Featured Building an Anti-Racist Vocabulary Speaker

Wendy Greene, director of the Center for Law, Policy, and Social Action and professor of law at Drexel University

As an African descendant or Black woman, I can attest to the intergenerational ritual that Black women commonly experience throughout our girlhood, having our virgin or chemically untreated hair braided for endless hours at the knees of our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and cousins. My curly Afro puffs would be transformed into perfectly symmetrical braids by the parting of my hair with a fine-tooth comb, the smoothing of my hair with a hairbrush and hair grease, and the twisting of my hair in three parts by determined rhythmic fingers.

Like my brown skin, my Afro puffs and braids constituted an integral, almost inherent part of how I perceived and identified myself and how others in this world would view me. Though I felt liberated, beautiful, joyful, and empowered even at a young age, whenever I wore my virgin hair and Afro puffs and braids, I would later learn that I’ve lived in a world wherein my hair texture and hairstyles, which were completely natural and normal to me, or what I lovingly call my free hair, would likely not be met with the same appreciation by members of broader society.

Employers are essentially free to demand that African-descended men and women
either cover or cut off their natural hairstyles as a condition of employment.

And in turn, my free hair would be marked potentially as extreme, unprofessional, unkempt, and unauthorized to wear in workplaces and other spaces in the United States and around the world. Federal courts have boldly declared that when an employer denies an African descendant a job because she adorns an afro, the employer engages in unlawful race discrimination. However, the moment she twists, locks, or braids her hair and suffers adverse treatment on those grounds, the employer’s discrimination is deemed lawful.

Consequently, employers are essentially free to demand that African-descended men and women either cover or cut off their natural hairstyles as a condition of employment.