Anti-African American discrimination in the USA

This 21 August 2018 video from the USA says about itself:

6-Year-Old Barred from Christian School Because of Dreadlocks

Although the dreadlocks hairstyle is often associated with the Rastafarian faith, dreadlocks actually have a long history with Christianity; in Africa, Coptic Christians wore that hairstyle centuries before the emergence of Rastafarian culture.

But in Apopka, Florida near Orlando, African-American First Grade student Clinton Stanley, Jr. is—according to his father, Clinton Stanley, Sr.—being excluded from a private Christian school because of his dreads. “Our son just got told he could not attend the school with his hair,” Stanley, Sr. said in an eight-minute video he posted online. “If that’s not biased, I don’t know what is.”

Full story here.

Could Black English Mean a Prison Sentence? Court stenographers often misunderstand Black English, and their mistakes could affect people’s lives at crucial junctures: here.

By Sherrilyn A. Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in the USA today:

I’m sharing this story as we enter Black History Month because it’s a reminder that, despite the progress we’ve made, we have a long way to go to achieve equality.

Six year-old Clinton (C.J.) Stanley Jr. was excited to begin first grade at the A Book’s Christian Academy. C.J. was proud of his new school clothes, and the locs hairstyle his father had helped him to maintain since age four.

Then, on his first day, the school denied C.J. entry. Administrators cited the school handbook, which prohibits boys from wearing “dreads” and requires boys’ hair to be “tapered cut, off the collar and ears.”

C.J.’s father was stunned. “I was bewildered that the all-white staff in charge of a predominantly Black school would have the audacity to shame something so closely tied to Black identity,” he says.

After C.J.’s ordeal, LDF filed an administrative complaint with the Florida Department of Education, arguing that the hairstyle policy targets and disproportionately penalizes Black students — and because the school receives public funding, the policy violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This Black History Month, I want us to look forward just as much as we reflect on the progress we’ve made. No win comes easy — but this is a fight we won’t give up.

With you in struggle,

Sherrilyn A. Ifill