A high school in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture made headlines this week over news it segregated a Black Japanese student from his peers during graduation. The problem? His hair. Unfortunately, it isn’t the first time a mixed race student has faced issues with their hair color or style.
“I just wanted to honor my roots”
The student, 18, is the child of a Japanese mother and Black American father who holds citizenship in both countries. (Japan doesn’t permit dual citizenship; however, dual citizen status is honored until a child turns 20.)
Before the graduation ceremony, the student opted to put his hair into cornrows. He thought this was in the spirit of school regulations regarding hair styles, as he says teachers told him his hair “shouldn’t touch his ears”.
However, when he showed up for the ceremony, he says several teachers exclaimed, “What’s that?” and told him “That’s not according to regulations. It’s not befitting a student”.
The student says he was made to wait in the guidance counseling room for an hour. He says teachers then brought him to the hall where the graduation ceremony was taking place, but told him to go to a room on the second floor where no other students were present. When his name was called, he was reminded not to respond.
“Unclean hairstyle”
“Attending the ceremony was meaningless,” he told a reporter for Mainichi Shimbun. “It’s weird that they enforce these rules uniformly on people from various backgrounds and different hair types. I just want to honor my roots.”
In response, the school’s principal told the paper, “We didn’t deny a traditional hairstyle, we gave him instructions relevant to his hair type. The fact that he was taken to another room doesn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to participate in the ceremony.”
The Hyogo Prefecture Education Committee released a statement, saying that the student was told to cut his hair before the ceremony because it reached his ears and was against regulations….Instead of cutting it, he came to school with a hairstyle that (in the school’s judgment) couldn’t be considered ‘clean’. The student didn’t keep his promise to cut his hair so everyone could have an enjoyable graduation.”
Hair, race, and rigid regulations
School regulations in Japan are strict. And, often times, they’re applied without consideration of any circumstance. This past winter, for example, some schools insisted that students couldn’t wear coats in the cold weather because it violated dress codes.
The current spate of strict regulations dates back to the student-led leftist protest movements of Japan’s 1970s and 1980s. The goal was to crack down on students deemed miscreants and troublemakers. However, some people in Japan now question whether these rules are effective or just a waste of students’ and parents’ time.
Hair rules seem especially dated as Japan’s student body grows increasingly diverse. A common regulation is that hair should be black – the “natural” hair color for Japanese people. However, that rule doesn’t make much sense when it comes to mixed-raced students. One Japanese-American woman, model Nishida Ai, says her school went so far as to dye her hair black in her yearbook photos without her permission.
The regulations have also tripped up students who are ethnically Japanese. Juna, a gyaru model who’s still in school, says her school educates her in a room completely separate from other students due to her hair, which she keeps dyed for shoots.
Reaction in Japanese social media
On Japanese social media and in Yahoo! News comments, some people expressed support for the student. However, a large number of Yahoo! News commenters said he should have expected the treatment given that he “suddenly” changed his hair style the day of the ceremony.
Other notable Japanese celebs and politicians disagreed. Japanese talent and sex education YouTuber SHELLY, whose father is Italian-American, called what the student experienced “blatant discrimination”. She also related her own tale of hair discrimination:
“I was also told to dye my hair black when I was in school. They didn’t believe [my hair was my natural color] when I showed them my elementary school pics and they didn’t believe my mom either. I thought the past was bad….but nothing’s changed, huh.”
Japanese politician Tamaki Yuichiro of the Democratic Party for the People (国民民主党; kokumin minshutou) went a step further, branding the policy equivalent to the United States’ “separate but equal” ruling in the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson. “Schools need to increase their acceptance of diversity.”
What to read next
Japan’s Whiteness Problem, Part 1: Colorism
Sources
黒人ルーツの髪形「校則違反」 卒業式で席隔離 兵庫の県立高. Mainichi Shimbun
寒い日に上着を着るのダメ？「校則」で決められたルールの是非. Hiroshima Home TV
「清潔じゃない」“黒人ルーツの髪形”理由に卒業式で生徒を「隔離」 実は…父親は“アメリカ国籍の黒人”だった. FNN Prime Online
