The scale of natural justice weighs negatively against the Ministry of Education for allowing 2019 to end without unambiguously prohibiting discrimination against natural African hair texture and basic African hairstyles, and mandating school administrators to root out the practice whenever it rears its ugly head. Ultimately, it might necessitate amending …
Read More »Dear Editor: It’s more than hair; why policing hairstyles in schools must stop!
“No one and no institution can please everyone, but all the bloodshed, genocide and ethnic violence due to both conscious and unconscious bias in the world should indicate to everyone with a sound mind, and especially to educators, that racism in any form, however subtle, needs to end. It must …
Read More »Dear editor: The issue of African hairstyles in T&T schools is neither resolved nor frivolous
“At issue is the widespread, pernicious and fundamentally racist belief that the hair and hairstyles of African people are not suitable for formal settings and are intrinsically messy, unkempt, unhygienic and even disruptive. The insidious nature of this deeply ingrained idea encapsulated in the popular phrase ‘bad hair’ guarantees that …
Read More »Daly Bread: Dante’s Inferno: Eggnog at St Ann’s, Bantu knots and Akiel Chambers
It was a surprise and perhaps something of a mark of appreciation that Noble Philip reminded readers of what I said in 2000, while I was in the Senate, about the shameful conditions at the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital. Insightful commentator that he is, Noble Philip lamented our lack of …
Read More »Gilkes: Post-colonial or decolonial? How tired racist standards persist in T&T
Wha allyuh vex with St Stephen’s College for? I give them right, full marks for their stance. Was it backward and discriminatory? Yeah. Was it disrespectful and, frankly, based on old racist ideas of beauty, comportment and respectability? Of course, duh. They no doubt would justify it on the grounds …
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