After fierce criticism from African-American soldiers, supported by the Congressional Black Caucus and an online petition with more than 92,000 signatures, the U.S. Army has rolled back its rules regarding natural afro hairstyles.
“Army Regulation 670-1,” initially amended and implemented in March of this year with the aim of creating a more uniform and professional army, introduced sweeping new rules regarding tattoos, hairstyles, grooming and service uniforms.
While it’s understandable that the military would want to maintain a uniform, professional look, the organization realized it had gone too far by banning hairstyles like dreadlocks and twists. In a hilarious video clip that’s been making the rounds online, The Daily Show’s Jessica Williams satirically explains what black women had to endure under the military’s new rules, but when you think about it, it’s anything but funny.
It is unfair to base a uniform look for an institution like the U.S. military on a single hair type. Not only would this be an inaccurate reflection of society, it is also unfair to a large group of people who were not born with that hair type. This group must take extreme measures to comply with the so-called uniform rules. It is no wonder that African-American soldiers and members of the Congressional Black Caucus criticized the changes as discrimination based on race and ethnicity.
The fact that Sgt. Jasmine Jacobs, who initiated the White House Petition, and Rep. Marcia Fudge, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, were able to get the military to roll back these restrictions is a major breakthrough. Perhaps even a world-class one.
Unequal hair rights are one of the social injustices that disproportionately disadvantage black women. It is the reason why black women suffer more hair loss (73%) than any other ethnic group. Another consequence is that black children and teenage girls are the first to experience hair breakage and even hair loss, even though they are often born with more hair than babies of other ethnicities.
To get the US military to realize that black women need different rules because kinky hair is different than straight hair and that locs, twists and afros are not extreme fads but simply hairstyles that go with naturally kinky hair is groundbreaking. Not only is kinky hair finally being recognized, but the adjectives like unkempt and unkempt that were used to describe kinky hairstyles have been eliminated.
This breakthrough is similar to the lawsuit in the 1980s when an employee sued the Marriott Hotel after being fired for wearing braids. According to the hotel’s policy, her hairstyle was “too ethnic.” The employee won the case, and it is because of that lawsuit that black women are allowed to wear braids in the workplace today.
The U.S. Army is the first agency in the United States, and perhaps even the world, to recognize kinky hair and make the hairstyles part of an organization's dress code policy.
If kinky hair is included in an organization's policy, it is usually only to denigrate the hair type and to exclude kinky hair styles.
A very recent example of this is Ashley Davis last November. When the company changed the dress code in its manual, Mrs. Davis, who had been on the job for a few months, suddenly had to choose between her dreadlocks and her job at Tower Loan in St. Peter’s Missouri. Like the U.S. military, locs were banned and lumped together with unnatural hair colors and extreme hairstyles like mullets.
By rolling back the rules regarding afro hair, the military is setting a great example of how different hair types can be included in a multi-ethnic institution that is meant to represent society. Hopefully other organizations and the corporate world will take note and change their rules so it doesn’t have to come down to a petition, involvement of the Black Caucus, or even a lawsuit.