Grooming traditions for back to school
Getting your kid's hair cut? Pay it forward
Earlier this month, New Orleans barber Brandus Mercadel, who goes by Fatt da Barber, set out to break the Guinness World Record for “Most free back-to-school haircuts.” Mercadel aimed for 200 cuts over the course of two days, starting August 3. Not surprisingly, families showed up en masse for a planned 8 a.m. start in Culture Park, in nearby Gentilly, and the cuts continued the next day at his shop, in adjacent Treme.
Thank goodness for people like Mercadel, who refuse to allow conformity, practicality and efficiency to suck away the enthusiasm for the first day of school. Because many public-school leaders have control issues, dull uniforms have proliferated in the school landscape, taking away opportunities for students to express themselves through their appearance. Parents acquiesce, saying uniforms are more affordable and it gives parents one less thing to juggle in their busy schedules. But utilitarian tennis shoes, starched khakis, clip-on ties and pleated skirts don’t represent new beginnings so much as they signify compliance. Consequently, the first day of school is becoming just another day we have to work to get through — far from the sacred day it represents to many.
Notwithstanding those restrictive schools that immorally criminalize black hairstyles, hair is one of the few remaining frontiers for personal expression.
“In New Orleans, you have to have a fresh haircut,” Mercadel told the Times-Picayune. “Even if your clothes or sneakers are bummy, people can be blinded by a fresh haircut. All they will see is the fresh cut.”
If there is ever a day that students should look fresh, it’s the first day of school. That’s not a call for clean-shaven, pull-your-pants-up respectability. It is a call for us to continue the tradition of treating CONTINUE READING: Celebrating the first day of school with community traditions