In a house sorely divided, bracing for an election amid a reality-upending pandemic, is there such a thing as good news? This week the Breonna Taylor grand jury outcome set off anguish and protests across Louisville and beyond; meanwhile, thousands turned out to mourn Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Washington, D.C. The head hangs heavy—but with Monday’s passage of the CROWN Act in the U.S. House of Representatives, there was at last something meaningful to celebrate.
The legislation, now pending Senate approval, bars discrimination on the basis of hair textures or styles commonly associated with a certain race or national origin. If, in theory, federal law already offers such protection, the courts’ narrow rulings haven’t always confirmed that to be the case. In day-to-day life, unequal treatment often plays out unchecked. There are subtle indignities (a retail employee chastised for her braids in 2017) and school days lost (a student suspended for his locs this past winter; he was later invited to the Oscars by Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade). Mirroring so many instances of racial injustice, what is caught on video holds the national attention, as when a high school referee in 2018 threatened to disqualify a teenage wrestler for his locs. The coerced haircut—done with scissors on the spot—was quietly brutal; he went on to win the match.
“In a country that’s supposed to be trying to fight against racial injustices and systemic racism, this is another one of those examples of how Black people—Black men and women—are discriminated against,” Congresswoman Barbara Lee, a cosponsor of the House bill, said in a call from Washington earlier this week. Lee, 74, understands the landscape. In the 1960s, newly relocated to California, she enlisted the NAACP’s help to become the first Black cheerleader at her high school. Later, with a cloudlike Afro, she campaigned for Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 presidential bid; the following year, Lee helped fundraise for Bobby Seale’s mayoral run in Oakland—a city that now falls in her district.
Congresswoman Lee, speaking with reporters earlier this year.
By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images.“When I first came to Congress [in 1998],” said Lee, describing her natural hair, “I was told by—you would not believe it—members of Congress: ‘You know, you don’t look like a member of Congress.’ I was told that by others on the outside too. It was really shocking to me.” The newly passed bill in the House is part of a multipronged campaign for the CROWN Act. Seven states have thus far passed their own laws, beginning with California in July 2019. Senator Cory Booker introduced a similar bill in December. There is a coalition of advocates to credit, including Color of Change, the National Urban League, the Western Center on Law & Poverty, and Dove. According to Dove’s research, Black women are 80% more likely than white women to feel compelled to change their hair in order to fit in at the office.
Lee acknowledged pushback at a moment when the government is grappling with so much else. “You can listen to some of the debate from [Monday],” she said, recalling Jim Jordan of Ohio and others sounding off in dissent. “They were trying to minimize it by saying, ‘We don’t discriminate against people. This should be included in Title VII anyway,’” Lee paraphrased. (Jordan went further, towing the tired Republican line that “Democrats are doing nothing to address the violence and unrest in the streets of our cities,” while instead “we have a bill to federalize hairstyle—federalize hairstyle!”) As Lee sees it, “there are so many issues that we have to deal with all of the issues,” from pandemic-related unemployment to coronavirus testing. “The murder of Mr. George Floyd, Black and brown men and women being shot by police: Systemic racism is something that’s continuous that we have to fight.”