Headgear bans - they're not just for France anymore...

Sparks

http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/158018 :

BELLEVUE -- Starting Monday, students are barred from wearing hats and hoods at Interlake High School, reinforcing a school prohibition against gang-related clothing.

The prohibition on headgear was announced to students Friday afternoon.

No gang incidents have occurred on the northeast Bellevue campus this year, but Assistant Principal Lynn Gill said Interlake is taking preventive measures to keep students focused on academics.

``There's stuff (about gangs) in the news, there's stuff in the community,'' Gill said. ``It's been an issue at other schools.''

Wearing hooded sweatshirts is OK, Gill said, but pulling the hood over the head is not, Gill said. ``We don't allow students to hide under a hood.''

Other schools have taken steps similar to Interlake's. For instance, signs around Cascade Middle School in Auburn remind students not to wear their hoods up.

At least in france there was a half-way reasonable justification for the measure, but this? This is just plain silly....

dr_manhattan

Don't have time to check the link, but this has been going on for a while: the most recent thing I recall was in about 1999, schools all over the US (but esp. california) were banning the hairstyle known as 'cornrows' on the basis that it was 'gang related' - strangely enough, none of these schools ever considered banning shaved heads... despite the fact that shaved heads are just as connected with 'gang mentality'

But i think back in the 70s as well, the dashiki was subject to a few school bans: either way, this thinly veiled (pardon the pun) sectarianism is always present.

Poor america - unable to understand any of their youth, they allow themselves to become besieged by their own children: and all they can do is put metal detectors in schools, frisk the kids, ban 'hairstyles' etc. I mean, such hysteria over a ****ing hairstyle or way of wearing ones' clothes... these people seem actually unable to distinguish between criminals and kids, if they wear the same clothes.

In the 1920s would they have banned suits and pork pie hats in schools? Notorious cang affiliations there. What about today, banning the armani suits sported by many organised crime bosses? The suits *do* make people look like gangsters, after all...

All we can hope is that, as europe imports american style TV, american style values and american style consumerism, we don't also partake of american style social values and start walling off private developments and arming private guards - though we're nearly there anyways: last time I saw irish standard apartment blocks, they all had 10ft railings and municipal gardens hidden well away from the street, with cameras and razor wire.