The same week his state outlawed racial discrimination based on hairstyles, a Black high school student in Texas was suspended because school officials said his locs violated the district’s dress code.

Darryl George, a junior at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, received an in-school suspension after he was told his hair fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes. George, 17, wears his hair in thick twisted dreadlocks, tied on top of his head, said his mother, Darresha George.

George served the suspension last week. His mother said he plans to return to the Houston-area school Monday, wearing his dreadlocks in a ponytail, even if he is required to attend an alternative school as a result.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Conservatives don’t want schools that teach how to think. They want schools that teach kids to obey.

    The rules don’t really matter, if anything they want the rules to be as stupid and arbitrary as possible, that way they get adult workers willing to take “because I said so” as rationale for fucking anything.

    Like how in boot camp they focus on the most inconsequential details. They don’t care how exact you can make a bed, theyre just teaching you how to follow orders

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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      My kid is always amazed that despite violating the dress code she never gets in trouble. I told her that the rules aren’t there to be enforced equally, they’re there to give them an excuse to harass students and because she’s one of the “good kids” she gets away with it.

      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Meanwhile I saw kids of any color hauled out of my school for wearing ANY red

        Literally every other rule was flaunted daily but if you wore red they’d drag your ass to the admin office to take your shoelaces for the day (saw that one) or wear one of the embarrassing and huge and overused day use shirts (happened to a friend), didn’t matter who you were

        Just a funny story about my weirdly strict in some ways high school

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        1 year ago

        “There are in-groups the law must protect but not bind, and outgroups the law must bind and not protect”. This is the core of conservative thought.

    • chaogomu@kbin.social
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      Trust me, as someone who was military, they care about how exact you are when making the bed. It’s not just about following orders, it’s how well you follow them and your attention to detail.

      Oddly, my military experience also focused on how to break rules, and how to know which ones to break. That and the knowledge that there was a waiver for everything.

  • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    “When you are asked to conform … and give up something for the betterment of the whole, there is a psychological benefit,” Poole said. “We need more teaching (of) sacrifice.”

    How does this dude not realize that also applies to his school district and their stupid outdated rules about hair length?

    • fireweed@lemmy.world
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      Greg Poole, who has been district superintendent since 2006, said the policy is legal and teaches students to conform as a sacrifice benefitting everyone.

      This is clearly about control, as well as conditioning students to concede to authority and “traditional” social standards.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Seems like Iran is the role model for many Americans. Land of the free is nothing but a sad joke. 🤥

    • kemsat@lemmy.world
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      Remember the country was started by a bunch of religious crazies that were being perse- I mean, properly called out for their insanity back in Europe. So they decided to come here and commit theft, rape, and genocide, so they could abuse their families without those pesky others telling them it was wrong.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        I think there was a hunger situation too, but yes there were a good deal religious fanatics from the start.

        • ANGRY_MAPLE@sh.itjust.works
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          It’s referring to that meme with the astronauts.

          In this case, one would be in the background, in front of the earth saying “Both of these religions are controlling and toxic”.

          The second astronaut would be in the foreground, with his gun aimed towards the first astronaut, saying “Always have been”.

          I think it’s a meme from a movie.

          The point is that religious zealots have always been bad like this, but the commenter put that into a meme.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      American conservatives have always been jealous of Iran for living the life they want: a crushing theocratic regime who punishes everyone except for an elite clique.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        Yes they love authoritarian bullshit, that’s why so many of them are also borderline if not full fledged fascists.

  • Nougat@kbin.social
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    … he was told his hair fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes.

    Unless they have the exact same standards for hair length for all students, regardless of gender, that’s plainly discriminatory.

    Of course, in reality, hairstyle rules are stupid. As long as it doesn’t cause a disruption (think smelly, or formed into the shape of a helicopter), whatever you wanna do with your hair is fine.

    • ripcord@kbin.social
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      Wait, what makes “shape of a helicopter” disruptive?

      If the answer is something like “outrageous style that would get too much attention”, then that sounds like the argument for a ton of these kinds of rules. The main difference would just be subjectively where the line is drawn.

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        If there is any appearance standard, it must apply to all students in the exact same way. If girls are allowed to have hair which “falls below the eyebrows or earlobes,” but boys are not, that is discrimination based on gender. If girls are allowed to wear “skirts below the knee,” but boys are not, that is discrimination based on gender.

        I’m in no way suggesting that girls be held to the appearance standards that boys are held to; rather, boys should be held to the appearance standards that girls are held to.

      • Hupf@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        It will make you say “soi” repeatedly in your head in Microsoft Sam’s voice, hence the distraction.

    • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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      I don’t think you could get away with smelly, and I don’t see a problem with any non-dangerous haircut really.

      • Nougat@kbin.social
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        I meant “smelly” in a personal hygiene kind of way, and school administration can most certainly take action to remedy a situation where a student is not hygenic.

        • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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          In a very specific personal hygiene way, sure. But there are situations where you’d end up with similar complaints if a white administrator approached a non-white student.

      • snooggums@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Smelly is subjective too, as someone using the proper oils for their hair could be called smelly.

        Smelly has been used for properly maintained dreadlocks that are far less noticeable than Axe body spray.

  • discostjohn@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I used to work at a company that practically refused to hire black people because their dress code precluded basically every common black hairstyle.

    It pisses me off that dreads and braids are some sort of white-collar taboo.

    • flipht@kbin.social
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      This isn’t an accident.

      It’s to give plausible deniability to racists who don’t want to deal with EEOC violations as often.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      It’s a way of making anyone except for a specific culture of people feel uncomfortable. “You can come work here but you won’t like it so don’t try” is the message they are using instead of “we are racist and understand it’s distasteful to say it openly” but it produces the same effect.

  • RadicalCandour@startrek.website
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    “He has to sit on a stool for eight hours in a cubicle. That’s very uncomfortable. Every day he’d come home, he’d say his back hurts because he has to sit on a stool,”

    What the fuck is this? What is the school trying to teach this kid? Certainly not to hate authority or resent the adults that are responsible for his high school success.

    This is mental and physical abuse. Fuck this school. Fuck this school district. God I hate high school even to this day as a mom.

  • Furbag@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    … he was told his hair fell below his eyebrows and ear lobes.

    But… the picture from the article says that’s how he wore his hair to school, and it is clearly not obstructing his eyebrows or earlobes. What gives? I feel it’s a hard argument to say that this is not racial discrimination.

  • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Clear cut violation of Freedom of Expression. This is an ACLU payday just waiting to happen.

    • Elliott@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Makes you wonder though…maybe diverting school funds into settlement payouts is the real endgame.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      Not really, kids don’t get the same rights as adults and schools get to act like parents, so this isn’t a magical payday. Maybe if you can prove some racial discrimination, but the wording of the dress code is basically no long hair, which blocks many common styles across races.

    • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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      It’s not like it’s even shitty or something. That was done skillfully and it’s kind of sad they take issue with it.

  • billwashere@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Ok I’m a old white dude and this hairstyle is pretty badass, damn near art. What the fuck is wrong with people?

  • NotAPenguin@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Who gives any kind of shits what a students hair looks like?

    Why do these draconian dress codes still exist?