HBCU Dress Code: Your favorite besties take opposite sides

Fight! Fight! This week, we debate HBCU dress code bans on bonnets and do-rags, and we end up in bigger questions about freedom, culture, and who gets to define “professional.” We sit on opposite sides, but we keep it honest as we discuss respectability politics and the constant policing of Black bodies.

In journalist Don Lemon’s video commentary series Lemon Drop, three prominent African American thought leaders- Clay Cane, Daniel Grimes, and Symone Redwine join him in a polarized discussion of the issue.

Links to people and places mentioned in this episode:

LEMON DROP | Should Bonnets & Durags Be Banned on Campus?! Don Lemon

https://youtu.be/ozEaDpRlRtk?si=OScfmK3uOe84nJCY

Pauli Murray

My Name is Pauli Murray: New Film on Black Queer Legal Pioneer Who Inspired RBG & Thurgood Marshall

Democracy Now!

https://youtu.be/Uh4r95VBU2Q?si=kfW2Pd6rvUDCTK3F

Dr. Karida Brown

Ep141 Freedom Dreams: How Black Women Shaped American Education with Dr. Karida Brown

https://youtu.be/I9C9gH5dbEU?si=qnyB7GiYq3rjHTiS

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https://patreon.com/user?u=83534204

Get Angie’s eBook: 

We’re Too Old for This! The Inquisitive Older Woman’s Guide to Joy http://joystrategy.co/ebook

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Transcript

Lighting, Tans, And Catching Up

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Hey Ans.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hey Les, how's it going? Going well. Going well. Good. Good good good. Good to see you. I'm doing new lighting now. I changed the setting to um portrait to see if I could avoid all of the lighting snaffos that's been going on. Not sure I like it. I look a little paler than I like. And I'd like to think that I have a little more color than this, but maybe not. Maybe maybe you don't. I'm gonna call Leslie. That looks about right. Leslie is convertible gal. So I am so she's getting a tan. But I'm in the tropics, and I really should look like her, even darker still. But um I'm really protecting my skin with sunscreen because I am just doing some some some treatment, and I don't want to aggravate my skin because it's pretty sensible, sensible, sensitive skin. Um, that I've been uh that's a part of my cross to bear.

Who We Are And Why We Go Deep

SPEAKER_03 1:09

But anyway, um welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Hey guys, I'm Angela, and that's Leslie, my best friend of almost 50 years. We will be celebrating 50 next year in 2027. And that's something 50 years of friendship. It's a big, it's a big deal. It's a big deal. And we're gonna do something.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna do something.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

We are two 60-something year old black women. We are free thinkers, we are pursuing joy and all things joy, and what that means is letting go or challenging a lot of the ways that we've been socialized um as women, as black women, as um black women who were born in the 60s. So um this channel is all about that. Uh, we're kind of living out loud in this way and the challenges. We're also um pretty geeky. We are um Leslie is a physician, and I am an engineer by by training, and um, we go deep on topics. Um, we don't often stay on the top level of things. One other thing that I'll say about us is that we're very different. Um, our ways of seeing the world, our ways of solving problems are very different. And so our conversations tend to be uh uncommon because we come at things from two very different perspectives sometimes. Wrapped in all of that is this beautiful, respectful um friendship that we hold very dear and that um we encourage um deep, meaningful relationships on this channel, also. So having said all that, we're gonna jump into the fray about a topic that's been

The HBCU Dress Code Controversy

SPEAKER_02 3:02

out there. Um when so we're recording this um in end of July. End of July 2026. Things may change by the time this goes live, but um at this time, what's the what's the what's the big what's a big current event topic that's going on, Les that we're gonna be talking about?

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Well, we're gonna revisit a topic that we've talked about on our channel before, actually. But most recently, one of the HBCU colleges has um enacted a policy. They I think it was the University of Alabama. Excuse me one second. Um there are actually several of them. Um yeah, actually, I think there were a number of them. Excuse me for the interference. That's just a fan returning it off. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

But um how so they and um Tuskegee is another, and probably more than that.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

But anyway. Morehouse, I believe, may have a um a policy also. But what we're actually talking about is a dress code. Or what I should say is a not dress code.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

That's a hint to how this conversation is gonna go.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Yes, yes. So University of Alabama, um, I think maybe the most recent one to enact this policy of um women um or their students are are not allowed to wear bonnets to school or do rags, um, no house slippers, no pajama pants or loungewear to class.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

And believe it or not, this is controversial.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

