[xysoom]

House PASSES bill banning discrimination of black hairstyles including dreadlocks



Black people who wear hairstyles like Afros, cornrows or tightly coiled twists should not face bias in society, school and the workplace, the U.S. House said Friday in voting to make it explicit that such discrimination is a violation of federal civil rights law.To get more news about wig shop, you can visit monahair.com official website.

'There are folks in this society who think because your hair is kinky, it is braided, it is in knots or it is not straightened blonde and light brown, that you somehow are not worthy of access,' Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), the lead sponsor of the bill, said during debate on the House floor. 'Well, that′s discrimination.'
The House voted 235-to-189 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of hair texture and hairstyles. The bill now goes to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. President Joe Biden has already said he would sign the bill, known as the Crown Act, into law.All but 14 Republicans voted against the measure, calling it unnecessary and a distraction. They said protections against hair discrimination already exist in several federal laws.

'This is what the Democrats are focused on,' said Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan. 'Fourteen months of chaos and we're doing a bill on hair.'

But House Democrats noted that, in several instances, judges have dismissed civil rights cases on the basis that the law does not directly cover discrimination on the basis of hair. The House bill makes clear that hair is in fact included.Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who is the first Somali-American lawmaker in Congress, called the opposition from her GOP colleagues 'quite disheartening.'

'These members, who are mostly male and white, who have never experienced this kind of discrimination, who don't have the ability to actually speak to it ... really should leave it up to the policymakers who have done the work and who have experienced this level of discrimination,' the progressive lawmaker said in an interview Friday.

In addition to Afros, cornrows and twists, the bill mentions protections for other hairstyles and textures of styles that often draw prejudice against Black people.

It states that: 'No individual in the United States shall be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under, any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance, based on the individual’s hair texture or hairstyle, if that hair texture or that hairstyle is commonly associated with a particular race or national origin (including a hairstyle in which hair is tightly coiled or tightly curled, locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, and Afros).'