#in Texas

[xtremememeteam]

ZAK BROWN AND JOE ROGAINE I WILL END YOU

[reasoningdaily]

The New York Times: In Texas, a Black High School Student Is Suspended Over His Hair Length

Soon after starting his junior year last month at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas, Darryl George was separated from his classmates because of the way he wears his hair, his mother and a lawyer said.

Since the term began on Aug. 16, Darryl, a 17-year-old Black student, has received multiple disciplinary notices that have culminated in more than a week of in-school suspension, where he sits on a stool in a cubicle and work is brought to him, according to his mother, Darresha George. Each morning, he is asked by officials at the school, about 30 miles east of Houston, whether he has cut his hair yet, she said.

He has not.

“He is actually getting singled out,” said Ms. George. “They are personally stopping him, ‘Did he cut his hair?’ Asking him at the door.”

Darryl has locs, or long ropelike strands of hair, that he pins on his head in a barrel roll, a protective style that reflects Black culture, Ms. George said. On Aug. 31, about two weeks after school started, school officials told her that his hair length, even though pinned, violated the dress code.

“I was told that every day Darryl comes to school, he would be put in in-school suspension because his hair has not been cut,” she said. “Even if pulled up in buns or neatly pulled back, because when let down it is below his earlobes and eyebrows.”

Supporters of the family, including legislators and activists, have called the suspension alarming, saying that it could test a new state law called the CROWN Act. The law, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed in May, says, in part, that any dress or grooming policy adopted by a school district “may not discriminate against a hair texture or protective hairstyle commonly or historically associated with race.” The law does not specifically mention hair length.

The Barbers Hill Independent School District’s dress code mandates that a male student’s hair “will not extend below the eyebrows, below the earlobes or below the top of a T-shirt collar.”

A district spokesman, David Bloom, said that the dress code and suspension were “not in conflict” with the CROWN Act because the code permits protective hairstyles, if the hair would not go beyond the permitted length when let down.

“The vast majority of hair code violation punishments — I.S.S. or more severe — have been handed down to white students,” Mr. Bloom said, using the acronym for in-school suspension, where, he said, students are kept in a classroom staffed by a teacher, and sit at desks separated by partitions so as not to disturb one another.

The school informed Ms. George of Darryl’s suspension just one day before the law took effect on Sept. 1, she said.

Even though the CROWN Act does not specifically mention hair length, Darryl’s supporters have said the district’s move violates the spirit of the law. Candice Matthews, a civil rights activist and vice chair of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, said that braids, locs and twists need to be long to protect the hair.

“It is a hairstyle that is cultural in nature,” she said.

At least 23 other states have adopted similar laws banning discrimination based on race-based hairstyles in the workplace and public schools.

On Sept. 8, the Texas Legislative Black Caucus sent a letter to the district superintendent, Greg Poole, and the school principal, Lance Murphy, urging the district to clear Darryl’s record and warning that the suspension could set a “dangerous precedent.”

“The school is arbitrarily coming up with something else, saying that it’s really not the hair, it’s the length,” said State Representative Ron Reynolds, a Democrat and chair of the caucus.

State Representative Rhetta Andrews Bowers, a Democrat and the primary author of the CROWN Act, said she was inspired by the Crown Coalition, which advocates adoption of the law in other states, and by DeAndre Arnold and Kaden Bradford, cousins who attended high school in the same district as Darryl and were suspended for the length of their dreadlocks in a case that garnered national attention.

“We anticipated that even with the passage of the legislation that there could possibly be incidents,” she said. “We knew that it was largely going to be education and awareness making people understand. We are still on that path.”

Darryl’s case is not the first to test the new law. In August, Katheryn Huerta, the mother of an elementary school student in Mabank, Texas, cited the CROWN Act when she was told that she would have to cut her son’s long hair. Ms. Huerta told WFAA-TV, a local ABC affiliate, that her district later relented, saying she could put her son’s hair in braids and a bun.

A lawyer for Ms. George, Allie Booker, said that Darryl had been given until the end of the week to comply with the school’s dress code or he could be placed in a disciplinary alternative learning program. Ms. Booker said she is considering legal action.

“We are not cutting his hair,” Ms. George said, “because that is part of his culture, that is his roots. It is like cutting off a part of him.”

[purrtyhatemachine]

please pray for me i need pj harvey to release more tour dates

[jinouchibhue]

BITCHHHHHHH

[eddieschains]

3 weeks until i see Joe and i still have no idea what to wear 😃

[ilovepinkthecolor]

[1:29PM]

Well then apparently at my school two people got arrested And a fire went off in my school. I love it when my school has some plot! <3

[thebluepeninsula]

I wish I could let my southern accent fly free without sticking out like a sore thumb at work.... in TEXAS of all places

[tealchameleon]

lmao accidentally (purposefully) started shit in one of my group chats from school. It’s not a club or anything just a big group chat called “we need friends” for ppl to socialize and shit. Well one person was randomly like “I have a husky does anyone else have a husky they want to breed with mine” liek dude wtf. A) why do you have a fucking. HUSKY. In texas B) ppl that breed dogs give me the ickies SO bad like dude they’re not just fucking commodities to buy and sell they’re ANIMALS, not only do you have a husky in a shit climate but you’re gonna make more?? For your own personal gain????

