The Injustice of Schools Where "Black Hairstyles" Are Against School Rules
Some Multicultural Families Share Their Stories and Concerns
First, some sad news. Very few of the people who’ve experienced incidents I found useful for this article wanted their names or faces disclosed. Many feared recriminations, even bullying. This was very disturbing for me. Not only because the targets and victims are mostly school-age children. Nor because it hints at a discrimination so embedded it’s virtually invisible. It disturbed me because the courage required by both kids and parents to address these incidents – to improve their lives in Japan – is sapped by a fear of their identities being made public. Like whistleblowers exposing the wrongdoings of a business conglomerate known for its merciless retribution, they’ve broken their silence with an unease bordering on paranoia.
These people are terrorized by the idea of everyday Japanese people: their children’s friends and classmates and teachers, the PTA, and the society at large knowing they were the ones who blew the whistle.
What does it say about a society when its most vulnerable citizens, minorities, are afraid to voice complaints about something worthy of redress, something that affects their quality of life and the education of their children? This is the question I asked myself as I pursued this story.
Naomi (not her real name) is a JHS student. She is the daughter of a Japanese mother and a black father, born and raised in Japan. What stands out about Naomi is her hair. Its texture comes more from her father’s side than her mother’s, meaning it is kinky and curly and much higher maintenance than typical Japanese hair. Black hair has special needs to keep healthy.
When her school first encountered Naomi’s hair, on the day of the entrance ceremony, she had 10-12 braids in it. She was informed by a teacher that according to school regulations, one ponytail or two braids was the max. Any more than that and she would be in violation of school rules.
“Black women’s hair needs a wash day,” Naomi’s mom explained to me. “I’m Japanese, so this was news to me! But I noticed Naomi’s hair would get very dry, so I consulted my husband’s family. My husband’s sister told me about wash day and brought me some cremes and oils that would help. So, I started a routine to keep Naomi’s hair healthy.
“Her hair is very thick, so on wash day, we can’t use a hair dryer,” she continued. “We must tie it and braid it and wait a whole day for it to dry. With only two braids, though, it won’t dry properly and will begin to smell and itch and may even get damaged. So, it needs to be braided in many more than two braids. Eight braids would be optimal.”
Mom explained this to the staff at the school and was able to negotiate them up. They would allow a maximum of four braids once a week and only after wash day.
But even with the four braids, problems arose because all the teachers were not informed of Naomi’s special circumstances and would chastise her, believing her braids to be an effort on Naomi’s part to be fashionable. Unaware that her mere four braids were a concession that was proving to be inadequate to maintain the health of Naomi’s hair.
A friend of Naomi’s parents tweeted about her plight in Japanese.
The response was tremendous. Many sympathized. Some, Japanese and non-Japanese alike, were having a very similar experience, coming up against stringent rules and regulations in Japanese public schools designed to keep students on equal footing.
Even my wife told me of an incident where her bang was a little long, hanging a little low on her forehead, and it was cut by a teacher in front of the class, shaming her something awful.
And due to the growing diversity of the student body, which is too often discounted, some of these rules unapologetically work against some untraditional Japanese citizens like Naomi.
Liza Chantelle is a black woman from England, married to a Japanese man, living here in Japan. She’s the proud mother of twin boys but has concerns as well
“My fear for my boys is how their glorious hair will be accepted in the schooling system,” she told me. “The irony is they model, and their Afro hair is praised in Japan in a modeling situation, but schooling is a different kettle of fish.”
The word is out about what mixed race and non-Japanese children will often have to face in Japanese public schools regarding their hair, and many parents of untraditional and mixed roots Japanese kids, like Liza, have to, unfortunately, anticipate discrimination and decide ahead of time how they will manage it.
“As a family, we already know that Japanese high school Baseball will not be an option (they often shave their heads as a rite of passage),” added Liza. “My husband was named after a famous baseball player as his family loves baseball so much! Yet, he was the one who suggested it might be prudent not to join to protect the kids’ Afro hair. Our kids are only in kindergarten, but he’s already thinking years ahead. I even worry about when my kids start elementary and if there will be a push back about their Afro hair. It’s making me think hard now as they have not been introduced to their new school yet.”
I posted on SNS to gauge the extent of this problem, and the comments and emails flowed in. Most people insisted upon anonymity if I used their story for fear of how speaking up might impact their children or even themselves directly.
Michelle (not her real name) has a biracial son in a public junior high school whose hair is naturally light brown and curly. He got in trouble because his hair was not the same length all the way around due to this curling. The teacher said that he would not be allowed in the school for the end-of-semester ceremony in July if he did not cut his hair according to school regulations. Her son refused, and she told him his refusal was fine with her and that he did not need to go to the ceremony. The school phoned his Japanese father, who was away at the time, and told him that they would do him a favor and take care of her son’s hair because his wife was “too busy” to take care of it herself. The homeroom teacher cut her son’s hair in front of the class. The humiliation was catastrophic for the family.
A biracial woman, Naoko (not her real name), who was born and raised in Japan and educated in Japanese public schools, explained to me on Zoom how things often work.
“If the school says, ‘everyone go right’, then everyone must go right, regardless if you’re black, white, Japanese or whatever,” she said. “If you step out of line, they are gonna call you out! And even though you are not intentionally stepping out of line, but it’s your nature that’s causing you to step out of line, here the system is ignorant about these natural differences. Here, all we have is the rule. Try going to McDonald’s and saying I don’t want Tomatoes on my burger and watch how the staff freaks out!
“We never really think why the rule applies; we just follow the rules. It’s like when I was 12, they measured me for the uniform, and my mom told them then that once I hit puberty, my hips were gonna grow exponentially, but the school told her we have rules about the uniform skirts and shirt sizes. So, when I started developing, and the skirt started rising because I have more hips than your typical Japanese girl, teachers started griping. Now, of course, some Japanese girls roll up their skirts against the rules, but I wasn’t breaking the rules. But still I got thrown in with the bad girls. But my mother wasn’t having it because she was raising a good, rule-abiding girl, and she had even warned them about black bottoms.”
She explained that she ran into similar issues as Naomi with hair, and that anyone with untraditional hair will likely run into these issues until the system changes.
While these issues are likely not examples of racial discrimination, they can easily be misconstrued as such because they seem to target those whose nature is different from the nature of the people the system was set up to educate. Systemic changes are never simple, but they are essential if Japan is to become a country that acknowledges and respects the diversity that is already here.
Many families, particularly those with mixed roots, currently living in fear of their children being mistreated, bullied, or humiliated by an inflexible system, are hoping changes occur sooner rather than later.
maan, cant wait for my daughter to start elementary school in a couple years, so i can encounter this problem. Shiiiii! as they say in my native jamaica, "dem aggu fin' out 'ow wauta walk guh a pumkin belly."
This is so infuriating. It tells children that they do no matter. Their health and well-being are less important than blind obedience to rules and conformity to racialized norms designed for someone else’s body.