School code unconstitutional
Pretoria school’s hair policy shelved
GAUTENG Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has asked the province’s schools to review their codes of conduct after that of Pretoria Girls High was suspended for “insensitivity”.
Lesufi said the codes could not contradict the constitution.
“The code of conduct at Pretoria Girls High is insensitive to different people and discriminates badly against black pupils as it asks them to straighten their hair,” said Lesufi this morning.
“That is not fair because some pupils have natural(ly curly) hair so we have agreed with the student governing body that it be suspended,” he said.
Lesufi said they had ensured the black pupils would not be victimised and allegations of racism at the school would be investigated.
“We have also started a team that will teach pupils, teachers and parents about the importance of non-racialism, starting with Pre- toria Girls High,” he said.
Things boiled over at the school over the weekend when black pupils marched during a spring fair, decrying institutionalised racism and discrimination at the school.
This followed an incident last week when a black girl was hauled to the principal’s office and allegedly threatened with suspension after presenting an assignment highlighting inequality in South Africa.
Pupils were protesting against the hair policy and against being questioned when they were in groups of two or more.
They also claim they were barred from using their home language.
Yesterday the girl who presented the assignment told Lesufi she was labelled racist by staff and white pupils.
Her guardian, Lebo MadibaLokotwayo, wrote on Facebook that her niece was subjected to racism under the guise of school policy.
“The girl gave a speech in class about employment in South Africa. She compared the politics of employment pre- and post-apartheid and highlighted the ills of apartheid and the role of trade unions,” Madiba-Lokotwayo posted.
“Her speech was interrupted, she was taken to the headmaster’s office and threatened with suspension. When her parents fought the suspension, the school used the hair regulations against the pupil.
“Her mother is black (Zulu), her father is Indian. Doesn’t that just make her proudly South African? She represents everything beautiful about this country. #SheIsHerHair,” Madiba-Lokotwayo said.
Former pupils, University of Pretoria students, activists and Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga were among those who arrived at the school to support the pupils.
An online petition requested that Lesufi and headmistress Karen du Toit ensure the code of conduct did not discriminate against black and Muslim girls and requested disciplinary action be taken against teachers who had implemented racist policies.
In a two-hour meeting with Lesufi yesterday, several schoolgirls, who cannot be named because they are minors, narrated horrendous stories of how they were insulted.
“I was called a monkey by a teacher. It pains me even now because we are treated differently at this school. We are made to feel that we do not belong,” said one girl.
Another pupil said: “A white girl called me the k-word. I didn’t report her; she has called other children the same and nothing was done.”
A pupil told Lesufi her Afro was likened to a bird’s nest by a teacher.
About 10 pupils spoke of treatment they had received because of their hair.
“Teachers find it offensive when we speak to our friends in our mother tongue. We are stopped and told to stop making funny noises,” another said.
‘ISHOULD be left alone to be the beautiful person I want to be.” These were the words of actress Florence Masebe during a roundtable discussion on the use and dangers of skin-lightening products and hair relaxers at the Sheraton Hotel in Pretoria. The Department of Science and Technology hosted the event.
Masebe spoke of her personal experiences in the entertainment industry as an actress and how her dark skin and natural hair have caused problems and even cost her some jobs.
“When you get into the make-up room you are made to feel like there’s something wrong with the skin God gave you,” Masebe said.
She said the same panicked look make-up artists got was the one hairstylists got when they had to style her natural hair.
She said the reality was that in the entertainment industry, they would cast light-skinned women in a role because a dark-skinned woman didn’t fit the “bombshell look”.
Masebe said she had to do a photo shoot for one of her television programmes and she was asked to wear a wig because it was a “glamorous shoot” – giving the implication that her natural hair was not glamorous.
Other speakers at the roundtable discussion included doctors and scientists who had done research on the phenomenon of skin bleaching and hair relaxers.
Professor Ncoza Dlova, the head of the University of KwaZuluNatal’s dermatology department, said women have continued using skin bleaching since the beginning of this phenomenon in the 1960s.
“Now women use these creams all over their bodies, unlike before, when they used it only on their faces and necks,” Dlova said.
One of the effects of the creams was ochronosis (skin damage), which was irreversible.
She said some of the reasons people bleached their skin was due to the influence of the media and advertisements, low self-esteem, treating disorders and pigmentation, ignorance, and the fact that it was a multibillion-dollar industry and a global phenomenon.
Professor Nonhlanhla Khumalo of the University of Cape Town has done case studies and clinical research on the risks of hair relaxers.
She said the first patent for hair relaxers was done in the early 1900s by African-American inventor Garrett Augustus Morgan. The product contained sodium hydroxide, and in 2016 relaxers still contained the chemical.
“Sodium hydroxide increases the pH levels of your skin. A healthy pH level is 6, or lower than 7, but relaxers (which contain sodium hydroxide) increase your pH levels to 14.
“A pH level of 14 is considered to be corrosive. Then you put neutraliser (usually in shampoo form) to lower the pH level and you get your hair to be permanently straight,” Khumalo said.
“Alopecia (hair loss) increases by 30 percent when a woman uses hair relaxers,” she pointed out.
Khumalo warned that children’s relaxers have the same effect as adult relaxers.