Recently, the social media world has been in disbelief from the banned of natural hair. This week Butler Traditional High School in Louisville, Kentucky have decided it’s against their policy for any student to wear cornrows, braids, twist or dreadlocks. Attica Scott, served in Kentucky’s state legislature for over 20 years. She brought attention to the school via twitter and now the world is in complete shock. Scotts, daughter wasn’t too happy about this rule. In their guidelines its states “students who come to school in violation of the dress code will not be able to attend class or circulate through the school until their attire is corrected.” The school, furthermore states “we feel that a student’s academic success is directly correlated to appropriate attire and appearance.”

This topic has become controversial, especially during these hard times in America. When certain policies are enforced, it can leave the child confused about their culture and can be discriminatory to the race. Butler Traditional High School is certainly not the first school to enforce this policy. Even colleges such as Hampton University put a ban on cornrows and dreadlocks in 2012. Earlier this year, several black students wanted to honor Black History Month in Durham, North Carolina through wearing African head wraps. North Carolina school system banned students from wearing head wraps while in the building. Even if it’s a cultural tradition the girls were threaten to be suspended. The young ladies started a protest and hashtag #ItsBiggerThanaHeadwrap hopefully, North Carolina acknowledges there are faults in their policy.   

Black hair and black hairstyles at one point were slowly being considered suitable for American. It’s been decades were if you’re in school and/or the workplace, it wasn’t accepted at all. America has an obsession with the European beauty standards. This means lighter skin, long straight hair, thin bodies and blue eyes. This needs to be changed! When you mix freedom of expression with cultural barriers it can cause a lot of tension. Hopefully, the administration and America can see its no harm in hair.

Written by @leahgordone