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Georgia School Gets Criticized For Their Chart Of Black Hairstyles

An elementary school in Georgia has been hit with a ton of backlash after posting charts that demonstrate “inappropriate” and “appropriate” hairstyles for black students.

Are we really surprised at this point?

Hairstylist Danay Wadlington uploaded a picture last week, showing a poster at Decatur’s Narvie J. Harris Traditional Theme School that shows which hairstyles are permitted to wear at school and which ones are not. This sparked outrage for a lot of reasons, including the fact that only black children and their hairstyles were featured on the posters.

According to reports from NBC News, Wadlington was sent the picture by a client and once posted, she received over 4,000 shares before making its way to other sites across social media.

“It wouldn’t have been so bad had they included other races, but the fact that those are all little black faces and those are traditional black hairstyles, makes it worse,” the hairstylist explained. “They already have them wearing uniforms, why not let them have some individuality with their hair.”

As evidenced in the photos, some of the styles deemed “inappropriate” feature girls with long twists or braids and boys that have tapered afros with designs. It’s not clear whether or not these examples are actual students who attend the school, since their faces were covered with yellow sticky notes–But the school’s student body is 95 percent black.

“This type of display of cultural insensitivity is due to a lack of oversight, accountability, professional decorum and quite frankly, care and concern for the social and emotional impact of black children by this school’s leadership and PTA,” Atlanta educator, Jason Allen, said in a statement. “Imagine being a black boy greeted by this?”

According to the Dekalb County School District officials that govern the school, this chart is not indicative of their normal grooming policies.

“The images depicted in this post in no way reflect a policy regarding appearance,” officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution“This was a miscommunication at the school level and is being handled by school leadership. Nontraditional schools at (the DeKalb County School District) sometimes have the option to enforce dress code and style standards.”

The school district would not disclose who was responsible for these rules in the first place, but now, Wadlington does believe that the poster has been taken down.

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