I need to learn about the healthy care of textured hair.

How old do you think a child has to be to successfully manage dreads?

Which is easier on the scalp–braiding or dreading?

Where the heck can I find answeres to these kinds of questions?

Also, little!Pam is absolutely adorable. But has much better hair now.

Well, except for the fact that all expression is “personal” expression.

I mean, the bar doesn’t look down on white men who chose to “express themselves” by having short hair and wearing dark suits. Such people aren’t pressured to come to court in mohawks or dashikis.

So by saying that personal expression is looked down upon, what you really mean is that the personal expression of anyone who is not a conservative white male is looked down upon. Obviously some people can easily make choices that will enable them to pass in that regard. But what’s a lawyer to do if, due to their race, their only hair styling options are painful/dangerous/expensive/inconvenient? What’s next? Sorry, you’re just too dark to be in my courtroom. I mean, what if you get lost in the shadows or something?

I suppose that’s perfectly cromulent. As much so as the extremely white girl with the cornrows…

Would it be racist of me to say that white girls just look stupid with cornrows? Probably. Forget I said it.

I never said an Afro shouldn’t be allowed — merely that the consultant, while surely a sniffy little so-and-so, was hardly offering malfeasant career advice. You know, opo, I don’t disagree with you, but people simply expect salesmen and legal counsel to fit their idea of what a salesman or a lawyer should look like. That’s the bitch about the status quo: It’s market-driven — so long as it isn’t a violation of civil rights (and as we’ve established, a lawyer could give her closing arguments in bear-claw slippers and a coonskin cap while running afoul of no formal law).

Law isn’t a good profession for those who seek personal expession or even have a discernible soul. Lawyers not only choose the hairstyle that makes them look most lawyerly; they tend to choose the fer-chrissakes spouse that makes them look most lawyerly. Every career choice is ultimately a milieu choice. (In the case of law, a cesspool of blind ambition, unprincipled ego, and grasping mediocrity.)

If I were convinced the lady were racist, I’d be considerably more outraged. Even if she is, insofar as there’s a conspiracy to make the courts bastions of whiteness, I’m not sure it would involve a some low-ranking ditzhead from Glamour magazine.

I concurred. WTF.

To be clear, I’m not talking about some dude’s god-given RIGHT to practice law with a neck tattoo.

I’m talking about people being able to accommodate forms of racial, ethnic, gender, sexuality, and religious expression into their everyday professional attire. There’s no real reason someone with an afro can’t practice law. “Thems the breaks” isn’t a reason. 40 years ago, judges routinely wouldn’t allow women to wear pants in “their” courtrooms. Sure, some women said, “well, that’s how it is,” and did the skirt, heels, pantyhose bit. Other women cried bullshit, and now it’s perfectly acceptable for women to wear pants in court.

The idea that beards, “ethnic” hairstyles (can’t think of a better catch-all term), and other differences are verboten, and that’s just the way it’s always gonna be is ridiculous, sorry. And as far as I’m concerned, any use of the existence of the status quo as a justification for why something shouldn’t be allowed is a form of advocating said status quo.

I also think that if the discouraging people from expressing any individuality in their appearance (especially if what is expressed has to do with race, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc.) is a form of gatekeeping — if we make a conservative white male appearance the standard, and decide that anything that deviates from that is “extreme” and should be frowned upon in the courtroom, this will keep out people who are not conservative white males. Most lawyers I’ve met — and I’ve met quite a few — are considerably left of center. Their appearance, though, is conservative, even anachronistically so. These are simply the rules of the game; you seem to think I’m defending them, when in fact they repulse me. But at my age, I’ve little outrage left for matters of that magnitude. Wanna sell cars, get a loud sportjacket; wanna be a cop, grow a cheesy moustache. These are the least of the world’s cruelties.

I think the consultant lady was a tin-eared fool rather than a bona fide racist, though no one here can say for sure. Your contention that the tyranny of appearance comes from white men is well-founded — indisputable, really — but it would hardly matter if the standard of mainstream appearance came from the Mad Hatter, Mae West, Ma Rainey or Martians. In certain professions, you’d simply have to suck it up. Do you honestly believe most white men who wear ties like it?

A good judge rules based on the testimony, not the lawyers’ haircuts.

A good point, and one I agree with, but you left out an important aspect: waffle trees. Wouldn’t that be neat!

Well, ok, your understanding is incorrect. Unless what you’re really saying is that you call an afro something like this, and a “short natural” something like this.

And if you really can’t see the difference there, and think the one Angela Davis is sporting in the second link is “extreme”, I’m curious about why you think so. We’re not talking about a green mohawk or Crystal Gayle or anything.

Lawyers can’t afford to take that chance. They are expected to present a very conservative appearance

This may be true, but from what I know about the matter, it doesn’t seem like attorneys are all expected to have buzz cuts, or anything. I also think that if the discouraging people from expressing any individuality in their appearance (especially if what is expressed has to do with race, ethnicity, religion, gender, etc.) is a form of gatekeeping — if we make a conservative white male appearance the standard, and decide that anything that deviates from that is “extreme” and should be frowned upon in the courtroom, this will keep out people who are not conservative white males.

A good judge rules based on the testimony, not the lawyers’ haircuts.