Black Hairstyles Text Set (includes video by Chris Rock)1
Black female soldiers say
new grooming reg is 'racially biased'
By Michelle Tan
Staff writer, Army Times
Mar. 31, 2014
Thousands of soldiers and others have signed a White House petition calling for the president to order the Army to reconsider just-released appearance and grooming regulations they contend are “racially biased” against black women.
The update to Army Regulation 670-1 was published in March 2014, and among the rules are clarifications for Army-appropriate hairstyles. For example, the Army does not allow twists or multiple braids that are bigger than a quarter of an inch in diameter. The reg also bans dreadlocks of any style, and cornrows must be uniform and no bigger than a quarter of an inch.
Twists and dreadlocks have been prohibited since 2005, but the regulation at the time did not clearly define the specific hairstyles, Army spokesman Paul Prince said.
The new AR 670-1 clearly defines the different hairstyles and gives soldiers specific guidance on what’s allowed, he said. Leadership training released in mid-March, published before the reg was official, includes photos of a number of unauthorized hairstyles, several of which are popular among black women.
“I’ve been in the military six years, I’ve had my hair natural four years, and it’s never been out of regulation. It’s never interfered with my head gear,” said Sgt. Jasmine Jacobs, of the Georgia National Guard, who wears her hair in two twists.
Jacobs, who started the White House petition, said she’s “kind of at a loss now with what to do with my hair.”
The Army defines “twists” as two distinct strands of hair twisted around one another to create a rope-like appearance.
Jacobs said twists are the go-to style for black female soldiers going to the field because it “makes it easy to take care of in the field,” she said.
Her hair is naturally thick and curly, making it impossible to pull into a bun, Jacobs said.
“Most black women, their hair doesn’t grow straight down, it grows out,” she said. “I’m disappointed to see the Army, rather than inform themselves on how black people wear their hair, they’ve white-washed it all.”
In the White House petition, Jacobs calls on the Army to reconsider changes to AR 670-1.
“Females with natural hair take strides to style their natural hair in a professional manner when necessary; however, changes to AR 670-1 offer little to no options for females with natural hair,” she said in her petition.
The changes are “racially biased, and the lack of regard for ethnic hair is apparent,” she further states.
Staff Sgt. Mary Johnson voiced similar concerns on Sgt. Maj. of the Army Ray Chandler’s Facebook page.
“As far as the twists, that really limits females with curly/kinky hair,” she said. “I can’t simply pull my hair back due to excessive knotting. I proudly wear twists in a professional manner every day and only took them down on the weekends. It makes it very difficult for ethnic females.”
Jacobs said she’ll likely wear a wig to her battle assembly because chemically relaxing her hair or putting it up in corn rows is damaging to her hair.
“I talked to my first sergeant, and he said we would [face non-judicial punishment] if we’re out of reg,” she said. “So I either get a wig or be NJPed, all because of the way my hair grows naturally.”
Jacobs said that before these clarifications, black female soldiers had more hairstyle options while maintaining a professional appearance.
“We feel let down,” Jacobs said. “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.”
Prince said hair grooming standards are “necessary to maintain uniformity within a military population.”
“Many hairstyles are acceptable, as long as they are neat and conservative,” he said. “In addition, headgear is expected to fit snugly and comfortably, without bulging or distortion from the intended shape of the headgear and without excessive gaps. Unfortunately, some hairstyles do not meet this standard or others listed in AR 670-1.”
Army’s Ban on Some Popular Hairstyles Raises Ire of Black Female Soldiers
By HELENE COOPER
New York Times,APRIL 20, 2014
"I remember thinking, 'What on earth am I going to do with my hair?'" former Sgt. Jasmine Jacobs (left) said when she read about new army rules.Bryan Meltz for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Black women and their hair have been a topic of discussion for years by people like Maya Angelou, Al Sharpton and Salt-N-Pepa.
Now add Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to that list.
In reaction to a new Army regulation banning numerous hairstyles — twists, dreadlocks and large cornrows — popular with black women, the 16 women of the Congressional Black Caucus have asked Mr. Hagel to overturn the regulation on behalf of the 26,700 African-American women on active duty in the Army. The regulation comes at the same time as a new Army rule banning tattoos on the face, neck, hands, fingers and lower arms of recruits.
Both regulations are among new grooming standards that critics say are meant to further weed people out of an Army reducing its size from its post-9/11 peak of 570,000 to as low as 420,000 in the years to come. Representative Marcia L. Fudge, the Ohio Democrat who is chairwoman of the black caucus, said she had been struck in recent visits to military bases by how many soldiers — black and white — said they felt they were being pushed out of the military. The new regulations, announced on March 31, have intensified that feeling, she said.
