GI’s wear Do-Rags. (Drive on Rags)
Students at a Pasadena, Calif. high school staged a walkout Wednesday morning to protest a district-wide dress code than bans do-rags — headscarves traditionally worn by black men.
The students, who attend John Muir High School, feel the ban stems from the assumption that do-rags are gang-related — and that the policy criminalizes young black men, according to the Twitter account for the school’s Black Student Union.
But the teens disagree, saying the scarves are part of the black cultural identity, as they’re used to create and protect a hairstyle known as “waves.” In fact, do-rags are also known as “wave caps.” Any association with gang activity is an old stereotype, they insist.
“They’re trying to take away who we are — our culture,” said student Felicia Davis to the Pasadena Star-News. “It is them trying to cleanse our ethnic beauty.”
“Them” in this scenario is the Pasadena School District, which issues the Pasadena Unified dress code, a policy that prohibits “hats, caps and other head coverings” from being worn indoors. The students feel the ban unfairly targets males particularly, as females are allowed to wear head coverings.
Though the policy does not mention do-rags specifically, its guidelines against gang-related apparel say that schools may ban “apparel that reasonably could be determined to threaten the health and safety of the school environment if it were worn or displayed on a school campus.” Administrators at John Muir High School are said to have extended this policy to do-rags.
More than 100 students participated in a peaceful walkout at 9:27 a.m. to protest the rule.
“The main reason we protest today is because we’re trying to stop the criminalization of black men on campus,” senior Reggie Myles of the Black Student Union told the Pasadena Star-News.