Afro Hair Should Be a Protected Characteristic, Says Campaign Backed by Mel B
Afro hair should be made a protected characteristic, according to a campaign backed by ex-Spice Girl Mel B. The Telegraph has more.
The World Afro Day (WAD) group has written to MPs calling on them to amend the 2010 Equality Act to add the specification for afro hair.
More than 100 public figures, including Mel B, Beverley Knight, Patrick Hutchinson, Fleur East, Evelyn Forde and Prof Patrick Vernon, have signed an open letter to the Government supporting the change.
The group argues that while race is already a protected characteristic, schools and workplaces can still unfairly target people of colour due to their natural hair.
Mel B said she was proud to support WAD having been told before a video shoot during the Spice Girls’ heyday that she had to change her hair.
“The very first video shoot I did as a Spice Girl for Wannabe, the stylists took one look at my hair and told me it had to be straightened,” the pop star said.
“My big hair didn’t fit the pop star mould. But I stood my ground – backed by my girls – and I sang and danced as me, with my big hair, my brown skin and I was totally proud of who I was.
“So yes, I’m proud to support World Afro Day in its call for the Equality Act to protect against afro hair discrimination in the U.K.”
Worth reading in full.
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Today’s joke, clickbait headline. Tomorrow’s policy.
Welcome to UK 2024.
Being annoying and gobby will be protected characteristics next.
For some it is already a protected characteristic, it comes under the title of Parliamentary Privilege.
So long as it is left wing gobby.
Sadly not if you are white, working-class.
As has been shown recently
So presumably if my view at the cinema, a uni lecture or perhaps at Lord’s (£95 for a ticket) is blocked by an Afro I’ll be arrested for complaining?
You will be arrested, convicted and sentenced before leaving the cricket ground and the van that collects you will whip you off to prison.
There is no such thing as ‘Afro’ hair – this is racist as it implies all Africans’ hair is the same and as illustrated. This certainly is not so.
In any case Mel B, pet, 18th Century Europe got there way ahead of you.
PS. Just stop sticking your fingers into electricity sockets.
One of the pupils who were in secondary school together with me had exactly the kind of hair wrongly described as African here and he was of unquestioningly German origin. The German term for this is krauses Haar.
“Krauses Haar” just means “frizzy hair”, which Ethnic Europeans can have, but it NEVER naturally sticks out a foot in all directions of its own accord, including straight up in the air, except in Ethnic Africans, whose hair texture is unique to their huge ethnic group.
I assure you, it does. I called this balloon hair in an older comment. When he refrained from cutting his hair for long enough, the guy looked exactly like “Mel B” above, just with a lot more hair.
It’s very easy to deliberately fluff up frizzy hair, using a combing method favoured in the 1950s called “ratting” or “teasing” hair. Hairspray also holds it aloft.
That’s probably what this ex-spice ex-girl did. After all, she probably hasn’t appeared in public without holding a lengthy conference with a bunch of expert stylists first since some time in the 1990s and her hairdo looks really flimsy compared with the real thing.
:->
You’re right, it does look flimsy!
Would welcome Fr Calvin’s comments here as he is one who used to have a most impressive ‘afro’ haircut, now sadly tamed and trimmed down
You mean one of the most boring people who used to be on TV?
Afro hair did not suit him either.
The man needs a professional makeover and to ditch his boring opinions.
It’s not a question of racism, but of extreme hairstyles that BLOCK OTHER PEOPLE’S VIEW, especially in classrooms, theatres and auditoriums. They are also a SAFETY HAZARD in many professions, and cannot be accommodated by safety helmets or uniform headgear.
It’s the same problem with Sikh Turbans, which are NOT a religious requirement, but just a traditional fashion, useless in warfare, because easily knocked off.
Is it protected even if it has been straightened and/or combined with “weave”?
Let’s have “Beer Belly Day”
Male pattern baldness could be a protected characteristic except that it’s male. And of course the Russian autocrat would have to be protected as well.
Common sense, a very rare commodity
So if you are at the theatre or movies and cannot see the screen or stage this means complaining to the management might get you prosecuted or sued.
In that case, so should blonde hair.
Could “people of colour” please stop dying their hair blonde. It looks ridiculous, anyway.
“The very first video shoot I did as a Spice Girl for Wannabe, the stylists took one look at my hair and told me it had to be straightened,”
Bullshit. As if you’re the first pop star to have afro hair.. How about Diana Ross, Jackson Five, The Meters, Stevie Wonder, Althea & Donna,The Supremes and the entire 1970’s and 80’s disco movement you talentless race baiting cretin.