On September 15, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Catastrophe Management Solutions (CMS) decision to refuse to hire Chasity Jones, a black woman from Mobile, Alabama who was discriminated against by a white human resource manager that had an issue with her dreadlocks. The U.S Court of Appeals also ruled “Employers Don’t Have a Right to Wear Dreadlocks”. The human resource manager told Jones that the dreadlock hairstyle “tends to get messy from time to time, although I’m not saying yours are, but you know what I’m talking about.” How can anyone of another culture, deem a person’s hair that grows out of their head as ‘messy’. They cannot. In fact, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that “It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer:
(1) To fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or
(2) To limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
I don’t believe that dreadlocks are “messy,” and it’s sad that the dominate society has deemed a physiologically, and culturally cultivated style of hair, that can be traced all the way back to ancient Africa, is known as messy and associated with negative stereotypes. The style was also found in ancient Egypt. Anthropologists have revealed mummies with their hair still intact with locks. Many believed that energy (presumably life force energy) exits the body through the top of the head and that having knotted hair prevents or retards the escape of energy making one stronger and even potentially imbuing a person with supernatural mental and physical abilities. Others just rock it simply because the style carries a unique image for each and every individual who chooses to grow them. A lot of African Americans are descendants of Jamaican roots, so African religious tradition has heavily influenced the culture of Rastafarianism and biblical themes have heavily influenced the religion’s belief system. The most famous Rastafari is arguably Bob Marley, whose reggae music gained the Jamaican movement international recognition. For many Rastafarians, growing dreadlocks teaches patience and is also a spiritual journey.
The U.S Court of Appeals has definitely stirred the pot with this one. This is a form of discrimination that tends to be overlooked simply because the dominate society doesn’t like the way dreadlocks look. This means that countless African American women, and men will be discriminated against with employers refusing to hire them because of their hair and not by their potential work ethic. Many have lost jobs and still cannot get a job due to the discrimination of dreadlocks. We are tired of having to defend ourselves constantly and try to survive through the eyes of those who already have a preconceived notion of who and what black people are. We, as a people ,cannot let this continue to go on. We must stand for what is naturally ours.