colors are surely going to get re-used. My high school's colors were green and white, and no other high school in America should be allowed to use those colors! Yeah, right.
Orange and black has meant "Halloween" for what, a hundred years or more????
People sometimes ask me what a red (or whatever color I'm wearing) bandanna around my head means. I tell them it means I have long hair and I am wearing a red shirt today, and I want them to match.
Bill
Years ago when my wife and kids were living in El Paso, El Paso was noted for having more gangs per capita than any other city in the US. This was probably partly due to their definition of a gang as being any group of 5 or more people hanging out together.
Anyway, my step-daughter got in trouble one day for wearing black -- gang colors. Black happens to be my ex-wife's favorite color. Most of her clothes are black. When she found out her daughter got in trouble for wearing black, she marched over to the school in what she was wearing (black) and gave them what-for. As far as I know, that was the last gang colors was an issue for my family.
Victor
Lets see....if the suspended every kid who wears black here in our local school where Goth is big the building would be
very empty.
Am I the only one is comfused by this. This kid gets suspended
for hair that is too short but other kids also have short but
don't get suspended?
And the strange thing is that Austin, the capital of Texas (where this occurred) is considered to be really forward thinking and not of the conservative Texas mold.
I hate how everyone pulls the race card. I highly doubt that he was suspended because he's African American. Racial accusations like that sicken me.
True, sometimes people can & DO pull the "race card"; BUT.... racial prejudice still very much exists, --- only it has to be more hidden in today's society (which it sounds like that's exactly what is happening in this particular case, if you read Bill & Victor's discussions).
Same thing can happen re. someone's sexuality, especially discrimination against gays. I've worked alongside guys who are quick to claim prejudice against them due to their being gay, whereas in reality, they were simply a lousy worker. I say this as a gay man myself. If it smells like a rat, walks like a rat, and squeaks like a rat, chances are it is indeed a rat. But, once in awhile, true and unfair/unjust prejudice surfaces. When I was in my 20s, I lost not only a job, but an entire career, due to the fact that the Management in-charge approached me about being gay, --- which I was honest (and stupid) enough to admit to. I had recieved rave reviews in all my employee evalutions up until the time they found out about my sexuality, as well as they had just approached me about becoming one of their new supervisors. Then suddenly, --- as if I had mysteriously turned into an entirely different person --- my last evalution sucked: it was totally opposite of everything they had ever said praising me in previous ones. Now THAT is hidden prejudice, --- something they were even able to get away with, because it sounded as though my job performance had slid completely off a cliff (when I had been consistently doing the same good job throughout my entire duration there).
I narrated the above, because it is an example of the kind of behavior that woke me up to the fact that Blacks in America experience this kind of hidden racial prejudice regularly, just as much as I did as a gay man on that job. Had I not experienced it first-hand myself, I might never have understood that not always does "pulling the race card" equal "the little boy that cried WOLF!"
- Ken in San Francisco
I don't think admitting you were gay was a mistake at all. If I were in your position and were gay, I would certainly have done the same thing. No reason to lie. Homophobes, racists, and other prejudiced people are the scum of the earth, so why would you ever want to work for them? It's totally worth getting another job, and it's a good thing you did.
Maybe it's because I live in the northeast (Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia). Very few grown people around here are prejudiced. I'm certainly not used to prejudice (besides immature peers in high school, and even in high school there aren't a whole lot of prejudiced ones). So any prejudiced people I come across are absolutely horrible people in my eyes.
I think that's so stupid of people to act like this just because of someones sexuality, it's not exactly something you choose, to be born as either gay or bisexual.
By the way, what are you working with Ken?
Simon
Even if it WERE chosen, that would not be a valid reason to discriminate against someone for something so critical to his identity. Remember, religion is 100% chosen, and it is heavily protected.
