drailin

LeVar visited my university on a speaking tour during his campaign against book bans and was a delight. The warmth he displayed when talking about his relationship with literature and his genuine passion towards promoting it was inspirational. My only complaint was that I couldn't hear him talk for another hour.

We might have slightly differing reasons why: for me it’s more about sexism and force conformity, for you it may be more about cultural/race discrimination.

I don't like these aesthetic rules for all the reasons I initially provided, which includes your provided reasons. They are invariably a combination of sexism, queerphobia, racism, religious persecution, and are generally authoritarian in a way that only exists to hurt people.

Let's dissect the segragated school example, considering only black and white students. Pre-integration, forcing the white students to have short hair is a sexist and authoritarian rule from an explicitly sexist and racist institution. Upon desegragation:

1. The school administration is almost definitely still racist, despite being forced to educate black students.
2. There is now a new population at the school with different racial characteristics, cultural norms, and historical context.

If the school was genuinely concerned about equality for the black students, they could reevaluate the rules about hair and gauge whether or not it will have an outsized impact on the new black student population, which it would given the cultural context. Parallel to desegregation efforts was the reclamation of natural black hair among black people (afros being the most iconic example), many of whom had been forced or coerced into white-coded hair styles since slavery ended.

Counter to this, if the school wanted to hurt the new black population, they could maintain the rule and use the equal application of it as a shield against people crying foul. The rule is still sexist, as a part of an explicitly sexist institution, still authoritarian by the very nature of the rule, but the school's racism has become implicit rather than explicit given who it now has the power to harm. This has been the racist playbook example since slavery was abolished, sliding the scale towards more implicit racial strategies in a culture that is less willing to engage with explicit race discrimination.

In the midcentury, long hair among white men became a symbol of the white counterculture, so curtailing it was authoritarian and sexist. At the same time, natural long hair among black men became a symbol of both black counterculture and black empowerment/liberation, so curtailing it was authoritarian, sexist, and racist. This dynamic exists to the modern day, and applies to different minority groups than just black and white people.

There was a lot in my comment you just slid right over to only address the point you agreed with, I was hoping you might address literally anything else I wrote, but oh well. We agree that it can be a form of sexism, but it is more complex than that, hence why it is an intersectional issue. Why do you believe it necessarily stops having a racial connotation just because it can be used to hurt white people?

Just because white people have been subject to abuse due to their hair length, it doesn't absolve the racial connotations and racist historical context when applied to non-white people with long hair. If this case was about an Indigenous American student, with religious reasons to wear long hair, would you be making the argument that this isn't racial discrimination? What about a Sikh student? A Rastafarian?

This is an intersectional issue, and as such, requires a little more nuance in diagnosing than "Well I don't see any white boys getting away with it, so it can't be racist!" When rules are made, they need to be evaluated on their ability to hurt people. If the rule can disproportionately hurt people based on racial elements, that rule is racist. This kid is black, part of him expressing his blackness is his hair being long, so any rule forcing him to change his hair is racist. If it was an Indiginous kid, the rule would still be racist. If it were a white kid, the rule would still be racist. The rule and the people enforcing it are racist, even if they never apply it to anyone.

Hair holds a deep significance for many demographic groups, often along racial lines due to differences in style and texture. This frequently involves hair length. For some people, hair has religious significance, for others it is more an expression of heritage, but opressors have forced people to cut/change their hair as a means of stripping people's cultural expression for a long time. Shaving newly enslaved black people as a means of erasing their cultural heritage goes back to the 15th century, as many groups had distinctive styles and slave owners wanted to impose conformity. Forcing Indigenous Americans to cut their hair was done to homogenize children removed from their peoples and punish/demoralize adult men, stripping both of them of an important religious and cultural signifier in the process.

A lot of modern hair discrimination has its roots in this more explicit racism, denouncing hair that isn't in line with western-european beauty standards as unprofessional, unkempt, or unsightly. Length of hair and specific styles hold value to many different ethnic groups today, just as it did hundreds of years ago. Many black people see the display of black hairstyles (including long braids, dreads, afros, etc.) as a form of cultural reclamation, many indigenous americans still view hair length as religiously meaningful, tons of Sikhs, Muslims and Jews have strict beliefs regarding hair/beard cutting, the list goes on. Forcing these people to conform or face discipline is absolutely discrimination, and these groups are often a different ethnicity or race than the person mandating the hair be cut.

Is forcing people to maintain a certain hair length always solely racist? No. It can be discriminatory in a plethora of ways. It can also be sexist, queerphobic, and/or a form of religious discrimination. I was subject to the purely sexist aspect of this by old white guys for having long hair as a white, cis-het teenage boy, no racism involved. The label for any discrimination relies as much on who is being discriminated against and how it is applied as it does the views of the person enforcing it, making it an intersectional issue

A good rhetorical example of this multitargeted discrimination would be the banning of necklaces with stars on them. Is it inherrently discriminatory on its own? Not in a vacuum, no one is born wearing a necklace with a star. But consider two major religions that involve star iconography (judaism, islam) and you can see how this rule is antisemitic and islamiphobic whithout ever mentioning jewish or muslim people explicitly. Which form of discrimination it is contextually depends on the person experiencing it. Hair is no different. Making a black guy cut his dreads/braids is both racist and sexist when viewed in this light, as it targets a cultural symbol (a black hair style) and is likely unevenly applied across genders (black girls aren't usually required to have short hair). I hope this answers your question, if asked sincerely, and here are a few sources if anybody wants to learn more:

EEOC Guidelines on Title VII protections against religious garb discriminatjon, including hair

NAACP on Black Hair Discrimination.

