PRETORIA, South Africa \u2014 In recent years, staff members at the prestigious Pretoria High School for Girls in South Africa\u2019s administrative capital had taken to telling black students to \u201cfix\u201d their hair, according to some current and former pupils. Exactly what \u201cfix\u201d meant depended on who was issuing the order, the young women said: Some were told to use chemical straighteners, while others got a reminder about the school rule limiting cornrows, dreadlocks and braids to a centimeter or less in diameter.<\/p>\n
To many of them, nothing needed fixing in the first place.<\/p>\n
Last month, propelled by the long-simmering belief that such criticisms were discriminatory, a group of current students took action. Protests were staged on the leafy, gated campus over the hair fracas and other incidents reported at the school, including teachers allegedly discouraging students from speaking African languages.<\/p>\n
Images of the demonstrations went viral, sparking fresh concerns over lingering discrimination in South Africa\u2019s classrooms and beyond. As the hashtag #StopRacismAtPretoriaGirlsHigh circulated on social media, reports of a hair crackdown at another school surfaced, this one involving a student in the city of Port Elizabeth who said she was warned she might not be able to sit for exams because of her Afro.<\/p>\n
Outrage over the Pretoria girls\u2019 claims is part of a broader debate that has gained traction in South Africa in the past year. The staff members\u2019 alleged behavior capped a string of racially charged incidents \u2014 including a white woman calling black beachgoers \u201cmonkeys\u201d in a Facebook post \u2014 that have raised hard questions about the pace of change in race-related policies and attitudes here more than 20 years after apartheid ended.<\/p>\n
After the protests, thousands of people signed an online petition supporting the students, leading to a suspension of the school\u2019s hair regulations. (Twitter)
\n[Death of two black farmers prompts a racial reckoning in South Africa]<\/p>\n
\u201cThey go around posting signs about the ethos of equality for all the girls at the school, but that is not true,\u201d said one 15-year-old student. \u201cIt feels like they don\u2019t want to accept the fact that we\u2019re African.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s degrading,\u201d said a classmate, also 15, noting that the students\u2019 protests were about much more than rules on hair. \u201cIf we don\u2019t stick up for ourselves, no one\u2019s going to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both students spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from teachers.<\/p>\n
After thousands signed an online petition supporting the Pretoria students, the head of Gauteng province\u2019s education department met with students, parents and staff at the school this week to hear the students\u2019 claims. The department later ordered the code of conduct clause dealing with hairstyles to be suspended.<\/p>\n
The code includes a long list of rules governing students\u2019 general appearance. Its hairstyle guidelines had stipulated that all hair must be brushed, tied back in a neat ponytail if long enough, and that \u201ccornrows, natural dreadlocks, and singles\/braids .\u2009.\u2009. are allowed, provided they are a maximum of 10mm in diameter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The provincial education department also ordered an inquiry into the students\u2019 claims of racial discrimination and said \u201cthe mocking of learners\u2019 hairstyles\u201d and \u201cthe mocking of African learners\u2019 usage of their mother tongue\u201d must stop.<\/p>\n
A girl protesting the hairstyle code at Pretoria High School for Girls last month is shown in this photo posted on Twitter, one of many that went viral on the social media site after black students claimed the rule constituted racial discrimination. (Twitter)
\nSome see the students\u2019 allegations as a depressing sign that the promises of the Rainbow Nation \u2014 a term coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu that came to encapsulate the hopes of a post-apartheid South Africa \u2014 are going unfulfilled for its youngest citizens.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about just schools,\u201d said Yvette Raphael, a human rights advocate for young women and girls who attended one of the protests. \u201cThe Rainbow Nation is not a true thing. It\u2019s not reality. .\u2009.\u2009. Behind closed doors, some of things of pre-1994 are still happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pretoria High School for Girls, founded in 1902, was an all-white school under apartheid, despite its founding headmistress\u2019s vision of it as a place where \u201cgirls of different races and different denominations might meet in that commonwealth of letters.\u201d The school admitted its \u201cfirst black, non-diplomatic pupils\u201d in 1991, according to its website.<\/p>\n
The school, which said it could not speak to the media when contacted for comment, has said in a statement that it will work closely with the government to \u201cresolve the issues which were raised\u201d in this week\u2019s meeting.
\nNomfundo Parkies, whose daughter is among the school\u2019s black students, said she appreciates the institution\u2019s disciplined environment but that its rules \u201cshould be considerate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a serious need for an attitude change,\u201d she said as she waited to pick her daughter up after classes. \u201cWe see it everywhere. It\u2019s not surprising that it\u2019s coming out here.\u201d<\/p>\n
South African Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said she didn\u2019t consider anything in the school\u2019s code controversial. \u201cThose are standard rules that you find in most codes of conduct,\u201d she told the public broadcaster SABC.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey look innocent,\u201d she said about the rules. \u201cIt\u2019s perhaps in the implementation where difficulties came.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other government officials, however, have been less equivocal in their concern.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchools should not be used as a platform to discourage students from embracing their African Identity. #StopRacismAtPretoriaGirlsHigh,\u201d Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa tweeted Monday.<\/p>\n
He also tweeted: \u201cTo assert our language & hair, is to assert one\u2019s cultural belonging. Schools must embrace cultural diversity #StopRacismAtPretoriaGirlsHigh.\u201d<\/p>\n
The South African Institute of Race Relations welcomed the government\u2019s decision to investigate students\u2019 claims.<\/p>\n
The allegations \u201cshouldn\u2019t be taken lightly,\u201d said Salaminah Kelebogile Leepile, a spokeswoman for the think tank, adding, \u201cWe need sufficient information from all parties.\u201d<\/p>\n
The widespread attention that the Pretoria events have generated may prompt other schools to take a closer look at what is happening in their own classrooms, according to Melissa Steyn, chair in Critical Diversity Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople become complacent with things as they are, until there is a sense of urgency,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of schools are doing some very quick footwork to fix up their own policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Johannesburg, Parktown High School for Girls said this week it has decided to amend its rules to ensure that all girls \u201cattend school feeling comfortable with what they consider to be their natural hair.\u201d
\n\u201cWe do not have a problem with hairstyles,\u201d Anthea Cereseto, the school\u2019s headmistress, said in an email. \u201cWe believe the hair issue is the superficial manifestation of something deeper in the country which needs to be dealt with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PRETORIA, South Africa \u2014 In recent years, staff members at the prestigious Pretoria High School for Girls in South Africa\u2019s administrative capital had taken to telling black students to \u201cfix\u201d their hair, according to some current and former pupils. Exactly what \u201cfix\u201d meant depended on who was issuing the order, the young women said: Some were told to use chemical… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}