Hair Today, Discriminated Against Tomorrow

​By Jaylon McCrea
Wearing your hair in different ways can be very unique at times. Many people who come from different cultures and races use their hair to express themselves and how they feel. Just like graffiti, wearing your natural hair is very beautiful, but it’s often vandalized with people’s biases and critiques.
Many African-American women and men are often judged for wearing their natural hair, whether it’s a nicely styled afro or dreadlocks.
African-African men are also often criticized for wearing their hair in dreadlocks to job interviews. According to a shocking court decision in Alabama, a man was denied a job because of his dreadlocks and filed a lawsuit claiming that if dreadlocks don’t fit into a company’s grooming policy, the policy is “based on stereotypes and inherently discriminatory,” according to NBC news.  However, the court ruled that “traits in a person’s appearance that are tied to their culture but are otherwise changeable are not protected and can be used to deny job offers.”
Recently in New Jersey, high school wrestler Andrew Johnson was forced to cut his dreads off before the match. If he failed to comply with these rules then he would have to forfeit the match resulting in him taking a loss, instead he cut his dreads. Despite him doing this he showed resilience as he did not back down and won the match. This has been an ongoing issue for years which has to stop, and start being addressed more often. Never should one, especially of any race feel as they cannot express themselves whether it’s pure clothing or even hairstyles
Not only do different hairstyles represent a person's character, it’s an artistic movement which you can be extremely creative and artistic with using hair as a platform.