GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A few weeks ago a mother called Kent County Commissioner Robert Womack, asking him to talk her son into cutting off his dreadlocks so he could get a job in Grand Rapids.
“I told him to cut off those dreadlocks. I told him if he wanted a job you got to cut your hair, and he wouldn’t listen to me,” Womack recalled her saying. “I said, ‘No, your son should not have to cut his hair.’”
It’s not the first time Womack has heard of Black people being overlooked for employment opportunities because their hair or hairstyle doesn’t conform to a white European look, he said. As a Black man, he’s experienced it as well.
It was that conversation, as well as Ingham County leaders recently passing a ban on hair discrimination in their hiring practices, that made Womack want to bring a similar measure to Kent County.
Kent County staff is currently considering Womack’s proposal to ban hair discrimination in the county’s hiring practices and human resource policies and make a proclamation on the issue, he said. The ban would be strictly for Kent County’s governmental operations, not businesses and other governments within the county.
Kent County Administrator Wayman Britt was unable to comment, as he was out of the office. County officials say Womack’s request for a proclamation hasn’t been finalized and that staff will pick up work on the issue when they return from vacation.
The topic was brought up at the county board’s last meeting on March 25 and Womack said it was well received.
“I look at the fact that if Kent County adopts the principles of the CROWN Act into their hiring practices that we may be able to be an example for many businesses throughout the county to also adopt those anti-discriminatory practices,” he said.
“My main point is what’s on your head has nothing to do with what’s in your head, and people should have the choice of wearing their natural hairstyle without being discriminated against.”
The CROWN Act is a campaign started by Dove in 2019 aimed at ending discrimination of race-based hairstyles in the workplace and public schools. The campaign calls on elected leaders to pass laws protecting against discrimination of hair texture and styles such as braids, dreadlocks, twists and knots.
CROWN is an acronym standing for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.”
According to a Dove-commissioned study from 2019 polling 1,000 Black women and 1,000 white women, Black women were 80% more likely than white women to feel they have to change their hair from its natural state to fit in in the office.
Womack said he wants any measure adopted by Kent County to protect both race-based hairstyles and all others. Womack also sits on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Black Leadership Advisory Council and said he plans to bring a statewide ban on hairstyle discrimination up for discussion again.
Kent County Commissioner Michelle McCloud said discrimination against raced-based hairstyles isn’t always overt like an incident from 2018 in which a high school wrestling referee made a student athlete cut his dreadlocks or forfeit the match.
“I can’t say that I’ve been impacted in the extreme ways that we’ve seen pop up on social media, but as a woman of color I definitely feel sometimes that opportunities may not have come my way because of the way that I wear my hair,” McCloud said. “Can I prove it? No. But there’s always that feeling, always feeling like your hair is exotic to people because of the way you wear it.”
McCloud said she’s supportive of the county implementing a CROWN Act-like measure, even if it would be hard to police some of the more subtle discrimination. She said passage of the measure would show the county acknowledges this as an issue people face.
The discrimination is tied up in a larger issue of the standards of beauty and professional appearance being Eurocentric, she said.
“I see (this type of discrimination) ending when the standards of beauty change and the standards of expectations based on those beauty standards change,” she said. “Until we deal with the race issues that our society has been grappling with forever, I don’t know that the conversation will end.
“I think this is just something to help protect people from the overt discrimination that happens because of hair. But I think that the conversation will continue on until we as a nation deal with the broader issues related to race.”
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