News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
First, I owe you an apology. You gave a thoughtful, rational, and thorough response (unlike pretty much all of the other posters) and I didn't give it its due respect. To explain myself, the reason I glossed over the other parts is that I generally agree with them, and think the crux of argument boils down to the part I responded to.
I understand and agree why this is a sensitive topic: hair discrimination is real. I understand that one can discriminate even with "equal" laws: "no one can marry someone of their own sex." We also both agree that rules like this should go away. 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.
Honestly, I feel like the exact opposite is happening. From my perspective, y'all are arguing that because a rule made a black kid cut his hair, it is automatically racist. As I said above, I agree that rules that can be applied "equally" can still be meant to oppress a minority. I don't think that "because it can get a white kid it isn't racist" I think because there is a long tradition of schools making boys conform by cutting their hair, including in mostly/all white schools, that claiming it is racist doesn't hold much water.
Say the schools are segregated. The white school has a rule that all boys have to have short hair. Desegregation becomes law. Black kids end up going to that previously white school. Rule about short hair still applies. Racism? Or sexism? I say the latter, as that is what it always was, and there was nothing about rule that changed (assuming still an equal application - which is why I keep going back to the "please provide an example of a white kid getting away with it"). People here seem to be saying it's all of a sudden a racist rule meant to oppress minorities.
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:
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.
Sure if. I'm not denying it's a possibility.
But the other explanation is that they just remained authoritarian wanting conformity, the original intent of the rule, and so never bothered to revisit it after black people came into the school because the rule was never about respective individuality and cultural heritage.
I feel like we've first started with the fact that a black kid got swept up in it, and then worked backwards to find a reason why it is racist. . .rather than actually seeing if the evidence supports the claim it's racist.
I appreciate the respectful back and forth and I again apologize for not outwardly showing your earlier post the full respect it deserved. But I do believe we have hit a impasse here, so with all due respect, this will likely be my last response in this chain. I hope to butt heads with you again because you definitely make good, sound arguments, even if I ultimate disagreed here.