Apparently literally every other important federal concern in the United States was solved as of early Friday morning, Mar. 18, 2022, because by late Friday morning Congress was doing this:
The House on Friday passed the Crown Act, which would ban hair-related discrimination.
The measure, H.R. 2116, passed in a vote of 235-189 along party lines. It was introduced by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.
Crown stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, and the act prohibits "discrimination based on an individual's texture or style of hair." The bill now goes to the Senate.
I wasn't aware that this was a problem—at least, a problem so pervasive and all-encompassing that it requires the oversight of the most consequential legislative body in the world.
Here's an article we wrote last month on the legislation:
I mean...am I missing something here? This was really a federal issue requiring a federal response?
One of the bill's defenders made an impassioned case for its passage on Friday:
"Here we are today, standing on behalf of those individuals — whether my colleagues on the other side recognize it or not — who are discriminated against as children in school, as adults who are trying to get jobs, individuals who are trying to get housing, individuals who simply want access to public accommodations and to be beneficiaries of federally funded programs," Watson Coleman said in remarks on the House floor Friday morning.
This demonstrates the bill's necessity, she said, because there are people in positions of authority "who think because your hair is kinky, it is braided, it is in knots or it is not straight and blonde and light brown, that you somehow are not worthy of access to those issues."
"Well," she added, "that's discrimination."
Just to be clear, Mrs. Coleman believes that there are community leaders, business magnates and housing authorities who are just straight-up barring people from these institutions because of kinky, braided, knotted hair?
Like, what's the picture here? That these people are racists, but only when it comes to hair? And is discriminating based on ethnic hair type allowed, because it's somehow a loophole in our current anti-discrimination laws???
Like, is there a powerful cabal of people fully prepared to give a black person a job or an apartment, but then they catch a glimpse of the person's hair, and they're like...
I'm sorry but this just seems like the silliest and most meaningless bill to have ever passed through Congress.
I almost hope it gets passed and signed into law just so we can see what happens.
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