“One of the things they should not do is insult the people who’ve given up their time and put their lives at risk by saying their hair is unkempt,” Ms. Fudge said. “Now they want to downsize, these styles are not appropriate?”
To others, the rules are the result of the coming home of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
“There’s a tendency during wartime to permit personal styles and variations in approach simply because more important things are at stake than how your hair looks or what tattoo is on your arm,” said Loren B. Thompson, a military expert at the Lexington Institute, a research organization. But now, he said, a smaller Army can “be more arbitrary about enforcing regimentation.”
Although the new rules on tattoos have come under fire, particularly since body art became popular among soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the regulations on black hairstyles have drawn more outrage and charges of racism. By Friday, more than 17,000 people had signed an online petition sent to the White House to get the hair regulations rescinded.
At the root of the concern about the Army regulations, many black women said, is a lack of understanding about black hair, coupled with a norm that uses the hair of white women as its baseline. While black hair comes in all textures, much of it is deeply curly, making it difficult, unless chemically straightened, to pull back into a bun or to hang loose off the face in a neat, uniform way.
“Our hair is kinky,” said BriGette McCoy, a former Army specialist, her voice getting angrier as she spoke. “It is genetic, it is hereditary, there is nothing we can do about it. And to have someone tell you that because your hair comes out of your scalp that way, you have to go and change it, when no one else is required to change that about themselves?”
In Ms. McCoy’s view, the new regulations are a further affront to what she views as longtime Army squeamishness about the hair of black women, who make up more than a third of active-duty women in the Army. Twice when she was working as an Army data communications specialist in Germany, she said, her superiors ordered her back to her barracks because her commanding officer deemed her hair “unkempt.”“They were saying it had to be neat and couldn’t be unkempt, and to them, neat and kempt meant straightened,” she recalled.
The word “unkempt” shows up in the new regulations, too: “Braids or cornrows that are unkempt or matted are considered dreadlocks and are not authorized.”The word did not go unnoticed by Representative Barbara Lee, a California Democrat and a member of the black caucus. “This is very offensive,” she said.
Defense Department officials said Mr. Hagel “appreciates the Congressional Black Caucus’s concerns regarding this issue,” in the words of Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Christensen, a Pentagon spokesman. Then he quickly tossed the issue back to the people who had started the fuss. “We expect the Army to provide a response shortly,” Commander Christensen said.
Army officials, who said the new regulations simply clarify existing ones by specifically describing prohibited hairstyles, continued to try to explain them — it all seems to boil down to the need for uniformity among troops — but the explanations so far have not silenced the critics. One of the loudest among them is former Sgt. Jasmine Jacobs, the woman who started the White House petition. She said she had become alarmed the minute she had gotten an email.
“I remember thinking, ‘What on earth am I going to do with my hair?’” she said of her locks, which she keeps in two-strand twists that are now banned. Her only remaining options, she said, would be to have tiny cornrows, chemically straighten her hair, or get a weave or wig. She recalled deploying in Iraq in 2008 and 2009 with a woman who kept redoing her cornrows to make them neat and small enough to fit Army regulations, and “by the time we got back her hairline had receded an inch.”
Ms. Jacobs was a public affairs officer with the Georgia National Guard until April 11, when her discharge, originally scheduled for May 15, was unexpectedly moved up.
Even deployed black women in the Army who decide to straighten their hair run into problems, because the expensive hair products necessary to maintain it are often difficult to get, particularly in commissaries in Afghanistan.
As a result, Myraline Whitaker started a project, Sister Soldier, that ships hair products to black military women. She began the project in 2007 after a white Marine who had been deployed in Iraq told her that her strongest memory about a black soldier with whom she shared a room was the smell of her hair when she was using a hot comb to straighten it. Since then, Ms. Whitaker, a hotel consultant, has sent, on request, more than 7,000 care packages of black hair products to deployed women. In an interview, she said she was initially stunned by how many requests she received.
What has surprised critics of the regulations even more is that Army officials insist the updates were cleared by a focus group that included black women in the Army.
“African-American female soldiers were involved in the process of developing the new female hair standards,” said Lt. Col. Alayne P. Conway, an Army spokeswoman. “Not only were nearly 200 senior female leaders and soldiers, which included a representative sample of the Army’s populations, part of the decision-making process on the female hair standards, but the group was also led by an African-American female.”The Army declined to give the names of the black women involved in the decision, or make them available for comment.
