Lifestyle
Mel B joins campaign calling for new UK law banning discrimination on the grounds of afro hair
LONDON (AP) — Former Spice Girls singer Mel B is one of dozens of black Britons calling on Parliament to overhaul the country’s equality laws and outlaw discrimination on the basis of Afro hair.
In an open letter to lawmakers on Tuesday, activists including Mel B, singer Beverley Knight and lawmaker Paulette Hamilton called on the UK to introduce a law recognising afro hair as a protected feature.
“For a long time, people with afro hair have experienced unfair treatment in British society and the current law does not go far enough to regulate businesses, schools and society and prevent serious harm,” reads the open letter, published ahead of World Afro Day on Sunday.
“The omission of hair as a protected characteristic under the law has facilitated everyday discrimination and the normalization of Afro hair as inferior in every sphere of life,” it added.
Mel B wrote that her “big, curly hair” attracted unwanted attention when she was a baby and later a pop star.
“The first photoshoot I did as the Spice Girls for ‘Wannabe,’ the stylists looked at my hair and said I had to straighten it,” she said. “My big hair didn’t fit the mold of a pop star.”
She claims she stayed strong and didn’t change her hairstyle, and ladies still tell her that the ’90s music video inspired them to stop straightening their hair.
Racial discrimination based on hairstyle has been a subject of debate and lawsuits in the United States for a while now. Earlier this 12 months, a trial involving Black student who was suspended from school for wearing twisted dreadlocks.
Texas and Michigan are amongst two dozen US states that recently introduced laws was intended to forestall employers and schools from penalizing people for hairstyles including Afros, braids, dreadlocks, twists or Bantu knots.
In July, the US territory Puerto Rico passed similar anti-discrimination laws.