Every day, Black people face hair discrimination for both the ways in which hair grows out of our heads and for the cultural hairstyles Black people across the diaspora have been wearing for centuries. We’re reprimanded at work, suspended from schools and school, on sports teams and more.
There are entire laws that have been passed to protect Black folk from these injustices. But recently, the tables turned when a white girl was punished for wearing a traditionally Black style.
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A mom went to Quora for advice about her daughter's school punishment.
A confused mother made her way to Quora to ask the online community their opinion.
“My daughter (she is white) got sent home from school today for wearing box braids,” the mother wrote. “The school won’t let her go back until they are taken out. What should I do?”
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One person suggested the mom demand to see this rule in the handbook.
Many people came to the mother’s defense not only offering suggestions for how she should move with the school but also things she should consider in terms of how she styles her daughter’s hair moving forward. From a legal standpoint, one person wrote that this mother should “Demand that the school show where box braids are prohibited per the school’s dress code.”
That person suggested that if the school couldn’t do this, then the mother should inquire why her daughter has been prohibited from wearing them. The person also suggested she sue the school if officials send her daughter home again.
'Please forgive me as I chuckle over this,' one Black woman wrote.
Others asked pertinent questions about whether this child was being discriminated against because she was white or whether the hairstyle was banned across the board. In that case, it’s interesting that this mother didn’t find fault with the rule until it directly affected her child.
Someone else was quick to point out that this is the type of treatment Black girls receive all of the time and wondered why this woman believed her child wouldn’t suffer the same fate. “Please forgive me as I chuckle over this,” a Black woman wrote.
This Black woman believed the school was trying to use the daughter as an example.
“People of color are recently being persecuted because we are wearing our hair in braids, dread locs, or just natural. Other than a bit of cultural appropriation (and to one degree or another we ALL do it), I see nothing wrong with your child and her braids," she wrote. "I can only assume that the school must be predominantly Caucasian, and there may actually be a 'fear' of some sort that your child might be starting a ‘trend.'"
This woman also noted that if the mother did decide to sue and was successful, it would be an example of white privilege as many Black people in this same situation are simply punished with no recourse.
