Can Bajans please get a life?

I have up to now avoided commenting on the 'issue' regarding Senator Damien Griffith's corn-rowed hairtstyle - mainly because I am amazed that this is an issue at all and I have been hoping it will just fade away.

But today's back page story in the Nation added more fuel to the fire, with the story of how the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic has banned students with locks or plaits from entering the school premises.

First thing - haven't we been through all of this already? I thought Liz Thompson had tackled that issue into submission back in the mid-90s when people gave her licks for wearing her hair in natural twists. People screamed then that the style was 'inappropriate' for a parliamentarian and Minister and that she was trying to look like a 'rude girl' and so on and so on.

I thought we had been through this already when Edwin Yearwood won every title in Crop-Over 95 and people put him through the wringer for what they perceived as a 'bad boy' hairstyle.

I really thought we had been through this and got past this already. It is 2008 right?

In the decade since then, we have made such strides that I notice more and more women at all levels of society are wearing their hair in natural styles and it's now mainstream, not marginal. I think the kicker for me was when I attended the Christmas luncheon of the Barbados Architects Society at the Barbados Yacht Club. Now architecture is still somewhat an upper middle class profession - there was a disproportionate number of white architects (disproportionate to their percentage of the population, I mean) and the fact that the luncheon was held at the Yacht Club spoke volumes. And the fact that of the black female architects there, all but one had her hair in dreadlocks or twists or some other natural style, showed me how far I thought we had come.

Hence I am amazed that this is becoming an issue. I am only heartened to see that more people are coming out against the backward comments of Garrison Secondary principal Matthew Farley than would have come out in defense back in the mid-90s.

Still I have heard far too many people sputtering and fuming about the Senator's hair style and saying it is not appropriate for someplace like Parliament. And I have to ask why?
What strikes me is that none of the people who have complained about his hairstyle have been able to articulate specifically what is wrong with Griffith's hairstyle. They only say it is inappropriate and it will lead to a drop in standards. What exactly makes his hair style inappropriate for the job at hand? Is Parliament supposed to be a place where your external appearance matters more than your intellectual capacity? Is it a catwalk? Is it a place where uniformity is part of the requirements so as to maintain order in every aspect? Is it the disciplined (armed)forces?

These people are refusing to acknowledge that the standards of what is 'appropriate' changes from generation to generation. There was a time when it was appropriate for European men to wear long hair, stockings and dress-like gowns. There was a time when it was not appropriate for women to wear pants. There was a time when it was not appropriate to go to church without a hat. All of these things have changes - I do not think it means that standards haev deteriorated - a change is not the same as deterioration. It just means they have changed.

Moreover, their comments smack of a sad, colonialist mindset that still seems to lurk in the shadows of our consciousness and tell us that we should be ashamed of whatever is inherently our culture. And this lurking mindset always seems to manifest itself most vociferously when it comes to hair (though there are other areas it manifests itself more quietly - for example, why is it in a tropical country that few workplaces and no schools allow people to wear arm-holed tops? What is so offensive about a shoulder?).

What exactly is wrong with Griffith's corn-rows? It is neatly done. By that same token, what is wrong with the hairstyles of the students at SJPP? I saw pictures of two of the young men in question and their hair is immaculately neat and pulled back so as to not get caught in any of the tools they would be using.

Furthermore, I find it absurd that at a TERTIARY INSTITUTION where grown adults (the young men in the paper are 22 and 24!) are PAYING for their courses, that they are being told how they must wear their hair.

I don't believe in this at the tertiary level. I do believe a certain level of uniformity is necessary in primary and secondary school for several reasons. One, that children can be exceptionally cruel, particularly if someone's appearance is even the slightest bit 'strange' and having a uniform helps maintain equality among the students and cut down on some cliquism. Two, that deciding how to dress and wear your hair should be a decision made by an adult for themselves - I do not think children, who do not have rights to make most other decisions for themselves, should be allowed to decide how they should be attired. Rights come with responsibilities and since children have few to none, they should wait until they have responbilities and can deal with the consequences of their decisions to be given certain rights.

But! When you are an adult, it should be up to you, within reason, to make these most basic decisions for yourself. Unless your decision on how to comport yourself causes unreasonable difficulty or distress to the institution or others with whom you interact at the institution (for example, an overly revealing outfit that might make someone who has to interact with you uncomfortable) why should you be prohibited from making that decision for yourself?

And why should others take issue with it?