'Wear your crown, because change is coming': Virginia joins states banning hair discrimination
Carmen Davis went natural in 2014, motivated by her mother to do the “big chop”, a phrase commonly used to describe cutting off chemically straightened Black hair in favor of naturally textured kinks, coils or curls.
Standing in front of the recently defaced statue of the Confederate leader Robert E Lee in Richmond, Virginia, she recalled the backlash against her decision.
“My roommate in college stopped talking me,” she said, noting how even in college at the time, being natural was rare. “She told me it was embarrassing to be seen with me and that I’d regret it.”
Today, Davis is a natural hairstylist, helping women in the Richmond area transition from chemical processing. Her former roommate eventually became one of her many clients.
Business is growing for Davis, but she admits change is slow in the “conservative, southern” state where, in many places, wearing natural hair could mean being denied a job or socially ostracized.
“Society overall frowns upon Black hair, but here it can still be uncommon for people to embrace it because of judgment or just the every day exhaustion of having to explain your Blackness,” she said.
Now they won’t have to. Virginia became the fourth US state, and the first in the south, to pass legislation banning hair discrimination based on racial identifiers including hair texture and hair type, as well as “protective hairstyles such as braids, [locs] and twists”. The law, known as the Crown Act, goes into effect on Wednesday.
“A person’s hair is a core part of their identity. Nobody deserves to be discriminated against simply due to the hair type they were born with, or the way in which they choose to wear it,” Delores McQuinn, a state delegate and the bill’s lead sponsor, said as the bill passed.
At its signing, the Virginia governor, Ralph Northam, said disciplining kids and adults in schools and workforces for wearing natural hair was “not only unacceptable and wrong” but “not what [they] stand for in Virginia”. Advocates say the law will put an end to those punitive actions, which the governor insisted are examples of “discrimination”.
At the Lee monument, hundreds have been gathering daily since protesters first attempted to tear down the statue earlier this month as part of mass anti-racism demonstrations across the US sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer in May.
Vendors sell masks and water at the makeshift tourist attraction. People gather to perform, pose for photos or add to the colorful graffiti. Proclamations of “Black Lives Matter” as well as “Murderer” and other profanities now cover the statue’s base.
The crowd at times included many Black men and women sporting natural and protective styles like braids, Afros, dreadlocks and twists. The Guardian interviewed more than a dozen Black Virginians who wear their hair naturally, and were told personal stories of social isolation, professional microaggressions and racist bullying they have faced.
Carmen Davis went natural in 2014, motivated by her mother to do the “big chop”, a phrase commonly used to describe cutting off chemically straightened Black hair in favor of naturally textured kinks, coils or curls.
Standing in front of the recently defaced statue of the Confederate leader Robert E Lee in Richmond, Virginia, she recalled the backlash against her decision.
“My roommate in college stopped talking me,” she said, noting how even in college at the time, being natural was rare. “She told me it was embarrassing to be seen with me and that I’d regret it.”
Today, Davis is a natural hairstylist, helping women in the Richmond area transition from chemical processing. Her former roommate eventually became one of her many clients.
Business is growing for Davis, but she admits change is slow in the “conservative, southern” state where, in many places, wearing natural hair could mean being denied a job or socially ostracized.
“Society overall frowns upon Black hair, but here it can still be uncommon for people to embrace it because of judgment or just the every day exhaustion of having to explain your Blackness,” she said.
Now they won’t have to. Virginia became the fourth US state, and the first in the south, to pass legislation banning hair discrimination based on racial identifiers including hair texture and hair type, as well as “protective hairstyles such as braids, [locs] and twists”. The law, known as the Crown Act, goes into effect on Wednesday.
“A person’s hair is a core part of their identity. Nobody deserves to be discriminated against simply due to the hair type they were born with, or the way in which they choose to wear it,” Delores McQuinn, a state delegate and the bill’s lead sponsor, said as the bill passed.
At its signing, the Virginia governor, Ralph Northam, said disciplining kids and adults in schools and workforces for wearing natural hair was “not only unacceptable and wrong” but “not what [they] stand for in Virginia”. Advocates say the law will put an end to those punitive actions, which the governor insisted are examples of “discrimination”.
At the Lee monument, hundreds have been gathering daily since protesters first attempted to tear down the statue earlier this month as part of mass anti-racism demonstrations across the US sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer in May.
Vendors sell masks and water at the makeshift tourist attraction. People gather to perform, pose for photos or add to the colorful graffiti. Proclamations of “Black Lives Matter” as well as “Murderer” and other profanities now cover the statue’s base.
The crowd at times included many Black men and women sporting natural and protective styles like braids, Afros, dreadlocks and twists. The Guardian interviewed more than a dozen Black Virginians who wear their hair naturally, and were told personal stories of social isolation, professional microaggressions and racist bullying they have faced.