Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding.
I am your host, ramses.
Jockey is ramses Jah. I am q Ward. You are tuned into Civic Ciphers.
You are, and we have another interesting show in store for you today, so please stick around. We are going to be discussing something that bothered me quite a bit this week. You know, I'm not easily bothered. Well, I guess I'm always bothered, but this one really bothered me.
You'd have to be a lot less aware to be less bothered.
Yeah, yeah, but this one, this one really did rub me the wrong way.
There is a student, a black student, that was suspended over his locks, his hairstyle in Texas and on this show.
Famously, I've really been.
On top of stories like this, national stories where you know, people come under scrutiny for their hairstyle because you know, our hair grows different and I famously have a ton of hair, and so I feel like I kind of got to, you know, protect those that end up in the cross hairs. There. Oh that's fun. Yeah, So we're going to talk about that story and the implications, and we're also going to talk about cultural appropriation, you know, and why that's a big deal and it's because of
stories like this. I'll make the connection for you in just a bit. We're also going to be talking about the mister Ronnie Long conviction. He was convicted and he had his conviction overturned after being in prison for forty four years, and they tried to say sorry with seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which was insulting and insane.
Yeah, because forty four years is not worth that.
But you know, we have the whole story to tell, and I promise there it gets deep because we were talking about wrongful convictions and rates and everything.
So stay tuned for all of that and more.
The first and foremost, like we always do with this time, let's discuss some ebony excellence, shall we?
We shall?
You want to grab this one? This one's kind of fun.
This week's ABNY Excellence sponsored by Actively Black. There's greatness in our DNA www dot actively black dot com. This story is from TMZ. George Clinton is forever exton Hollywood history. Now it's about time. He just got his star on the famous stretch of pavement with a lister's names up and down the boulevard known as the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The pigpunk legend was just honored with a star on the Walk, and his Friday ceremony drew a huge crowd
with an even bigger celebration. We're not kidding either, There was a massive swath of people lining the block to peek this. Of course, George commanded attention with his sparkling color form. You dazzled with outfit shining from his shoes to his pants, to his shirt, to his jacket all the way up to his headwear. This amazing icon is eighty two years old and does not look at trust me. As you know, George has been leaving his mark on.
Music since the nineteen sixties.
He was huge in the nineteen seventies and had a rebirth recently in the Trolls movie franchise. Now Home is finally getting his Now the homie, as they stated it, it's finally getting his dude from La La Land with a certified star on the ground. Just a quick list of his band's hits, Give Up the Funk, Flashlight, Aquaboogie, Tom mcdogg. Can you dig it? Can you get to that mothership connection?
And we could go.
On for hours talking about George Clinton and p funk hits. So it's good to see him finally getting his recognition. Check out TMZ's gallery for more pictures. Shout out to George Clinton, man, I could be timeless music.
Yeah, I got a chance to see him in concert once and.
Shout out to Parliament.
And if you're one of our younger listeners and you don't know who he is, he basically the guy everybody on the West Coast sampled in the nineties. Absolutely, all right, So first order of business, let's talk about this black student that was suspended over his hair locks. Well, the reason that this story stood out to me is because.
The superintendent pushed back.
Okay, so we hear stories like this all the time where there's a student that ends up in some kind of trouble because of a hairstyle whatever, and then you know, they work it out and then it's it's fine, or they don't work it out and the student has to leave the district because, as it turns out, there are just some places that don't want to bend. In this instance, the principle pushed back. So let me tell you a little bit more about the story before we break it
down into pieces. So I'm gonna read a bit from the messenger. Right, Texas school district superintendent defends the continued suspension of a black student over his locks, hairstyle, and a full page newspaper ad paid for by an education foundation. Okay, real quick locks used to be known as dreadlocks, but the word dread wasn't a word that we used in
describing him. There were always locks. We would lock our hair, and so if you're familiar with the term dreadlocks, that is now a bona fide offensive term.
We just go with locks. Okay.
Darryl George has been suspended repeatedly by the barber Hill Independent School District for his hair. The teen's family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, saying the punishment violates the Crown Act, an acronym for a creator respectful an open world from natural hair, which became law in Texas in September. We have actually covered the past of the Crown Act on this show. It's a federal law, it's federal protection anyway.
The law is intended to prohibit race based hair discrimination, but the school said the law does not address hair length and that is the reason for George's suspension. However, photos of George show him wearing his hair up in a way that does not reach below his ears. The ad that appeared Sunday in the Houston Chronicle was written by district Superintendent George Poole.
Quote.
