Originally published at: Kansas school forces 8-year-old Native American student to cut hair | Boing Boing
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Why does this shit keep happening over and over and over?
Okay, yes, I know it’s racism and shriveled conservatives who wish life had never progressed beyond the 1950s…
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This reminds me of something that i recently read, except it was at a hospital
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More like 1850s.
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That’s awful. And that’s civil battery, and quite possibly criminal assault. They should really look into filing a criminal complaint in addition to suing the hospital. This part made me cringe a little, though:
Reddog said there may be other reasons for the theft of Janis’ hair.
“Could he have been robbed for someone else’s religious impressions such as satanic ritual or new age ceremony play?
Yeah, no. Satanists and new age practitioners would never do something like this. This is far more likely the result of an overzealous nurse, probably evangelical Christian, who thought she was doing him a favor. Or she sold the hair.
As far as the school, that policy, sadly, is constitutional. You can set different dress codes by gender. I don’t think you should be able to, but courts so far have said you can. However, what is very clearly unconstitutional is not having an exception for religious and cultural reasons. That’s a clear violation. The school is 100% in the wrong here, and they’re not going to win if they fight this. I know this is a small town, but don’t they have a lawyer on retainer or something who can review their policies and tell them where they have problems? Jeez.
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They probably have someone (probably not even needing a retainer) to advise them where they can create problems in furtherance of their culture wars.
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I looked up the school district. I actually suspect they do not have a lawyer on retainer, and they definitely don’t have in house counsel. It’s a very small school district. They literally only have 6 administrators: the superintendent, high school principal, high school assistant principal, middle school principal, elementary school principal, and elementary school assistant principal. Their school board is literally bigger than their administrative staff. It has seven members. I will give them credit for having 74 teachers with only just over 1,000 students. That’s a pretty good teacher/student ratio.
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The boarding schools never closed, just rebranded.
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Yeah, I’m hopeful that as soon as someone with a law degree explains how they will lose the lawsuit they’re setting themselves up for, they’ll back down. Can’t fix bigotry, though.
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Pretty sure they don’t have these excemptions because “wearing a cross is okay but I draw the line on wearing a hijab” 
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Well, short hair for men hadn’t become THE thing yet at that point, depending on where you lived and your socioeconomic status. Check out photos of Civil War officers online–they had some pretty wild hair that no doubt would have given 1950s dads a heart attack about them being beatniks/hippies. It seems like the tide started to turn around 1900.
When I first read this article, I actually assumed that it was more “grumpy old man is anti-hippie” sentiment, but that’s just because of my own history. I wore my hair long when I was growing up (1980s) and got lots of crap for it from grumpy old men, and I had no religious or historical reasons for wearing it that way. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are pockets of the country that still consider a buzz cut the only suitably masculine haircut.
That said, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it was a mix of “men should look like men!” AND racism in this case. I’ve yet to see a U.S. school dress code that doesn’t feature some sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, or the like.
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Don’t take my word for it but I my opinion is that the turning point was the first world war army reforms. Up until then well groomed beards were a sign of being well of and a point of pride, and you can tuck your hair in the bonnet so having long hair is not an issue, can even be advantageous!
The first world war changed many of those -uniform colors, changing the bonnet for a helmet, for example - and implanted a “need to standardize” that among other things, standardized the look because they were using these kind of details to identify officers! And as things happen, these men come back from serving, and import the “clean shaven, buzz cut” as the “thing that makes men, men”. By the second world war there were no amazing beards nor moustaches in the ranks.
just a sample:
First world war
Second world war
So yeah: clean shaved and buzz cut is really more of a mid 20th century thing 
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“We are committed to working with family members to investigate any concerns and to help determine if an incident happened at one of our care locations.”
You know, but we aren’t going to release the video of what happened and take action against those responsible without a court order. So, we really aren’t committed to helping the family at all. Screw yourselves.
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Assuming you mean BCE
What absolute bullshit. I see some utility in dress codes for attire, but as far as the way one wears one’s hair, I don’t see any reason for it.
I had to look up where Girard, KS was. it is in the southeast corner near Pittsburgh. A poorer small town with 2.6K people.
Even more fucking bullshit. And odd bullshit. Unless the hospital is lying to cover their asses, it looks like they didn’t officially cut it? Weird.
Facial hair was actually part of the uniform for a long time for many countries. WWI changed that because you needed a good seal on gas masks and those regulations continued into WWII and beyond with only mustaches being allowed (at least in the US).
During the GWoT, certain units who were embedded with local groups were allowed to grow their beards out as it was part of local customs. It and hippsters (to a degree) are why beards have been much much more prevalent in the last 15 years.
While still not allowed for most parts of the military, there are some exceptions like Sikhs can have beards now.
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Because we still live in a society that is full of white supremacy and assumes that there is only one “right” way to live your life.
This shit was happening right into the 20th century.
This has a very specific history which has nothing to do with the struggle over white men having long hair as a protest. This is a direct attack on indigenous ways of life. It’s part of a broaded genocidal policy against Native peoples in American politics.
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Whatever happened to the CROWN Act? Stalled in the Senate it seems
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Damn right.
WTAF–
Some of us spend Thanksgiving reflecting on U.S. treatment of indigenous First Nations peoples. Some of us even fast. I think many indigenous people living in the U.S. would just like some actual justice, for once.
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Yeah. This part made me cringe too
because we also know how highly Native American people’s hair could be of value to big city venues. So we wonder if it was stolen for the black market used for wigs and extensions found popular in inner city fashions?”
“Inner city fashions.” So “his hair was stolen for Black people to use as a wig.” Why go there?! His hair was cut probably because of racism. Someone either unaware of or hostile to the cultural and religious significance of his hair. Do you really need to add a dash of your own racism on top of that?
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