Dear Editor,
Professor Stephen Vasciannie quoted legal precedents and plumbed the depths of erudite verbosity to justify the parent who insisted on sending her child to school with ‘wild’ hair like a California beach bum.
Essentially he said, I think, that it was an assertion of identity. His rococo rhetorical tower, however, was blasted to pieces by a simple question from a blogger. It was so to the point that it bears repetition. The question with a little embellishment from me was: Would the child’s mother (a doctor they say) employ as an office assistant someone with wild, uncombed hair, tattoos, nose rings, etc?
The point the blogger so succinctly makes is that the goodly doctor, and others who support the effort, are confusing the question of proper grooming in formal situations with the issue of ethnic identity.
To ask the child to appear with his hair appropriately groomed for school does no damage to black identity, and we should reject the arrogance of social anarchists who hold so strongly to that school of thought.
Orville E Brown
Bronx, USA
thewriter.brown@gmail.com
Professor Stephen Vasciannie quoted legal precedents and plumbed the depths of erudite verbosity to justify the parent who insisted on sending her child to school with ‘wild’ hair like a California beach bum.
Essentially he said, I think, that it was an assertion of identity. His rococo rhetorical tower, however, was blasted to pieces by a simple question from a blogger. It was so to the point that it bears repetition. The question with a little embellishment from me was: Would the child’s mother (a doctor they say) employ as an office assistant someone with wild, uncombed hair, tattoos, nose rings, etc?
The point the blogger so succinctly makes is that the goodly doctor, and others who support the effort, are confusing the question of proper grooming in formal situations with the issue of ethnic identity.
To ask the child to appear with his hair appropriately groomed for school does no damage to black identity, and we should reject the arrogance of social anarchists who hold so strongly to that school of thought.
Orville E Brown
Bronx, USA
thewriter.brown@gmail.com