CNN on Native Hair Discrimination.

ACLU Article on a legal fight against sexist hair discrimination in Texas schools.

ACLUTexas Article about transphobia via hair discrimination.

1991 Duke Law piece on the intersectionality of hair, race, and gender, with the key takeaway quoted below.
"Judgments about aesthetics do not exist apart from judgments about the social, political, and economic order of a society. They are an essential part of that order. Aesthetic values determine who and what is valued, beautiful, and entitled to control. Thus established, the structure of society at other levels also is justified."

Agreed, fuck what they think, and good for you!

Respect. No organization that demands that level of conformity is worth it. Luckily, I haven't had my hair come up as an issue ever since, and my PhD advisor actively encourages me to fuck my shit up with different colors and length. He isn't a perfect boss, but he is generally a good dude when it comes to stuff like this.

That is garbage, I am sorry you had to deal with that. I hope you can rock whatever hair style you want nowadays without having to care what bigots think!

I was a long-hair male teenager in Texas and got to experience this first-hand. Besides the frequent disparraging comments from teachers and staff, I was also kicked off the track/CC team for my hair because I "Didn't match the image the school wanted to present at athletic events." I had a 4.0GPA, was active in school activities, enrolled in all AP/Pre-AP classes, and was, most importantly, good at and enjoyed running. As a freshman I ran a 5:20 mile, 12:10 two mile, and <20min 5K and was up for varsity consideration in my sophomore year. Despite this, the coach told me, point-blank, that I could only stay on the team if I cut my hair above the ear.

My parents, pissed, yelled at every school admin they could get a meeting with to no avail. Ultimately, even the principle was impotent, apologizing for how this must be "upsetting" but saying that she couldn't do anything. Apparently the athletics coordinator who made the rule didn't report to the principle, but to the district athletics office. My parents told me they would be behind me to fight it up the chain, but I decided that the experience had ruined competetive running for me and moved on.

The enforcement of white, christian, heteronormative values to teens' hair is so insideous. It is used for racism against black teens with braids, homophobia/transphobia against queer teens who don't conform with gender stereotypes, and in my case, just to be fascist assholes to a white cis-het teen boy with long hair. Nowadays I am covered in tattoos, oscillate between long/short/natural/neon hair, and have never felt like a better representative of my institution. I am about to get my PhD, was the president of my department's graduate student association, have taught and ran summer and afterschool science programs for under-represented kids, and fought for (and gotten) better compensation for graduate employees at my school.

Fuck every petty school admin who supports this shit, I am proud of my image, I am proud of teenage me for holding onto his individuality, and I hope that any teenagers in a similar situation can feel proud of themselves too, regardless of how they express.

I'll make him rue the day he was born. I will make the kerning on the copy of my dissertation I send him just slightly weird so that it gives him uncanny discomfort while reading it. Any plots I cite from his work will be slightly lower resolution. He won't know what hit him.

I thought I was hot shit with a low-priority B name, but the Adams in my collaboration showed me just how truly mid I am. If he wasn't on my dissertation committee... and also a cool dude... and a good scientist..., I would have some choice words for him!

Rant about people like this incoming:

I am a few months away from defending my PhD in Particle and Nuclear Physics and this is such an omnipresent issue with many of the people I interact with regularly. Poorly paraphrasing Dan Olson of Folding Ideas: Because they understand one really complicated subject (particle physics), they see all other subjects as lesser, easily understood and interpreted through the lens of their area of expertise.

I know at least one professor, well respected in his field, who is a vaccine conspiracist and happy to tacitly endorse right wing conspiratorial thought, despite being an expert on mathematical modelling of complex systems. He should understand the rigor involved in modelling and solving a problem like covid, but instead assumes that because it is complicated, the immunologists and virologists must just not be able to arrive at a conclusion he deems good enough to challenge his simplistic view of the situation.

Many professors, however well intentioned, try and reduce labor issues to math problems instead of considering the human element that is really the core of the problem. They build their perspective around explotative capitalist rhetoric, even when graduate students are struggling to afford food and rent. Then they turn around and wonder why enrollment is declining and pursuing academia is falling in popularity

People like Sabine and these professors I have dealt with loudly perpetuate whatever worldview they already hold, assuming that because they must be intelligent enough to grasp difficult math and physics concepts, they couldn't be ignorant enough for their unrelated ideas to be wrong. It is infuriating because it adds a unearned veneer of authenticity to the concepts, despite a transparent lack of knowledge. Then there is feedback, where people use this support as their evidence for embracing these ideologies and as a building block for furthering their agenda.

These people are also, generally, stale in terms of their own academic output, for I think the same reason as their uneducated takes on other topics. They assume that they understand what they need to and stop grasping for better understanding. My PI is constantly seeking out new experiments to get involved with to try and widen his understanding, and is also a great proponent of progresssive issues. I don't think this is coincidence. My scientific role model, another advisor of mine, is trying to develop a better academic system that would make education on the most pressing issue today (global warming) better included and more competently taught in university curriculum, regardless of degree topic. He seeks out as many opinions from students and experts as possible in furtherance of this goal. This is despite being one of the key innovators in our field, where his word might be taken as gospel, but because he hasn't lost his fundamental curiosity about the world, he still seeks out more informed opinions in this endeavor.

The really great scientists keep this curiosity and question their own expertise constantly. The Sabines of the world become comfortable in their own knowledge, and by extension, their own ignorance.

And by that, you mean using heart-sized servings, right?