From the Crown Act website: “The CROWN Act was created in 2019 by Dove and the CROWN Coalition, in partnership with then State Senator Holly J. Mitchell of California, to ensure protection against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles by extending statutory protection to hair texture and protective styles such as braids, locs, twists, and knots in the workplace and public schools.”
Four years ago, John Oliver “discussed the discrimination faced by black people because of their hair.” He noted correctly, “White people really don’t need to have an opinion.”
While things have gotten better in recent years, “the 2023 CROWN Workplace Research Study notes, “race-based hair discrimination remains a systemic problem in the workplace – from hiring practices to daily workplace interactions – disproportionately impacting Black women’s employment opportunities and professional advancement.” And it applies to black men as well.
From the NAACP Legal Defense Fund page: “The impact of hair discrimination cannot be overstated. Schools and workplaces across the country often have dress codes and grooming policies in place prohibiting natural hairstyles, like afros, braids, Bantu knots, and locs. These policies that criminalize natural hair have been used to justify the removal of Black children from classrooms and adults from their employment…
“The CROWN Act would change that. The legislation demands protection against race-based hair discrimination in the workplace and in K-12 public and charter schools based on hair texture and protective styles. As of 2024, the CROWN Act has been enacted in 24 states.” CROWN stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.
The NIH also has a useful 2023 article about Hair Discrimination, Health, and Well-Being.
Give me a head with hair
I thought about this because the John Oliver piece reminded me of my sisters growing up and remembering the straightening comb our grandma Williams would apply to their hair. She heated the comb over the coal stove and applied it to their hair. I gathered that it hurt a lot because the comb got close to the scalp. And the process smelled; I still have an olfactory recollection of burning hair, which was awful.
When our daughter was a kid, neither her mother nor I were particularly adept at styling her hair. Let me be honest: we sucked at it. While we tried to comb it out, it was not sufficient. One of our daughter’s preschool teachers, a black woman, took it upon herself to work on our daughter’s hair, much to our mortification and appreciation in equal measure.
As a result, our daughter has learned a lot, and her hairstyle will change weekly, sometimes even daily. I’m awed by her adeptness at changing her style.
On New Year’s Day, she wore extensive braids, which she spent several hours assembling. We went out to a party at the house of a relative of my wife’s and had a reasonably good time. But she told us afterward that two folks at the party touched her hair unbidden. People, Keep Your Hands Off the Hair! It is, among many other things, an “othering” action that is unsettling.
It’s for her sake, as well as others, that I hope she does not have to deal with the hair discrimination that too many people have to address.
