Hair Discrimination Must Stop! Male Braiding is a Proven African Custom!

De Standpipe Crew joins its brothers and sisters at Bajan Free Press in expressing our outrage at the discrimination being attempted at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic. We are united in this matter… as tight as cornrow plaits!

De Standpipe Crew

Hair Discrimination Must Stop! Male Braiding is a Proven African Custom!

The Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic wants to stop young Bajan men from getting education based on their hairstyle, but we commend Minister of Education Ronald Jones for defending the right of our young men to wear their hair in braids.

There are several African societies where men wear (or used to wear) braided or plaited hair, including…

Young Maasai warriors in Kenya and Tanzania,

Young Samburu warriors in Kenya,

 

Yoruba Shango priests in Nigeria,

15. Osun Priest with the Agogo Hairstyle
Osogbo, Nigeria

Author’s photo, 1972.

Mau Mau rebels in Kenya,

and the Mungiki sect in Kenya.

 

As black people who are descendants of West African slaves, we in Barbados MUST defend our rights, even within our own country, and especially within our own country.

There is no room in Barbados for discrimination against black people and black hairstyles, especially within our educational institutions. Enforce the rules to keep hairstyles neat, but do not discriminate against people because of hairstyle.

Bajan Free Press

http://www.nationnews.com/story/299461955129249.php

NOT IN HAIR!
Published on: 2/21/08.

Caught in a hair net: Carlos Adams (foreground) and Damien Weekes, students of the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic, have been called upon to change their hairstyles. (Pictures by Charles Grant.)

Stories by Katrina Bend

Unless you are a Rastafarian, don’t wear your hair like one if you want to study at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic (SJPP).

That regulation right now bars five young men from completing their two-year programme at the institution in The Pine, St Michael.

Deputy principal of the SJPP, Merton Forde, confirmed the ban on Tuesday and said if the students were willing to show they belonged to the Rastafarian sector, they would not be barre from any classes.

Unhealthy

“We have regulations concerning the type of headdress considered to be unhealthy to students around them. We expect students to conform to those regulations. The students were told that their dreadlocks would not have been a problem once they are part of the Rastafarian faith,” Forde said.

One of the affected students, Carlos Adams, 22, of the Electrical Department, said that since last Wednesday, there were a series of meetings about how he and four other males should wear their hair.

Asked for letters

They are in the Electrical Engineering, Micro-Electronics and Refrigeration and Engineering departments.

When they returned to class last Friday, personnel from Student Affairs asked for letters stating their dreadlocks were religion-related. Failing that, they would have to cut their hair in order to attend classes.

Adams said: “The only way we are allowed into our class is with a letter from the Rastafarian organisations [but] the organisation said they cannot issue letters to people with long hair. You are a brethren because
of your heart.

“I think it is some sort of prejudice. Why should I bring in a letter saying that I am some part of a movement . . . . We are not little kids going to school up here. We are not seeking to change the rules in the institution. We just want to go to class.”

Damien Weekes, 24, also of the Electrical Department said security personnel refused to let him enter the institution last Friday with his hairstyle.

In the past, Weekes unlocked his hair and wore his hair in an afro style because personnel felt the students could conceal weapons under the tams (headdress) worn over the dreadlocked hair.

Adams and Weekes said when they attended the interview and orientation sessions, they were told that dreadlocked hair was not a problem, as long as it was well groomed and pulled backwards.

The students are in the final semester of their first year of their two-year programmes. They are missing the core subject, electrical installation, and if they don’t successfully complete this, they say they cannot go on to pursue studies for their City Guild certificate.

http://www.nationnews.com/story/299461954952127.php

Jones knocks ban on locks
Published on: 2/21/08.

The dreadlocks hairstyle ban at Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic (SJPP) has been criticised as discriminatory by Minister of Education Ronald Jones.

“No child or student studying can be excluded from a school as result of a hairstyle, particularly in a situation where they are kept in a clean and inoffensive manner. So I’m surprised that that would even arise. It would then be termed discriminatory circumstances, but nothing has reached me here in relation to that particular manner,” Jones told the
DAILY NATION yesterday.

“These are not little children, this is a tertiary institution. And even though we want persons to be decorous, to treat adults like children would be a no-no. Once the hairstyles are clean and conform to generally accepted standards, no young person should be left out of school . . . . Most of these things have to be handled sensitively otherwise they would come over as discriminatory,” the minister added.

Backward

Director of the Commission of Pan-African Affairs, Ikael Tafari, who is a part of the Rastafari Movement, described the SJPP regulation as backward, discriminatory, ridiculous and a dangerous practice.

“It’s a violation of a religion. People like me, Adonijah and other Rastafari; 1 000 in the island, they are stopping people from getting skill training on dreadlocks . . . How are we going to really determine Rastafari? There are different beliefs . . . . You don’t have to join an organisation to be a Rastafari . . . . Barbados has to get serious. We are a multi-religious society. They must stop discrimination.”