Dana DiFilippo, Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 21, 2009
{snip}
A cop who got cornrows was ordered off the street and kept on desk duty for two days until he cut his braids off, sources said.
While dozens of black officers across the city wear cornrows, Officer Thomas Strain is white. So when the five-year veteran showed up for work Sept. 3 with the traditionally black hairstyle, it didn’t take long for his colleagues—or his bosses—to notice.
“They pulled him out of roll call and took him right up to the inspector’s office,” said an officer who asked to remain anonymous.
Reached last week, Strain declined to comment about the hair hubbub.
{snip}
The problem, police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said, is that Strain’s superior didn’t feel his cornrows were “professional.”
Ordering Strain to chop them off had nothing to do with discrimination, added Vanore, who spoke with Inspector Aaron Horne about the incident.
Horne [who is black—Ed.
{snip}
Police policy requires officers to have “clean, properly trimmed and combed hair” that doesn’t prevent them from wearing their uniform hat “in a military-manner,” Vanore said.
The policy prohibits “unnatural” hair colors such as blue, purple or green but doesn’t ban specific styles, such as cornrows, mohawks, dreadlocks or bouffants.
Vanore didn’t see Strain’s cornrows, but speculated that they may have kept his hat from fitting his head in the required military manner. He couldn’t explain why black officers with cornrows weren’t ordered to get haircuts—unless they’re women, because the hair policy for female officers is slightly more permissive.
{snip}
This isn’t the first time an officer’s appearance has caused commotion in the 35th District.
Officer Kimberlie Webb in 2005 sued the city and the police department after she was barred from wearing a hijab, or Muslim head scarf, on the job. A federal appeals court last April upheld the department’s policy, saying religious garb imperils the department’s appearance of “religious neutrality.”
{snip}
Officer Strain before his haircut.
Original article
(Posted on September 22, 2009)
Comments
Nobody should be wearing cornrows.
But if you allow the black officers to, then i believe it is discrimination to not allow white officers.
Just another example of the traditional double-standard against Whites. That being said why any White would want to have cornrows is beyond me…..
What an amazingly ugly way to style your hair.
I think this was a feeble attempt by the white officer to make nice with his black superiors and the affirmative action ways of the Philly P.D.
Good Greif, can you imagine this white cop with cornrows showing up when called? I know I would burst out laughing and immediately think low IQ. There is no way I could take him seriously. What in the world was he thinking? Cornrows look slap retarded on white people, and not any better on blacks. NO officer should be allowed to wear them.
The problem, police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said, is that Strain’s superior didn’t feel his cornrows were “professional.”
Ordering Strain to chop them off had nothing to do with discrimination, added Vanore
Blacks have been leading the charge to call into question and do away with any and every standard of professionalism and decorum.
This is retribution against whitey for shoving the black mans’ demands for tolerance and inclusion in their face.
“That being said why any White would want to have cornrows is beyond me…”
It’s simple. Obviously this individual is suffering from RID (Racial Identity Disorder))
There is definately a double standard here. I personally think that cornrows are not a very professional look, even for black people. To me they look very ghetto. Why a White man would want to get them are beyone me as well.
I’d be hesitant to comment too quickly. Blacks are given phenomenal…shall we say…latitude…in the standards of behavior and appearance they must “meet” in many metropolitan police departments. Officer Strain may be wearing his hair this way as a sort of “In Your Face” stunt to bring attention to what blacks in his agency can get away with.
I’d be curious to know where the average citizen stands on police officers wearing their hair in cornrows.
I’ve always found it unprofessional - it’s a look that’s outside the sort of conservative appearance people seem to prefer uniformed patrolmen to have.
I don’t see a problem. Just reassign him to undercover busting black drug dealers in South Philly and have his captain keep an eye on him. Problem solved.