A version of this article appears in print on April 21, 2014, on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: Ban on Some Popular Hairstyles Raises Ire of Black Female Soldiers.
Hagel Seeks Review of
Military Policies on Hairstyles
By HELENE COOPER
The New York Times, APRIL 29, 2014
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Tuesday ordered the American military to review its policies concerning hairstyles popular with black women, telling critics of new Army regulations banning large cornrows, twists and dreadlocks that he takes “very seriously” concerns that military rules on hair have unfairly targeted black women.
Responding to a complaint lodged by the 16 women of the Congressional Black Caucus, Mr. Hagel said he had given the secretaries and military leaders of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines three months to review comprehensive military regulations as they pertain to black
Mr. Hagel’s order raises the possibility that the Pentagon will go beyond the initial request of the black caucus that he overturn the Army’s new hair rules. Instead of looking only at the new Army regulations, a Pentagon spokesman said, Mr. Hagel is “opening the aperture” on all of the services, which black servicewomen have said for decades have forced them to conform to norms based on the hair of white women.
Black women have said that a lack of understanding about the roots of black hair is part of the reason for the Army regulations, which went into effect at the end of March. While black hair comes in all textures, much of it is very curly, making it difficult, unless chemically straightened, to pull into a bun or to let hang loose in a neat, uniform way.
“Members of the CBC appreciate Secretary Hagel for his prompt response to our letter and for seriously considering our concerns,” Representative Marcia L. Fudge, Democrat of Ohio and chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in a statement. She said Mr. Hagel’s response “affirms his commitment to ensuring all individuals are welcomed and can continue to be proud of serving in our armed forces.”
Mr. Hagel also ordered the military to review the definitions of authorized and prohibited hairstyles and scrub those definitions of “offensive language,” responding to complaints from servicewomen and the women of the black caucus that the Army’s new regulations include the words “unkempt” and “matted” in reference to braids, cornrows and dreadlocks.
Army officials initially said that the new regulations simply clarified existing ones by specifically describing hairstyles that were prohibited because of a need for uniformity among troops and because of safety concerns. The Army also said those new regulations had been cleared by a focus group that included black women in the Army, but it declined to give their names or make them available for comment.
The issue generated intense news media interest after several black servicewomen complained about the new regulations, and said they were already going into contortions to meet existing military rules concerning their hair. In particular, some critics were incensed because the new Army regulations prohibited hairstyles that used the soldiers’ natural hair, while largely allowing wigs and hair weaves. For instance, “natural hair is authorized,” an Army statement explaining the regulations said, but only “so long as it meets the standards” of the new regulations. That statement, critics said, implies that there is something wrong with black women’s natural hair.
“I’m pleased that the secretary responded in such a forthright manner,” said Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, who first brought the issue before the black caucus. But she added, “We have to be vigilant until we have a final conclusion.”
A version of this article appears in print on April 30, 2014, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Hagel Seeks a Review of Policies on Hair
The Opinion Pages|
When Black Hair Is Against the Rules
ByAYANA BYRDandLORI L. THARPS
The New York Times, April 30, 2014
AMERICA has always had trouble with black hair. The United States Army is only the latest in a long line of institutions, corporations and schools to restrict it.On March 31, theArmy released an updated appearance and grooming policy, known asAR 670-1. It applies to all Army personnel, including students at West Point and those serving in the R.O.T.C. and the National Guard.
No distinctions are made for race or ethnicity, only gender, in that the regulations regarding hair are divided between women and men. But it’s not hard to infer that certain sections pertain specifically to black women, since they refer to hairstyles like cornrows, braids, twists and dreadlocks, severely limiting or banning them outright.
While the Army certainly isn’t the first to impose these kinds of prohibitions, it may be the most egregious example, considering that the 26,000 black women affected by AR 670-1 are willing to die for their country. On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagelordered the entire military to review its hairstyle rules, after the women of the Congressional Black Caucus sent him a letter saying that the Army policy’s language was “offensive” and “biased” and strongly urging him to reconsider it. More than 17,000 people signed a petition submitted toWhiteHouse.govasking the Obama administration to review the policy.
The bias against black hair is as old as America itself. In the 18th century, British colonists classified African hair as closer to sheep wool than human hair. Enslaved and free blacks who had less kinky, more European-textured hair and lighter skin — often a result of plantation rape — received better treatment than those with more typically African features.
After Emancipation, straight hair continued to be the required look for access to social and professional opportunities. Most black people internalized the idea that their natural hair was unacceptable, and by the early 20th century wore it in straightened styles often achieved with dangerous chemical processes or hot combs, or they wore wigs.