Afro hair should be a protected characteristic, says campaign backed by Mel B
Afro hair should be made a protected characteristic, says a campaign backed by Mel B.
The World Afro Day (WAD) group has written to MPs calling on them to amend the 2010 Equality Act to add the specification for afro hair.
More than 100 public figures, including Mel B, Beverley Knight, Patrick Hutchinson, Fleur East, Evelyn Forde and Prof Patrick Vernon, have signed an open letter to the Government supporting the change.
The group argues that while race is already a protected characteristic, schools and workplaces can still unfairly target people of colour due to their natural hair.
Mel B said she was proud to support WAD having been told before a video shoot during the Spice Girls’ heyday that she had to change her hair.
“The very first video shoot I did as a Spice Girl for Wannabe, the stylists took one look at my hair and told me it had to be straightened,” the pop star said.
“My big hair didn’t fit the pop star mould. But I stood my ground – backed by my girls – and I sang and danced as me, with my big hair, my brown skin and I was totally proud of who I was.
“So yes, I’m proud to support World Afro Day in its call for the Equality Act to protect against afro hair discrimination in the UK.”
Sponsoring a drop-in clinic in Parliament on Tuesday, Paulette Hamilton, Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington, said she had previously felt that would “never succeed in a career” with her hair.
“I’d wear wigs, I’d have perms, I’d wear extensions, because that’s what people said I had to do,” she said. “I also have four girls, and I wanted to show them that I could be my authentic self and achieve.”
Ms Hamilton said existing legislation does not go far enough to protect people of colour in the workplace, as she urged Labour colleagues to “make a lot of people very happy” by adding to the Equality Act.
“You had employers that, one in three possibly, wouldn’t even employ people if they had their natural hair and that is true discrimination. This is why there is a large group of us out there. It isn’t just a small group, it’s a large group,” she added.
“This is why I absolutely believe that we need to change the [Equality] Act. We’re amending it at the moment, and I believe it’s an easy win for the Government to change the [Equality] Act and actually to include afro hair as a protected characteristic.
“What they absolutely do is use your hair to not employ you, and then say, ‘oh, it’s not because she was black, it’s because of her hair’, and they can get away with it, and that has to stop.”
Michelle De Leon, WAD founder, said she had felt under pressure to use chemicals to straighten her natural hair since she was a child.
She said: “When you’re a little black girl or a little brown girl, you kind of look at princesses and the things you see on TV and your friends at school, and you see their hair blowing about, and you have this real kind of hair envy, really, and this kind of feeling that your hair isn’t as nice as everybody else’s hair.”
Ms De Leon said for many people of colour, concerns about how their hair will be perceived are in the front of their mind from the beginning of the employment process.
“I think it starts even before you get to the workplace, like an interview,” she said. “Can I wear my own hair to the interview? Will I be accepted with my own hair? Should I change myself to be accepted?
“So that psychology starts before you even get the job, before you even walk into the office, and then sometimes you kind of choose not to have your own natural hair.
“It’s just part of the fabric of society that straight hair is considered the right type of hair, the most appropriate type of hair, so people sometimes don’t even realise that it’s discrimination to say that hairstyle is not acceptable in our workplace.”
Chi Onwurah, the Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West, also attended the event in Parliament, and said it is important to “promote and recognise the importance of equal treatment for all”, adding “there’s so much ignorance and prejudice about afro hair”.