I’m a nurse. I’ve always thought cornrows looked fine on black male medical workers. It is a very neat, clean look. Medical workers are supposed to look neat and clean, like a female nurse with long hair pinned up in a neat bun. Corn rows are inappropriate for physicians even 25 year old interns, just too youthful and feminine for a male Doctor.
But on a male police officer black or white it is just not right. To me it is just effiminate and teen agey looking, not suitable for a male police officer.
Cornrows may be appropriate for certain types of hair—it really means nothing to me one way or the other—but on Caucasian hair, it is simply ugly. I find it both aesthetically and culturally repugnant.
I will shed no tears for an oafish white man who wears cornrows. But this is a clear double standard. He wouldn’t send a black man home for sporting a mullet.
No doubt Officer Strain adopted the corn-row hair style as a means of neutralizing threatening suspects by reducing them paroxysms of helpless laughter.
They allow women to have hair longer than they do men. So that they would treat the races differently is not surprising. Nothing those who control us do makes any sense.
I agree with Quiet Professional. It could be an act of passive subversion.
I’ve always wanted to work in a place where they let blacks wear dashikis or other African garb instead of suits. I think a dashiki would be a lot more comfortable than a jacket & tie in the summer!
If Officer Strain was attempting to make a point about racial double standards, he succeeded!
If I was stopped for a ticket by that guy, I don’t think I’d be able to stop laughing.
The policy prohibits “unnatural” hair colors such as blue, purple or green but doesn’t ban specific styles, such as cornrows, mohawks, dreadlocks or bouffants.
Vanore didn’t see Strain’s cornrows, but speculated that they may have kept his hat from fitting his head in the required military manner.
But dreads DO reflect military manner? What a joke! No wonder that Philadelphia is in its present condition.
The police officer hopefully did now learn about the double- standard minorities and the PC media enforces. This realization could be his very first step towards developing a white identity, a white pride.
After all, if he trimes this ugly thing of, he will become a skin-head, wont he? :)
Janos
All laws, rules and regulations must apply equally to all, regardless of race. This order is illegal, as is “affirmative action” race morning and all race-based privileges.
But on a male police officer black or white it is just not right. To me it is just effiminate and teen agey looking, not suitable for a male police officer.
Co-sign! It’s a silly look for a Policeman to sport, especially a white one. Though, I doubt if he were black a word would have been said about it.
I concur it is a ridiculous hairstyle and should not be allowed on any officer. However, why would any white man want to adopt the “black look?”
The double standards exist in all areas of our life but why would any white man step over to the other side?
I think the Officer is paving the road for a white discrimination lawsuit. Probably another fact that can be bought to court to show a blatent double standard.
I see this all the time on white people and have seen several little white girls, young girls who couldn’t possibly have done this to themselves but had to have help from their goofy mother’s or somebody else.
What would possess a white person to do this to their hair? I think it looks stupid even on black people.
The cops here in Las vegas have military style haircuts, but I did see a chubby white one one day that looked like an Elton John look-alike. His hair was shaggy and blonde. No way it could have been regulation.
Is there any depth to which some clueless white will not go to “atone” for “racism?” The utter gutlessness of whites in adopting crazy-looking black hairstyles or mannerisms and language is astounding! Alas, we now live in an inverted world where ugly is beautiful and beautiful is ugly! What malevolence has seized the minds of men?
24 — Rebelcelt wrote at 10:07 AM on September 23:
I think the Officer is paving the road for a white discrimination lawsuit. Probably another fact that can be bought to court to show a blatent double standard.
- - - He ain’t on our side folks.
He’s a de-racinated White man. Dressing and acting like a Black man is not “bravery and strategy”. We see Whites like him all the time, “acting Black”.
It may be that the man is trying to show the double standard. Although I will say that he did look really silly with the hairdo he certainly illustrates a double standard if blacks are allowed to wear the hairstyle. To me the style looks thuggish, low intellegence and ghetto and for a police officer of any race to wear it shows that they have more of an allegiance with a criminal element.
