RAINBOW ENGLISH MEDIUM BANS AFRO

It is painful how every day we seem to drive away from our culture and we let those who influence such get away with it. Historically, Africans, as in every culture, developed hairstyles from our natural hair that defined status, or identity, in regards to age, ethnicity, wealth, social rank, marital status, religion, fertility, adulthood, and death.

Hair was carefully groomed by those who understood the aesthetic standard, as the social implications of hair grooming were a significant part of community life. Dense, thick, clean, and neatly groomed hair was something highly admired and sought after. Hair groomers possessed unique styling skills, allowing them to create a variety of designs that met the local cultural standards. Hair was usually dressed according to local culture. we seem to be loosing our sense of culture due to people always looking down on natural hair as if its bad hair. 

I personally don’t understand how Afro hairstyle affects anything with the learning environment. Schools should focus on producing excellent leaders of tomorrow rather than who wears what kind of hairstyle to school. If I may go on to ask what is wrong with Afro, I believe we use a lot of things to identify ourselves and hair included, how then do you feel the right to tell one how to express them self especially after they decided to not go to a government school and pay thousands of pulas to learn freely, comfortably and flexibly.

This is a true violation of freedom of expression. This disappoints even more when in actual fact the school identifies its self as a multicultural school. Indians, Chinese, American just to mention a few are allowed to wear their hair however they pleases why can’t Africans be allowed to embrace their culture and wear their hair as it is. It’s not like Afro is something you walk in the saloon to do to your hair its natural hair what are you implying is wrong with Afro. Why not say it should be tidy and worn in its natural color or black.

Where is the multicultural aspect in now telling a specific group of people to stop wearing their hair naturally rather conform to the western culture? We are Africans it’s high time we are allowed to embrace it. What is the school trying to teach our future leaders that Afro is not formal, that it’s not ok and that long straight hair is and braiding your hair is? One should be able to express themselves how they want as long as it does not affect or infuence anyone negatively.

This whole no Afro issue is going to divide and agitate pupils because some will feel discriminated and oppressed something our fore fathers has fought so hard in eliminating. People deserve to feel equal everywhere they are, we should stop moving back in time and realize that we live in a new age and era where we have rights and one of them being freedom of expression.

I continue to ask, what is wrong with Afro and how does it affect ones learning process, after all it’s just natural hair.