Hooray for her!!!!!! I am glad that someone of prestige and character took a stand against this incredibly belittling code. As a professional black woman I understand the need to appear well groomed and pulled together. I go to work rocking my very beautiful afro puff, twist or twist out. As I said before to equate braids or an afro to being unprofessional to me is simply self-hate. As blacks we do need to conform to main stream society to some extent. But must we give up our identity to have a career?
Unprofessional is a man strolling up in my office for an interview wearing a dangly earring, black jeans and white sneakers for an office position. Unprofessional is a woman trying to land a job as an admin. assistant while simulataneously trying to strangle me with her overwhelming perfume and sporting her bright pink lipstick and showing me way more of her thigh than I would care to see. Teach your students how to dress for success, Hampton. Teach them how to articulate themselves and they will be okay.
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Originally posted by CrimsonTide4
http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur25880.cfm
Susan L. Taylor, the editorial director of Essence magazine, pulled out of a speaking engagement at Hampton University recently after learning of its policy on acceptable hairstyles for students in the five-year master's of business administration program.
"Braids, dreadlocks and other unusual hairstyles are not acceptable" is the university's policy as reported by Journalism's Richard Prince on April 12. Taylor, who has worn long braids for years, decided to protest the rule by withdrawing her participation at the school's 28th Annual Conference on the Black Family held last month.
"I recently withdrew my participation in the 28th Annual Conference on the Black Family at Hampton University,"
"I began receiving emails from numerous sources advising me of disturbing regulations disallowing locks and braided hairstyles for Hampton students," Taylor told Murray for his Monday BV Buzz column. "One such email included an Associated Press story headlined: 'University Bans Certain Hairstyles for Students.' As a businesswoman and public figure who has proudly worn my hair braided for more than 25 years, I was incredulous and felt insulted. My executive assistant, Debra Parker, contacted the university for clarification, and when she was advised that this was the school's policy, I easily made the decision to cancel my visit.
"The freedom to wear our hair in ways that celebrate our heritage is one of our 'rites of passage.' Students would benefit from learning how to care for and groom locks and braids and wear them in ways that are appropriate in a business setting," Taylor wrote on March 28.
Taylor said she even recommended that Dr. William R. Harvey, the university president, "reconsider this policy and invite informed image consultants to address students in your business program about how to make individual style work in the corporate environment. Perhaps the greatest challenge . . . students will face in the work world is remaining whole and true to themselves in environments that are often hostile to African-Americans. Staying connected to our community and culture is critical. Trying to transform themselves to fit into hardly welcoming environments has scarred countless numbers of Black people."
Ultimately, Dean Sid Credle of the Hampton School of Business is standing by the code, "and said a more clean-cut look can be an asset to almost any student seeking advancement in the corporate world," wrote Ieesha Mckinzie in a March 27th story on Black College Wire.
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