Bill
Wow, that's quite true, Bill, and that's interesting because I haven't heard someone bring that up before. It's interesting to hear a new idea in an already over-discussed topic. Plus, most of us here on MLHH seem to agree on this, which makes me like this community even more.
Victor, Quite the reversal from when I was in grade school. A "butch" cut (buzzcut nowadays) was the norm as was a crew cut or flat top where the hair was slightly longer on top.
peace, jonalbear
When I was in high school, in the 1960s, though, I remember one high school's refusing to let five seniors attend the prom because they had shaved their heads. Some kids thought the shaving act was cool simply because, although the school could order kids with longer hair to cut it by tomorrow, they could not order kids with shaved heads to grow it back out by tomorrow!
Appearance discrimination does not just affect longhairs. It is also a problem for people with other minority hair styles, as well as people with tattoos and piercings.
Some would argue that such appearances are "chosen", but they are a deep part of the identity of some people, more than one's religion in many cases. Religion is also "chosen" but it is protected, so a facet of one's identity's having been choosable is not a valid reason to reject its validity. "Depth of conviction" has been pursued in conscientious objector cases for many years, so courts CAN deal with it.
Judges ARE capable of deciding motive and intent. As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked."
Bill
...people won't discriminate against long hair just because it's long hair (and it can be made to look quite tidy), when there are short styles, like the one mentioned, that are basically unflattering, unattractive and unappealing.
Ah yes, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
--
Splat
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder, according to a shirt I have.
It seems one has to conform exactly, not too short and not too long. Maybe they want clones, or just fear people with personalities and viewpoints.
Growing hair is a long term project, you could build a house in less time, or learn an instrument!! or take a degree in college, and yet we are still not taken seriously.
Not too long ago I checked out the new dress code of my old high school (everything's on the web now). One of their new rules is 'no extreme hairstyles', and as an example they cited boys who have very short hair with words or symbols buzzed into it. Theoretically it might affect long hair too, but I'm not there (not even in the same country, I'm in the USA and I went to school in my native England) so I don't know.
When I was there we had NO hair restrictions. We did have a uniform, but many items could be in one of several alternative (equally boring) colours. Now they have to buy their uniform from the school, so no alternatives. And this is a state school. They even specify colours for ponytail bands now! (They don't specify the gender of the wearer, so I can't tell if they have an attitude about male long hair)
I wonder when they became such fascists? It would be a laugh to volunteer to talk about my job in school assembly (schools like people who do that) and then show up in a tie-die T-shirt and old jeans!
That rule confuses me to no end.. I just don't understand how very short hair could be a distraction, there's less of it there to distract a person with lol. I'm sure it was just a reason they pulled out of thin air to suspend the kid. It's a shame that people that are given power use it in the wrong ways.
The article says he'd been in trouble before, so I'm sure this was just an excuse to suspend him. The fact that his mother played the race card is not surprising. It couldn't be that she was a negligent mother. That couldn't be it at all. And what about his father? Is he even around?
Racism is alive and all to well, but it isn't limited to white people. Here in Tucson, there is a large hispanic community that LOVES that race card! I have to laugh when I see a gangbanger with a shaved head, giant shirt, and saggy pants trying to climb the bus steps with pants around their knees. There's this Jerry Lewis step they have to do because they can't lift their knees. And then they want to say something about my uniform, which is not loose, and held up by a belt! I used to work at the county jail, and was accused of racism by inmates, who would then make statements like, "I can't be a racist because I'm black (mexican, indian, etc.). What?
Why is it that we can have special magazines, award shows, etc. for minorities and that's OK, but if there was anything like that focusing on issues particular to caucasians, it would be viewed as racist? The same can be said about "sexism". I'm getting tired of "taking it". There are lots of jokes about men, white people, christians, and straight people, and I'm supposed to just laugh be a good sport. I can't respond in kind, not that I would, or I'd be flambe'd!
I find it nauseating that people can't deal with each other without resorting to focusing on things that people can't help.