Being an American requires conformity with the positive benefit of unity, he stated, referencing strict codes at the military academies. The district's policy doesn't prohibit students like George from wearing locks or braids, but it does limit hairstyles for boys, banning anything quote that would allow the hair to extend below the top of a T shirt collar, below the eyebrows,
or below the ear lobes when let down. Okay, So this is the position that the super intendent is taking, taking out a full page ad to basically say no, this is a violation of the rules.
Okay, And where I how this hit me? Is so hard to say this? Okay. When something is racist, we will say it's racist. Okay.
When there's an example of racism, we'll say it's an example of racism. But I often worry that when we're talking to particularly non black listeners on this show, that if they cannot see the overt racism, then they might push back and say, oh, these guys are just calling
everything racism, and that's why we need to have today's conversation. Okay, it is possible for a person to be racist, for racism to exist, and the person doing it either not know not intend for it to be racism, or be you know, interpreted that way, or they might hide behind
things like these these rules, these technicalities. I don't want to say rules, because rules of rules, that's fair, but these technicalities, right, and then you start having these back and forth as you know, Q, I've been kind of on our social media real heavy, and there's a lot of people that will pick apart any facet of a
conversation that they can sink their teeth into. And yet and still wrong is wrong and right is right right, So if they want to argue a little tiny point of an argument, it doesn't mean that the entire statement that I've made aid or that the right thing is not right anymore. Okay, the truth is the truth. It doesn't need to be perfect. It can just be the truth right and the right thing is the right thing. So here's where I have to just kind of lean into this.
This is racism, okay.
And I respect that you know, you may not see it that way, But racism requires a power dynamic. Okay, this superintendent has power in the equation. Okay, This isn't prejudice, prejudices just I don't like you, you don't like me. Racism means I have power and I can limit your reality, your life, your prospects, et cetera, using that power, and it will be used specifically based on your race.
It would be used against you based on your race. Okay.
Now, briefly, I want to share something with you. Okay, you might be looking for in your racism. You might be looking for the inWORD. You might be looking for again the overt racism. But there are blind.
Spots that exist in a lot of people's realities.
One blind spot that existed for me, even for a long time, is that locks are a part of Rastafari religion. Right, so it is an expression of their faith, not unlike seek people. Okay, if for those unfamiliar with Seek people, these are the people that will often wear their hair in turbans, and they don't believe in cutting their hair so they'll have long beards and long hair. The men and the women, they just do not cut their hair for their whole life, right, and they are protected as
a result. That's freedom of religion, right. But blind spots to people like the superintendent who may not have delved ever into any facet of black culture beyond I saw rap music videos when I was in college, you know, because my friends watch them. May not be aware that the locking of your hair is a permanent commitment when you have hair like ours.
If you have straight hair, you can unlock the hair.
I've done it to Asian women, shout out to April, she's married to Andre three thousand and now. But for black hair will not unlock. It is permanent. It is a commitment. And for those people who are Rastafari, it is symbolic like the lion. It's just my hair will be here and I'll grow my dreads or my locks. Sorry, this is as long as nature will allow, right. So
I wanted to make sure that I said that first. Next, I wanted to make sure that I established that this view of hair is a very Eurocentric view of hair. This is what our hair looks like. When it's when it's shaped a certain way. This is the styles that we like. So you conform to our hairstyles because he remember he said that, what does he say? Being an American requires conformity? I love that statement, because being an American requires conformity to what exactly.
By?
Who isn't even better?
Bye? Who? Thank you? Thank you? And let's be factual here.
If you get to decide what the conformity looks like, that limits me. If in fact, my hair grows differently, I cannot change the nature of my hair growth. It just grows that way, right, And so we start to understand what racism is, even if there is no intentionality behind it. It is an act that is in and of itself racist. Right, you have the power, and you get to decide, from your eurocentric viewpoint what hair styles are allowed. When my hair doesn't grow like yours, it
cannot grow like yours. Your hair cannot grow like mine. We are two different people.
Being able to dictate what conformity means, right right.
Wow, that'd be like me saying your hair can only be brown or blonde. Me saying that, and then someone shows up with red hair and me saying, your hair can only be brown or blonde conformity. Well, if your hair grows out of your head red, then there's probably something wrong with the rule.
Okay.
And if I impose that on you still, then there's your example of racism, because I'm the one with the power, right, and there's no one listening that would say that's fair. Oh yeah, Well, if you decide that's the rules and redheads can't participate.
No one would say that.
Okay. Now, I know we're talking about hair length, and I talked about the hair length that people that lock their hair. The idea is for the hair to grow and locks is a protected style, the very idea of it.
The more interesting thing is that the language in this conformity or this rule states that it's a certain length when worn down, an intentional stipulation. Yeah, so that you cannot pin up, tie up, right up, or lock up your hair. So to avoid this us enforcing this very very targeted rule.