Anyway I could not help msyelf and I commented something mild like “lol no offense but how can you own a husky in texas…?” And boy oh boy did I open a can of worms lol. The original guy was dense as shit and could not effectively come up with an argument agaisnr me and the like three other ppl telling him what was wrong with that. First he said “well I have tons of neighbors with huskies” ok lol that still doesn’t make it right. I then explained it like, “they have SIBERIA in their name do you rly think TEXAS is anything like fucking SIBERIA.” And this mf, I kid you not, responded “ok well if I get a French bulldog do I have to live in France?” Like wow dude. Astounding comprehension and critical thinking. Totally did not miss the point at all.

Finally he realized he wasn’t gonna win and got hella defensive, and he tried explaining to us “well when it gets hot out I don’t let them outside, they’re always inside.” Yes, he said “always inside.” Always. Like good on you for not letting them die of heat stroke but cooping them up inside constantly also sounds quite inhumane too. These dogs are bred to pull sleds, run like hell, all in extremely cold weather. You have provided none of those conditions. I finally just had to buckle down and tell him like dude, I’m sure you think your dogs are happy and to some degree im sure they are, but when picking a breed you absolutely HAVE to consider that dog breeds are a thing bc dogs were BRED to fulfill very specific niches. If you don’t replicate those conditions, your dog will definitely not be living its best life. It’s way more important to find a dog that matches your lifestyle than one you just think is cute/is a purebred. Oh and what do you wanna bet that this guy bought them instead of adopting…

So yeah basically with the like 3-4 us telling him that he finally dipped and stopped arguing his impossible case. Sorry dude but you’re not gonna say that shit in front of me and expect me not to call it out. My neighbors had huskies too dipshit, and I wanted to bash their heads in too for getting dogs so ill fitted for our climate.

TLDR huskies do not belong in texas, dogs are not just fucking ornamental accessories that you can force to live whatever lifestyle you have, and always adopt instead of buying

[curieklei]

[princepsed]

47 Year Old Texas Realtor Miku

[defilerwyrm]

There’s this guy in town who owns this little house, and a while back he rescued a street dog that was going to get put down. Turned out she was pregnant.

Problem is, he has mental health & drug issues and couldn’t afford to get them all spayed & neutered, so now there are 6 grown bitches with 15 puppies total, and they’ve dug under his fence in multiple places but he can’t afford to fix it so they go roaming all around town. (When I say can’t afford it, I mean his house is currently running on a generator because he can’t afford his electric bill.) He’s also a day laborer so he cannot take multiple full days off work to take them to the vet an hour away. He’s in a really rough spot.

He’s not a bad person. He’s just overwhelmed.

And this little conservative town with 6 churches for 300 people, have they tried to help their neighbor? Have they adopted the puppies he’s been trying to give away? Have they offered resources?

NOPE! All they wanna do is talk shit about him and complain about the dogs but never lift a finger of their own. And they come to his house to yell at him and cuss him out about the dogs, which does not exactly engender in him a cooperative attitude, as you might imagine.

So after a while of this going on, my mom gets fed up with all the NIMBY bullshit and starts talking to the guy, because she’s done animal rescue for 20-odd years and has Connections. He’s resistant at first, but when he realizes she’s not being an asshole to him on account of his addiction or the dogs, he decides to let her help.

She gets to work organizing and networking. Finds a non-profit that will cover vaccinations, spay/neuter, and flea treatments for all the dogs. Talks the next-door neighbor into paying for materials to fix the fence, since this guy can do the work of it himself. Gets him in touch with another non-profit that will adopt out the adult dogs.

Less than 2 weeks after she decided to do something, all puppies have been to the vet, 10 puppies and 4 adult dogs have been adopted out, and the second non-profit is coming by next week to pick up the remaining 7 dogs to ship them out for adoption.

I’ve learned a lot of things from my mom—some good, some bad—but I think the most important positive message she lives as an example of is this: sometimes, when something needs done and no one else is willing, you gotta stand up and say “I’ll do it.”

[unamusedyams]

choose ur texas miku

[wafflenati0n]

[kuchipatch1]

yall have got to be more normal about Southern people and I'm not kidding. enough of the Sweet Home Alabama incest jokes, enough of the idea that all Southerners are bigots and rednecks, and enough of the idea that the South has bad food. shut up about "trailer trash" and our accents and our hobbies!

do yall know how fucking nauseating it is to hear people only bring up my state to make jokes about people in poverty and incestuous relationships? how much shame I feel that I wasn't born up north like the Good Queers and Good Leftists with all the Civilised Folk with actual houses instead of small cramped trailers that have paper thin walls that I know won't protect me in a bad enough storm?

do yall know how frustrating it is to be trans in a place that wants to kill you and whenever you bring it up to people they say "well just move out" instead of sympathizing with you or offering help?

do yall understand how alienating it is to see huge masterposts of queer and mental health resources but none of them are in your state because theyre all up north? and nobody seems to want to fix this glaring issue because "they're all hicks anyways"

Southern people deserve better. we deserve to be taken seriously and given a voice in the queer community and the mental health space and leftist talks in general.