Pop Culture

Hampton University Dean Bans Cornrows and Dreads Because "Martin Luther King Didn't Wear It"

*sarcastic slow clap*

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Complex Original

This is well beyond the generation gap, it's just flat-out sad. Sid Credle, the Dean of Hampton University's Business School, has banned MBA students from wearing cornrows or dreadlocks. If Credle has an issue with students choosing to wear their hair however they like at the Virginia historically black college, that's fine, but his opinion shouldn't be forced upon students. Especially when it's articulated like this:

His flawed argument really comes apart when he mentions Charles Drew, Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King, Jr. What do they have to do with this argument? Pusha T, RGlll and A$AP Rocky may very well be the only dudes who can get away with rockin' braids in 2012, but saying dreadlocks aren't a historically professional look or have no place in African-American history is way off. A man or woman with dreads can look far cleaner than the next man who's allergic to the barbershop or the next woman who just decided she didn't want to do her hair that day—or ever.

This opens the door for a bigger discussion about whether or not certain hairstyles are professional within and outside of the black community. At the same time, who is Credle to tell people to just cut their hair and expect them to do it? Good job once again, the "real" HU.

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