We want to talk about hair…more specifically, the texture and style of black hair. You may have noticed in the news how some black girls are being reprimanded at their schools for wearing traditionally black hair styles. If you haven’t, then this NPR article gives a wonderful overview.
In recent years, black girls have been sent home for wearing dreads, head wraps and even wearing their hair naturally.
In schools across the country, black student suspension rates are higher than their peers’. In charter schools, kindergarten through eighth grade, those rates are even higher.
–Kayla Lattimore,When Black Hair Violates The Dress Code
We don’t believe that a girl’s hair style should interfere with her education. What is it about black hair that some schools’ dresscodes identify them as “distracting”?
Listen to Cheyenne Cochrane as she talks about the role hair texture has played in history and society in her Ted Talk: A Celebration of Natural Hair.