For years, black hairstyles have been weaponized to make the person that grows this hair feel inferior. As a result, a Georgia elementary school was hit with a wave of backlash after posting pictures of "inappropriate" and "appropriate" hairstyles.
Last week, hairstylist Danay Wadlington uploaded a picture showing a poster at Decatur's Narvie J. Harris Traditional Theme School that shows which hairstyles are permitted to wear and which ones aren't. This sparked outrage as only black children were featured on the posters.
According to NBC News, Wadlington's was sent the picture by a client and the post received over 4,000 shares before making its way to other social media sites.
"It wouldn’t have been so bad had they included other races, but the fact that those are all little black faces and those are traditional black hairstyles, makes it worse," Wadlington explained. "They already have them wearing uniforms, why not let them have some individuality with their hair."
As seen in the pictures, the inappropriate styles featured girls with long twists or braids and boys that choose to have tapered afros with (or without) designs. It is unclear if these are students who attend the school because their faces were covered with yellow sticky notes. But since the school's student body is 95 percent black, many people view these posters as culturally and racially insensitive.
"This type of display of cultural insensitivity is due to a lack of oversight, accountability, professional decorum and quite frankly, care and concern for the social and emotional impact of black children by this school’s leadership and PTA," Atlanta educator, Jason Allen, said in a statement. "Imagine being a black boy greeted by this?"
According to the Dekalb County School District officials that govern Narvie J. Harris Traditional Theme School, this is not indicative of their grooming policies.
"The images depicted in this post in no way reflect a policy regarding appearance," officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "This was a miscommunication at the school level and is being handled by school leadership. Nontraditional schools at (the DeKalb County School District) sometimes have the option to enforce dress code and style standards."
Although the school district would not disclose who was responsible for ratifying the rules at Narvie J. Harris, Wadlington does believe that the poster has be been taken down.
