Mother can’t find a school for her 8-year-old son because of his hair
You might remember looking at all those silly school policies and rules as a child or as a teen, and it’s often something that you have to go through again as a parent.
This mother of an eight-year-old boy can definitely relate to.
In fact, she can even hardly find a school for her son because of some of those ridiculous rules.
Of course, there are always rules that definitely make sense (not wearing any jewelry in phys ed, for example), but some of them are just archaic, annoying, pointless, and sometimes even downright offensive.
Unfortunately, there are still a whole lot of schools where pointless rules remain, and they’re enforced pretty strictly.
Your kid being sent home because of too much make-up or because of bringing a forbidden soda drink? A silly reason to send a child home, but it happens all too often. And sometimes, you can’t even help it.
Farouk James, an eight-year-old boy with absolutely amazing locks of hair, is a highly popular child model.
But his appearance has given him nothing but issues at school.
Farouk has modeled for numerous clothing brands and is also very popular on Instagram with more than 270,000 followers.
He lives with his mom Bonnie in the United Kingdom, and both of them have become quite concerned about his waist-length hair.
According to most of the school rules in the UK, his hair can’t be that long and schools have threatened with cutting it off before he’s allowed in class again.
Not letting a child go to school because of their natural hairstyle is just plain wrong.
His hair is completely natural, he doesn’t dye it or style it, and it couldn’t possibly be offensive.
And it’s just plain discriminatory as well because Farouk would be a girl, his hair wouldn’t be an issue at all according to school rules.
The boy has dealt with an abundance of hair his entire life. Doctors even noticed that he had plenty of hair through scans before he was born.
Farouk himself absolutely loves his locks, and for good reasons!
He thinks they’re lovely, but it sad that he can’t even be himself at school and that he’s frowned upon.
Bonnie applied to The London Oratory son, where Farouk’s older brother previously went. It’s a bit ironic because she was once warned by school officials that the brother’s hair was actually “too short”.
Farouk’s brother is now 23, and Bonnie had hoped that the hair policy would be adjusted by now – but everything remained the same.
The rules were still being violet, and Farouk had to cut his hair in order to be able to attend school.
Mom Bonnie didn’t want to hear any of it and refused to cut her son’s hair. Instead, she launched a campaign for change that went viral.
“We’re getting a real team together and calling it the Mane Generation. We’re going to fight this until these rules get changed. And it’s globally, not just domestically in the U.K.,” Bonnie told CBS News.
Sooner rather than later, Bonnie came across other parents with similar problems, with most of their children wearing dreadlocks and rocking afro hairstyles.
The mother and son duo now hope that their movement can bring some actual change to these silly and pointless school rules.
You can check out Farouk’s interview with the This Morning tv show below.
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Source: YouTube – This Morning, CBS News, Instagram – @faroukjames