Texas School Bigots Gonna Keep Violating CROWN Act By Punishing Black Student With Dreadlocks

This seems illegal.

Darryl George, a student at the Dickensian-named Barbers Hill High School near Houston, was suspended multiple times last year because of his hairstyle. Yes, he’s Black.

By December 2023, George, who’s 18, had spent more than 80 percent of his junior year banished from a regular classroom. Here is his offending haircut: White people, please shield your sensitive eyes.

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The coiffure cops yanked George from the classroom in August because they claimed his braided locs fell below his eyebrows and earlobes and thus violated the district’s dress code. Dress codes are historically racist and sexist and tend to specifically target Black students like George, who has submitted several photos showing that his locs don’t actually fall below his eyebrows and earlobes. He’s not one of The Beatles.

See, this is Darryl George.

And this is George Harrison in 1964.

Darryl George was reportedly denied an exemption to the dress code on cultural or religious grounds. This is especially galling when you consider that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott opposed COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates in local schools, and corrupt Attorney General Ken Paxton defended Texas airmen who requested exemptions to the COVID vaccine mandates on religious grounds.

Obviously, the issue is that George’s hairstyle is primarily worn by Black people and that guy in Seattle who sells you pot. George points out that many white male students have noticeably longer hair.

“It’s frustrating because I’m getting punished for something everyone else is doing, growing hair, having hair,” he said.

George’s mother, Darresha George, told the Associated Press last year, “We are just trying to take it day by day. That’s all we can do. We do not see the light at the end of the tunnel. But we are not giving up.”

Indeed, Darresha George and her attorney, Allie Booker, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Abbott and Paxton for failing to enforce the CROWN Act, which prohibits race-based hair discrimination. The House of Representatives passed the CROWN Act in 2022 (no thanks to Republicans) but has not been passed by the Senate; it has also been Texas law since September.

Barbers Hill High School argues that the CROWN Act doesn’t technically address hair length. Texas state Rep. Ron Reynolds, who co-authored the Texas bill — which, again, is law in Texas — disagrees.

“Let me be very clear with you. We passed this bipartisan bill from a lot of effort and a lot of testimony,” Reynolds said. “Barbers Hill knows that it’s violating the CROWN Act. This bill was passed specifically to cover the hairstyle Darryl George is wearing.”

And please don’t say he should just cut his hair into an approved “professional” style. After centuries of white people controlling and policing our bodies, we draw the line now at our hair, which is not even a lethal weapon. No school shootings were ever committed with assault locs.

George isn’t the first victim of the Barbers school district’s absurd “dress code.” Back in 2020, a Black student was not allowed to attend his high school graduation ceremony unless he cut his hair and, I assume, responded to the name “Toby.” Greg Poole, the district superintendent since 2006, thinks the policy is just ginger peachy and teaches students that CONFORMITY is a sacrifice that benefits everyone, especially bigots who don’t like rude reminders that different cultures exist.

Poole twirled his mustache some more last week in a full-page newspaper ad where he declared, “Being an American requires conformity with the positive benefit of unity.” (The full-page ad features a less-than-flattering photo of Poole, who is in no position to judge anyone’s hairstyle.) This is Texas of all places, but the appeal to conformity isn’t a contradiction. It’s Black people whom Poole seeks to bend to his will — the younger their spirits are broken the better. This plantation overseer mentality is nonetheless consistent with Texas’s “come and take it” rhetoric.

The district has disciplined George for months, and school officials have claimed that George is a disruptive influence who doesn’t follow orders. A district spokesperson told George that he’d be sent back to the box in-school suspension if he didn’t cut his hair.

This is all absurd, very racist, and totally America.

[NBC News / The Messenger / Texas Monthly]

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