The days of straightening your hair or removing your braids before an interview are officially over. New York City just released their new anti-hair discrimination guidelines that will prohibit schools and employers from denying opportunities to others based on the style of their hair. This is a monumental moment for people of color everywhere who’ve lived in fear that their natural hair had to be altered to fit in a professional setting.
A tornado destroyed a Mississippi church. A baptism still took place there the next day
The very powerful guideline accurately depicts the experience most people of color have and how they’re experienced in the world. The legal guidance begins with, “Anti-Black racism is an invidious and persistent form of discrimination across the nation and in New York City. Anti-Black racism can be explicit and implicit, individual and structural, and it can manifest through entrenched stereotypes and biases, conscious and unconscious. Anti-Black bias also includes discrimination based on characteristics and cultural practices associated with being Black, including prohibitions on natural hair or hairstyles most closely associated with Black people.1 Bans or restrictions on natural hair or hairstyles associated with Black people are often rooted in white standards of appearance and perpetuate racist stereotypes that Black hairstyles are unprofessional. Such policies exacerbate anti-Black bias in employment, at school, while playing sports, and in other areas of daily living.”
Source: New York City Releases An Anti-Hair Discrimination Guideline For People of Color