It is indeed. So Angie and I, we listened to a um an episode of Don Lemon's uh YouTube channel where he and three guests discussed this issue and each of them gave their um opinion. So Ang and I Angie knows how I feel about these things. So Ange um said, Les, how about we talk about it again since it's coming up again? And when we did discuss it, actually, it wasn't an issue that there was a dress code formulated or instituted in any of these institutions. We just talked about it just in terms of what we see in the world or whatever. So let's just say they copied the scoop from us. How about that? So the episode is um of Don Lemon's channel. It's called Lemon Drop. Should bonnets and do-rags be banned on campus. And the tagline is bonnets and do-rags, too ghetto for college. Oh lord. So let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

So we'll also say that

Two Besties On Opposite Sides

SPEAKER_02 6:12

we we we're on two different ends, primarily, of the debate about this. Um, I'm more on the Clay Kane, who was a guest on this episode of um Don Lemon's show. He was a guest. I'm more in his camp. Leslie's more in Don Lemon's camp around okay. She she's for it. I'm laughing. She's more for it, and I'm more against it. We'll put it like that.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

I can't even believe that grown-ass people need to be told how to dress in public. And and I know that holds, and and and I know that's, you know, that's being very general.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

But yeah, but it's interesting that you say that because that sentence has two different meanings. Because I'm saying the same thing. I'm saying I can't believe that you guys are telling grown-ass people how to dress on campus, and you're saying, I can't believe grown-ass people gotta be told how to dress.

SPEAKER_03 7:20

Right. And and and obviously, if there has been an edict and a dress code established at the at the institution, there had to be a need for it. Not necessarily what do you mean? Well, what I'm saying is, well, people don't we enact laws in order to police folks that need policing. Well, no, it's not generalized that way.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Yes, you are. Now you're sounding like, yeah, we gotta check because oh one percent of the people um uh lied of the voting booth.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

So now we gotta have no, I don't I don't I don't really mean it like that. Okay, what I am saying is that there have been enough people wearing uh bonnets, do rags, and what the school now has determined to be inappropriate um attire in public, that they had to come up with a rule to um guide people on how they should dress coming to class. And I don't believe that the, I didn't look at it um per se, but I don't believe that the rule governs how they can walk on campus or how they have to dress in dorm rooms or things like that. But as I understand it, is if you come to class to the classroom, you're not to wear um the satin night hat and other, you know, what they determine to be, what we, me and them determined to be inappropriate. And I could get angry about this because to me, I'm gonna get in and not call it unconscionable. But why? Why, why? Okay, why? And and and and then let me just say, I'm not talking about respectability politics, whereas I'm trying to present ourselves in a certain way in front of other people. I'm not I'm not talking about that at all.

unknown 9:27

Really?

SPEAKER_03 9:28

No, I'm not talking about that. Not in terms of I I am talking about in terms of the administration or professors or whatever. So in that regard, maybe that's respectability politics. But I think that you know how I've always thought, thought, there's a way that I think you should present yourself in public that may be different and most likely different from how you present yourself at home. And to wear loungewear, house slippers, satin bonnets designed to cover your hair while you sleep, you know, protect your hair while you sleep, or preserve hairstyles, or all of these things. I don't think it has a role in a I'm gonna say in public, but I'll I'll say in class because we're talking about this issue.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

I find it really interesting um that in this episode that we're referring to of Don Lemons and a few others, I listened to um Roland Martin, some of his commentary about it. And I find it interesting that in every case, those people who are in support and think it's ridiculous that there's any backlash about these um particular items in the dress code, also say, no, it's not respectability politics because no one wants to be that. No one wants to be in that camp because they know that that's not right. Well, that's okay, but they are in that camp, as are you. That is what that is.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

How so?

SPEAKER_02 11:15

That is what that is. That is saying that there's a certain way that if you are to be respected, you should dress this way. I don't okay. Go ahead, go ahead. But right, and um that that way of dressing is for at home, it's not for here. Um, it is these schools have a right to tell you how to dress. And if you don't want to um follow those rules, don't go to that school. Um sounds a lot to me, and I'm gonna go all the way there. Sounds a lot to me like if you're gonna complain about America, you you could leave because that's an option. You don't have to like the rules here, just go elsewhere, and we get to set the rules. All of that is true. You do get to set the rules, but you then you do get called out for these things.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

And I'm not gonna go I'm not really following what you what you're saying. I don't see the relationship. One, I don't see the link to if you don't tell you the link in America, you can leave. You know, I'll tell you the link.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Yeah, I'll tell you the link because some of what these people who are for this um this dress code have said, if you don't like the rules of the school, don't go there, choose to go else, go elsewhere. That the school isn't for you. So to me, it reeks of if you don't like the rules here, if you don't like our policies here, if you're complaining, then you can leave. You have a choice in the matter. In a country, you're saying. In the country. I'm saying that it it it reeks of that to me, this idea that if you don't like it, don't don't push against us, don't try to change us. This is our thing. We get to decide. And if you don't like it, then just don't come here.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

