Black women’s hair just keeps making news recently. Vanessa VanDyke, a young black girl in Orlando, Florida, was told by her school that she would be expelled if she didn’t change her “distracting” hairstyle. The only problem here is she wears her hair the way it grows from her scalp. She doesn’t try to make it distracting at all.

So, in essence, the school is requesting that she cut, chemically treat, or otherwise manipulate her hair with harmful products to make other students more comfortable. This seems both damaging to her self-worth and marginalizing at the same time. [Read more…]