This struck me as mildly outrageous for several reasons:
If this is so important, and a rule is a rule, why would it be enforced only for the graduation ceremony? If somebody looks so outrageous they should, I would assume, be banned from attending school period. And what is the logic behind the rule anyway? In the absence of dictating what hair style is acceptable, then doesn’t it require pictures of acceptable hairstyles? And who selects the hairstyles? Invariably those from another generation.
Well, some might say, ‘Some hairstyles represent hooliganism or gangs or wrong sexual orientation, or look threatening to others, or are just too different.” It reminded me of when the NBA outlawed head bands. When I was young I had a picture of Jesus Christ hanging in my bedroom. I know, no one knows what Christ looked like, but it didn’t stop people from selling pictures of Jesus. But when I saw the pic of this kid it reminded me of the picture of Jesus which used to hang in my bedroom, the long flowing hair, the far away look in his eyes—I mean he looked ‘prophet like’. But I guess ‘devil-like’ to others.
When I was teaching it was somewhat of a problem to convince many blacks that to be a good student was not ‘acting white’. It was not unusual for a really good black student to say nothing in class for fear of ‘acting white’. Right, how crazy is that? So here is some black student, I mean not real black looking, more a mutt of some sort, but an honor student, scheduled, I suppose, to give some sort of valedictorian speech, and he is essentially told, “If you are going to look like you looked everyday in class and on athletic teams—at graduation, then you can’t be on the stage.”
I probably would have had the same problem at that high school: “Look Reid, if you are going to look like you looked everyday in class, all dizzy eyed, plain assed, diminutive in stature, and a smart alecky grin, you cannot be on the stage. You need to first look like we want a honor student to look.” Wow, that would have been make-up big time, especially the honor’s student part.
This begs the question; “Is there any hairstyle which is unacceptable”? Of course, if it is worn when nude, or spells out an obscenity, or is clearly being done to ridicule a different culture, that sort of thing. Maybe that kid’s hair looks like a floor mop or something brought from Johnson and Johnson, but whatever it looks like to any particular person, we all have seen this hairstyle many times. In this day in age it is practically impossible to offend anyone with hairstyles. Being crazy different is almost becoming boring.
I have a boyhood friend whose hair is mountain style I guess, and I suppose if his son were an honor student at high school graduation giving a valedictorian speech, he might be told “You can’t come to the graduation for your son looking like that. Suppose some press person takes a picture of your son with you? Good point: the world would end for sure.
