00:00Kambon tells the Morning Edition, hair discrimination remains one of the preeminent civil rights
00:07issues of today's world. He says that while the Ministry of Education has sought to clarify
00:13regulations in the past, key voices were left out.
00:17He says when consultations were held under the former administration, unions and denominational
00:24school boards were included. But organizations like his, that have consistently advocated
00:30on Afro-textured hair rights, were left out of the process.
00:35This is no joke and of course, this is backed by studies, several studies. The Good Hair
00:41Study 2016, which demonstrates that regardless of race, people show an implicit bias against
00:46Afro-textured hair. Duke 2020, which found that candidates with curlier hair were less likely
00:52to be recommended for higher and scored lower in subjective assessments of professionalism
00:58and competence.
00:59He points out that cultural sensitivities around grooming have been addressed before, particularly
01:06in relation to Indo-Trinidadian hairstyles. But he argues that similar progress has not
01:11been made for Afro-Trinidadian students, allowing unequal treatment to persist in some schools.
01:18But if you go back to when I was growing up and I went to school, there was a saying among
01:25teachers that long Indian hair, right, had two problems. One is that they used all this
01:31coconut oil, which smelled strange and it affected other children in the class. And two, that long
01:38hair couldn't be maintained, so it was likely to lead to lice and that would affect all the
01:43children in the class. These were the kind of racist ideas that existed coming out of the
01:49colonial period. We were able to liberate Indian hair and Toronto-Tobago, but we weren't able
01:55to do the same thing for African hair.
01:56Referencing an audio recording now in the public domain, Kambon says it highlights a deeper issue
02:04of awareness. He believes the educator involved appeared convinced the approach was appropriate,
02:11reinforcing the need for meaningful education and dialogue around culture, identity and inclusion
02:18within the school system.
02:19The problem comes from the code, right? The teacher was at fault. It is a racist act. The
02:28principal is at fault. But how much fault could we put on a teacher and principal who was raised
02:35in a system like ours, where they think, and if you listen to the teacher's voice in the recording,
02:42she believes she's doing the right thing. And she probably is an African Trinidadian person,
02:49speaking to African Trinidadian children.
02:51Nicole M. Romany, TV6 News.
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