Posted on 04/08/2014 4:31:07 PM PDT by mandaladon
Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. Army's new ban on many types of ethnic hairstyles has African-American women who wear their coifs in dreadlocks, braids and cornrows in a twist.
The Army's regulations stipulate such guidance as hair "must be of uniform dimension, small in diameter (approximately ¼ inch), show no more than 1/8 (inch) of the scalp between the braids." Dreadlocks "against the scalp or free-hanging" are banned. "Unkempt" or "matted" braids and cornrows are also considered dreadlocks and "are not authorized," according to the regulations that were updated this month.
It's that type of language, words like "unkempt" and "matted," that read to some African Americans, as code for racial bias.
"These new changes are racially biased and the lack of regard for ethnic hair is apparent," Sgt. Jasmine Jacobs of the Georgia National Guard wrote in a White House petition she started in late March asking the Obama administration to reconsider the policy. Currently, the petition has more than 13,000 signatures. White House petition
"We feel let down," Jacobs told the Army Times. "I think, at the end of the day, a lot of people don't understand the complexities of natural hair. A lot of people, instead of educating themselves, they think dreadlocks and they think Bob Marley, or they see women with really big Afros and they think that's the only thing we can do with our hair."
(Excerpt) Read more at us.cnn.com ...
I thought dreadlocks were Jamaican?
Since we should ALL be treated the same, then make everyone men and women shave their heads...crew cuts for everyone.
Morons should move to Africa join one of it’s countries Army.
Didn’t we go through this with the afro back in the early 70’s?
I love this!
The Army has been so bloody PC for so long, here it is coming to bite the senior leadership in the ass! HA!
Next “soldiers of ethnicity” will demand to be allowed to wear their pants halfway down their butts.
“I thought dreadlocks were Jamaican?”
—
All I know is they’re yucky.
.
I think is was the 60’s
Yes, back in the 70s, some Black soldiers wanted to wear Afros, which were out of regulation. the ‘solution’ was the ‘dew rag’ that guy wore, (aka old panty hose or nylon’ that packed their hair down at night so it was in regulation during the day and then they combed out their ‘Fros’ when they went out in the evenings and on the weekends...but NOT while in uniform.
The “alternative lifestyle” folks will just love that.
Bet they can’t get a proper seal on an NBC mask with one.
If you aren’t going to follow rules, what the hell are you doing in the army?
Who cares?
“I thought dreadlocks were Jamaican?”
They may not be Jamaican but they are definitely a bunch of jerks
This isn't the first time, unsurprisingly.
Its their right to do whatever they want.
army ain’t a salon or a democracy. stuff it.
It seems to me that when the army did a lot of real work in fighting the enemy on their turf that anyone caught complaining about a hairstyle reg would have been chastised, to say the least.
And I don’t mean to say, ‘in my day...’ what I mean is, what the he double toothpicks does a hairstyle have to do with readiness?
Chemical weapons are a real motivator to get that seal done right. After a few of them die to bad hairstyles, the rest will complain about how the protective masks were defective.
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