Splitting Hairs

Ooh . . . kay . . ..

The House of Representatives has just passed a bill that would prohibit - ready for this? - hair discrimination.  This bill would specifically prevent employers from discriminating against job applicants because of hair that is braided, dreadlocked, cornrowed, or of a non-natural color like purple, yellow or green, some of which are the occasional colors of braids, dreadlocks and cornrows.

As you can figure out, this bill is aimed largely to prevent discrimination against blacks, although some white people would benefit from this legislation if their hair resembles the color of an Easter egg (which was the basis for the funniest scene in the movie version of Grease). It passed the Democratic-controlled House on a party-line vote, and I have to confess that I'm with the Republicans on this one.

The traditionally black hairstyles I just mentioned look unprofessional and way too casual, and that's not the sort of look many offices and retailers would tolerate from their employees.  Dressing for success means having appropriate hair as well as having appropriate clothes.

Lest you think this perspective has a racist subtext, I need only point out how many white males were also discriminated back in the Vietnam era against because they grew their hair too long and sometimes grew beards because they wanted to look like the Beatles - not the moptop Beatles who played on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964, the hippie Beatles who posed at Tittenhurst Park in 1969.  Guys who grew their hair that long didn't want to get an office or retail job; that was capitalism, dude, you know, working for . . . "the man."  Even if they had tried to get a job like that, they wouldn't have gotten a job with absurdly long hair.  As the Five Man Electrical Band sang . . .

I sometimes wish protesters today would take a cue from the older generations in the sixties who marched for civil rights.  Dr. Martin Luther King and his followers, you will note, always had a clean-cut look and always dressed in suits and ties.  And look at all those civil rights laws that got passed, huh?  When anti-Vietnam War presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy ran for the White House in 1968, he made his young staffers dress conservatively - suits and short hair for the men (and no beards!), long skirts and styled hair for the women.  The slogan was "Get clean for Gene."  And he camethisclose to winning the Democratic presidential nomination.

If you want to wear a loud, uncouth hairstyle to tick off the establishment, that's fine by me. Just don't expect to keep that look if you want to join the establishment.  

Unless you're Ketanji Brown Jackson, who did not take my advice about losing her braids but will likely be confirmed to the Supreme Court anyway.

Oh, yeah, I have a black female friend who always wore her dark hair straight, and she always looked beautiful.  She just got long yellow (not blonde, yellow) cornrows.  I don't have the heart to tell her that I think she looks terrible.