What’s really anti-Black? The bonnet ban debate keeps getting bigger as Nikole Hannah-Jones and more weigh in
TheGrio...
From Tignon laws to what constitutes as anti-Black, unpacking where the debate around bonnets and du-rags in public has led.
Sure, Historically Black Colleges and Universities are not perfect, but then again, neither are predominantly white institutions.
Several people, including Nikole Hannah-Jones, are speaking out in defense of HBCUs amid a wave of anti-HBCU backlash that has grown out of a debate over Tuskegee University’s updated dress code prohibiting bonnets, durags, bedroom slippers, and pajamas in certain campus spaces.
“I’m not going to weigh in on the bonnet debate, but to say all of y’all doing this: THIS AIN’T IT,” she began in a post on Threads, quoting another post that was calling out the graduation rates of HBCUs and comparing them to those of PWIs.
“Before you start comparing these PWIs to HBCUS, I’m going to need y’all to also look at what percentage of students at those PWIs are Pell eligible (a poverty indicator) and first gen,” she continued. “You’re not comparing apples to apples and trying to call out HBCU graduation rates without acknowledging they serve a far less advantaged population is actually trash.”
The award-winning journalist and author of “The 1619 Project” noted how, if you look at the graduation rates specifically for low-income Black students, “they’d be about the same or worse.”
“But the comparison numbers would be small because guess what: These elite PWIs are not enrolling hardly any low-income Black students, but they do account for the majority of HBCU students,” she explained.
She added, “Debate the dress code if you must, but don’t ignorantly malign some of the greatest drivers of Black economic mobility in the country.”
Her Monday evening post has arrived as more and more react to the updated dress code with many remaining divided on whether a ban on headwear is reasonable especially in a space that has protecting, preserving, and championing Black culture and its youth at the center especially at a time when DEI, the passage of the CROWN Act, and the debate around appropriate headwear is happening all over from campuses to airports.
On one side of the complex debate, supporters do not see the issue and if anything, welcome the formality and professionalism. On the other side, those staunchly against it feel it’s dehumanizing, and potentially anti-Black.
“I actually think our inability to have a nuanced discussion of this without automatically defaulting to the position that any standards our community imposes on itself has to be white supremacy is also deeply ingrained anti-Blackness, tbh,” Jones wrote in a follow-up post on Tuesday.
“If anything, the bonnet ban is classist. But we’re not having that discussion. Everything Black people do is not because of white people, y’all,” she said.
The concept of what exactly is anti-Black in this scenario has also entered the debate. There are some who feel that wearing bonnets and du-rags to hide a person’s hair is its own form, for instance.
“The wearing a bonnet or durag in public to ‘protect our hair,’ is also a virulent form of antibackness, the only thing folks are ‘protecting’ their hair from is being seen in its natural 4a-4c state without manipulation whether its ‘waves’ for men or “pre-lacefront /re-twist, or whatever other manipulation” for women,” a user by the name of Erika Wilson wrote in response to Jones.
“That’s the real anti-blackness, loathing your hair so much you have to cover it up to go outside. Inadvertently carrying on the Tignon laws,” Wilson said.
The Tignon laws — a colonial law enacted in 1786 in Louisiana that required Black and Creole women of color to cover their hair with a headwrap, or tignon — are a major part of the foundation of the stigma around Black hair that persists today.
“I automatically think about the Tignon laws and their impact when it comes to the bonnet discussions. I’ve spent so much time trying to reconcile “force vs. choice”…I’m still trying to resolve it for myself, but I do wonder if more people knew about/understood Tignon laws—would that influence their perspective,” another user on the Meta platform by the name of Da Shawnna wondered in the replies.
In a separate post, Wilson also noted the significance of what older generations have had to fight for in various industries that may be recruiting on these college campuses, looking for the next generation.
“I had to fight to get my law firm to go to Howard to recruit. The Howard students came all the way correct. I’ve been gone from that law firm for 20 years & they still recruit Howard early every year because those students came correct,” she explained, adding, “Us “old heads” have (or are) fighting hard battles to [open] up doors for you, fights that aren’t costless, and y’all fighting to wear bonnets and durags? What are we really doing? This is crazy!”
Beyond the complaints from a few students attending Tuskegee in the fall, it may also not even be a major pain point for most. Jones attested that in her years teaching at an HBCU, the students maintained a reasonable level of formality to their appearance.
“Y’all are making me vexed with this. And also: in my five years @howard1867, I never had a single student come to class in a bonnet,” she noted in a post on Threads.