The Tribune

By Stanley Cartwright

THE Principal’s office isn’t simply for guidance and discipline anymore. In one Nassau school, for one female student, the principal became the beautician and the beast, stirring up much ire after she suggested that the young’s girl’s hair, in its natural state seemed “unkempt”.

This event was unfortunate, because the war on relaxing does not seem as if it will be relaxing anytime soon, as the “going natural” trend has become more popular than it has ever been. This movement, which has encouraged black women to love the natural state of their hair, has been a silent but pervasive march against gender inequality, vilifying of the black identity, and female self-loathing.

What was fortunate, however, was that a group of students discovered that their voices could become a vessel for positive change. Students who rallied behind the young woman to ensure that her hair would not be the reason she did not receive an education, found themselves engaged in a peaceful protest for what they believed was the right thing. Whether they understood that this is what they were accomplishing is a question for the school and its principal.

The school seems to have missed an important opportunity to encourage these students for doing something many Bahamians are afraid to do: to stand up against what they consider to be injustice. The principal missed an opportunity to go back and hail this young woman for standing up for something she believed was right, because authority is not always right for authority’s sake.

The problem is that much of the Caribbean is still in a post-colonial meltdown. And many women (this principal may be included) are still searching for the missing pieces of the equality puzzle. The struggle to fully internalize the black-female identity continues in the Caribbean, and is fuelled by the what we see happening to our brothers and sisters in the United States.

As slavery came to an end in the US and Jim Crow reared its ugly head, black women were taught to hate their hair. Black women were led to believe that hair that appears more Caucasian (long, flowing, devoid of curls) was a key to their advancement. That quasi-lie persists today. It is quasi because while black women have been victimized and subjugated based on the appearance of their hair, in many cases their advancement has depended on them conceding to that bias. However, it is a lie of inhumane proportions, propagated and personified by western society for centuries. Those centuries implanted an idea in the DNA of black culture that evolution has finally seen fit to cleave from the black gene pool. The rise of groups and forums supporting natural hair over the past several years has been astonishing.

The social media hashtag that was borne out of the principal’s misaligned criticism - #supportthepuff - has invoked an important conversation in the Bahamas. And one that is timely and important.

In a time where Bahamian women have spent far too much money on wigs, so much so that it has become the brunt of local humour; in a time when we continue to see women and young girls destroy their scalps with chemicals, comes an important opportunity to destroy a decades-old albatross weighing on the neck of black women.

As this country comes closer to re-examining a bill on Gender Equality, this “support the puff” movement should have jumpstarted those advocates and groups who would have used its growing influence to open the conversation on gender inequality. Large internet media houses picked up the story of the young girl and the principal, but none mentioned the struggle for equality that this country continues to face. Nothing directed the narrative into the wider spectrum of the gender disparity.

This Principal, who is also the head of the Public School Principal’s Association, had even more responsibility to handle this situation with resonant objectivity. This was more important given her alleged unwavering stance against natural hair. There have been unsubstantiated reports of this principal suggesting to young women that chemically relaxed hair is the key to their success. This is not her call. And this thinking has been challenged and disproved time and again in today’s changing society.

Alas, Bahamians - especially Bahamians given some semblance of power - often have a difficult time changing their rationale. Tunnel vision and pride affects those who might potentially be pegged as misguided in their thoughts and actions. And so they become even more guarded and silent, as the principal has become. They become mute, as the Ministry of Education, and its Minister has become on this issue. They have once again missed an opportunity to stand for something great, because it is customary for our leaders to be reactionary and defensive; to save face instead of concede with grace that their initial assessment of a situation might have been wrong. Where are the leaders who see the value in the lesson and in accountability? This was a chance for the Minister of Education to stand tall amongst his peers and to stand behind a cause that matters.

The principal said publicly that she is trying to prepare her students for the job market – an admission that deserves a scathing grimace towards our public school system. Private schools have always been preparing their students for the transition to college. And while it is naive to think that every student will have that opportunity, it is national suicide to suggest that we have given up on trying.

And it is lunacy to suggest to impressionable young high school women that once your hair is acceptable, employers will simply welcome you with open arms. This thinking is hopefully not a common thread that binds this chief of principals to the rest of her team. As educators and hopefully scholarly thinkers, it is expected that her other principals are able to decide their own values, and important that she places this matter above her pride and ego.

What is equally disturbing about this situation is that when the principal made this admission about the future of these young women (once they can control their hair), many Bahamians nodded in agreement. Based on social media comments following the fracas, many Bahamians thought the young lady and her mother, who publicly chided the principal through her own social media channels, should have simply sucked-up the criticism.

While everyone has a right to their opinion they also have a duty to fully rationalize a situation such as this. Bahamians who simply said the principal is right because she is the principal are likely the ones who sit idly by and allow our government to plow over us, while praising them for their ability to drive.

By “supporting the puff”, however, Bahamians have taught this young woman and her classmates a lesson more important than just hair. She has been taught that as she navigates this life she will experience more criticism and subjugation, but there will always be those who will stand with her on issues that are important to improving the identities of black women, women, and Bahamians in general. She and her classmates have learned that while authority should be respected, it is in no way always right in its thinking. Many Caribbean women in authority are still reeling from the poison of slavery and Jim Crow. But even one young girl, with the sass to stand firmly for what she believes in, could become the antidote for this colonial poison.