On you right now, flip this. Uh you know?
I well, will you know, if you're able to get to our podcasting platforms, we'll have a picture of Daryl George up so that you can see this beautiful young man and his hair is hair is dope right now. Now, to me, you know, that's not offensive. It's it looks amazing, to be honest with you. But to someone with let's say, white supremacist values, let's be fair, and a eurocentric viewpoint,
it might seem offensive. Okay, And we I recognize that these educators need to get students ready to go out into the real world, and they're trying to push whatever.
I don't know what it is.
But what we're saying, not just me and Q, what black people, brown people, marginalized people have been saying is that the world needs to conform to us because we were born like this. This is how we show up.
Okay.
So this superintendent has the opportunity to move first and has chosen instead to double down by taking out an ad in the paper.
He's getting sued by the.
Way, all right, Oh, I wanted to make this point too, because when he says that we have to conform, being an American requires conformity with the effort going toward unity. Everybody has to conform except for one group.
With the effort going towards unity. Of course.
Okay.
So the funniest thing about this statement by far and away is that he says, being an American requires conformity, America, the land of the free. Being American requires conformity. I want to say that again, America, the land of deformity was the entire reason that they broke away from Great Britain in the first place.
Listen, man, you see what I'm saying.
So this is why I pray the way that they wanted to and live the way that they want to, not be taxed without representation, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. All these unalienable rights reserved only for them, which we have to continue to revisit all of these things. And listen, and the Bill and rights of the Constitution to all of these great freedoms that we are supposed to enjoy as citizens of this country, designed for buy and to the benefit of a singular group throughout the entire history of
this country. And it remains.
Yeah.
Now I mentioned that I was going to talk about cultural appropriation. Okay, let me see how I want to break this down for you. Okay, as you know are longtime listeners of the show. If if you've listened to the show for some time, you know that I belong to some really far right racist.
Message boards on the Internet.
The reason for that is that I need to know what racist plan people. These are openly racist people. They say the most vile things about everybody, even their own you know, people, other white people.
It's a really hateful group.
It's really sad that I have to be there, but I have to be there because I need to know what these folks are talking about.
Well, they have to be there, well for the sake of the show.
And I go there. I go there so you don't have to think I got you trapped. No no, no, no no, I go there this hate group. No no, I go there for the benefit of the show and our listeners. But well they send me the messages.
But anyway, I remember a post being made about.
Cultural appropriation in there, like why are black people always mad about cultural appropriation?
And Native people?
You can't wear Native this and Asian costumes for Halloween cultural appropriation And then it showed a black woman with blonde hair, and they're like trying to say that this is reverse cultural appropriation, right, Okay, don't.
Make my point. Worst people ever to play Oh no with man.
Listen, And I want to say that that's not the same as.
Maybe white people with locks.
Okay, Now, cultural appropriation is tricky because I do recognize and respect that there are some people who don't belong to a certain culture that want to celebrate that culture. Indeed, I mentioned there was an Asian woman who locked her hair and I helped her comb it out.
Right.
I don't think that she was a bad person, you know whatever, And of course that was in the nineties or whatever. But I recognize that cultural appropriation is tricky. But for folks to push back, I want to offer this The argument is that black sorry that white folks can copy black people hairstyles and ways of dressing and so forth without the risk, and often enough, if a black person is copying something from a white person, that
is that sort of conformity that not as placed on us. Indeed, it's a necessity often enough for us to be able to survive in this country with its visible and invisible
white supremacist racist influences. And so you know, there's country book in the countries around the world where people will lighten their skin, people will straighten their hair, people will do all kinds of stuff to look the part, to try to get more access whatever it is that everybody's playing the same game, and the game is unfair and rigged in favor of people who were born with that set of genetics, right, And what we're pushing back against is that that should not be the only way for
a person to be viewed as acceptable. That should not be the only path to success. And indeed, the framework that exists right now limits artificially people from being who they were born to be, living the fullness of the life that they deserve to live in the body in which they were born. And when white people, often it's white people, but other people can culturally appropriate. When people do that, it feels like they're just taking a bit of it instead.
Of living it.
They don't live it, like where it's like you have to deal with getting kicked out of school because you decided to wear your hair locked, you know. And again, we don't talk about all the stories that come this way. It takes a national story for us to make a point, and in this case, in particular, a national story where the superintendent doubled down by taking out an ad in
the paper. And so I hope that this gives you a little bit more of an idea of a how important hair is to me, but also how important hair is to black people. We've done the history of hair, how they used to braid, their different tribal signatures and the hair and all so forth. It's very important to black people historically speaking and still today. And we hope you're better for having this conversation with us.