Dear racist, it’s 2024, so please get out of my dreadlocked hair

I remember going for my first job interview three months after graduation and facing the dilemma of what to do with my Afro, which is my hair’s natural state.

Back then, 2006, which isn’t actually that long ago, images of working professionals were very different to what we see now, and Afros were not the norm.

Many of my contemporaries also faced this situation, and some were even told that their dreadlocked hair was undesirable in the workplace because it brought with it negative connotations of smoking weed and being dirty. Instead, slicked-back hair that was contorted and chemically pressed into “acceptable” sleek styles – often ones conforming to Western ideals – was viewed as looking professional.

Some of us were brave enough to withstand this pressure and challenged employers who tried to enforce these preferences, and so we managed to maintain autonomy over our own bodies, but many couldn’t dare.

This is why, like every other black person, I was outraged when Pretoria High School for Girls tried to force black pupils not to wear their natural Afros to school in 2016. It felt regressive and served as a reminder of our colonial past in which black people were forced to bend to the system of whiteness that sought to divorce us from our African identity and renounce our blackness.

Most of all, however, my then 34-year-old self was pained to the point of tears that a new generation of children were being subjected to this racial injustice, just as we had been. I remember penning an article that was published in the now defunct The Daily Vox. I am even more angered that these words bear repeating today. 

I wrote: “My heart hurts for all the black little girls and boys out there whose identities are being broken and invalidated by illegitimate white educationists intent on snuffing out blackness. What are our children being told when instructed not to embrace their natural hair?

“They are being told that Africanness and blackness is something to be restrained and feared, something to be fought and resisted, an undesirable, a threat… No learner should have to take on a system designed to further an oppressive agenda.”

So now, when we fast-forward to the present day and we are facing yet another furore over alleged racism at the same school, one can only question educators’ commitment to a progressive, non-racist school environment. Another hair incident at Johannesburg’s Jeppe High School for Girls, in which similar issues were raised, occurred the previous week.

Read more: ‘It’s heartbreaking,’ says Pretoria Girls High parent as school faces fresh allegations of racism

Read more: Gauteng education department ‘disappointed’ as 12 Pretoria High School for Girls learners cleared

These are just two examples among many other allegedly racist incidents in schools that should concern not just black people, but all of us. They should be challenged because they have no place in the society we are fighting so hard for – a nurturing one that provides safety and a sense of belonging to children in order to ensure they grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted adults.

Hair is a political issue the world over, and no less so in South Africa as a result of our divisive history. Such a relic of the past has no place in our pursuit of unity, non-racism and social cohesion, and must be condemned with the disdain it deserves. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.