You're bringing up a false equivalence, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Okay, but I get to finish.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Yes, you do.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

Okay. Um, and I do think that it is a telling grown people how to monitor themselves. What's really interesting is you open by saying it must be a problem for the school to have instituted these rules. And my anecdotal evidence is that not necessarily. It doesn't have to be a majority or an overwhelming number of incidents of a thing for people in charge to say it's too much. It is too much.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

It could be I'm not even talking about numbers. I'm saying that they have had to be, have been a problem. One, two people. Exactly. Problem. But I'm saying somebody had a problem with it.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Yeah, but that's my point, Les. That nuance is my point.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

But these are private institutions that have no right to make rules that there are certain universities that I wouldn't personally go to. And not because of the response.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

And and they also have the responsibility of the backlash. Sure, they have the right, but with rights come responsibility. So you get to have it. So I get to disagree with that. Okay. Yeah. Um so the the position that a problem had to exist for a solution to be applied is not true. There could be um a definition of a problem that um reasonable people would say, that's not really a problem. What are you trying to fix? That happens all the time. Again, we see it in politics, we see

Professionalism, Walmart, And Public Clothes

SPEAKER_02 14:50

it in in government, where um a little thing is made into a big thing, and all these big rules come up around it. So it's not a given that it must have been a problem in um for the university to say this needs to be addressed. I actually um spoke to my youngest who went to an HBCU, and he said he saw so little. He graduated two years ago, so still in this time of people wearing um bonnets, bonnets outside, and these bonnets um have really changed in how they are designed and the colors and so on. They're not like the ugly pink shower cap that I don't like seeing in my bathroom. And I've asked you to bring another one for me because they have become these kind of stylish things that young people wear. Uh, not my thing, but also I think that they're bigger things that um should be focused on and not not this. And I I say that not in that this is not a big deal, so schools so people don't push back because this is not a big deal. Why are we even talking about this? My position is that um the schools are focusing in on something that um I think these young people who are in school, they're figuring themselves out. They're they're they're deciding, they're bringing in their ways of living from all over the country, all over the world. They're coming to this singular place and they're figuring themselves out. They're developing their own culture there. And I always get a little like hairs on the back of my neck go up, spidey senses, you know, like danger Will Robinson, when I hear people looking at a group of black folks, whomever they are, right? Because I thought about um this is I'm gonna end on this. I thought about um what's his name? Uh um um come on, the guy, he's an actor, he's a big guy, Bill Cosby. And the way he used to talk to young um black people, like in a in a very kind of um uh just a um uh chastising way. Yeah, kind of uh y'all gotta get yourself together and stop wearing that and so on. So I always feel really kind of um slippery and alert when I hear people um start looking at a group of young black people and making decisions about how they're moving in the world when they're in the stage where they're trying to figure out what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

I agree with that part of it. But what I'm extrapolating this conversation to is that, and the reason why I said it's not respectability politics, because I don't think that I should keep my do-rag at home because I don't want whites or other people in power to think some other way of me. I don't think that at all because it doesn't matter what we wear for them to think certain things of me. You know, I'm still not thought of as a physician, even though it's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

But respectability about so yeah, respectability isn't respectability isn't only about whiteness. It's about it's about fitting into a politic that says that you need to look a certain way. It's not, and a lot of it comes from um uh the you know the the white established um way, but it it is you don't do this because you you won't um fit in, you won't make it, people will look at you this way. And that's come up in this too, around even the people who don't want to see this as respectability politics, they've said, well, they need to learn because they won't be able to get a job if they're dressed this way. And to me, it's like, okay, the same thing. I couldn't wear my braids at a job because that's that's not the proper way to dress. So it just is really like uh slippery, slippery slope.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

It might be, but if students are in a developing stage of their lives as they are and finding themselves, I think there has to be some, there should be some parental or guidance in terms of ways to purport yourself in business or in play or at home or what have you. And so many young people do need that type of guidance. And I kind of look at it on that continuum, where I'm telling you, and I don't, it's not just a black and white thing, a black thing for me. I'm thinking about when I go in Walmart, the way that I see that's what you get when you go into Walmart. That's what I get. I know that's just what I get. Um damn, you jumped on that fast. But the way that people dress in Walmart, they wear house clothes and and slippers and pajamas. And I am saying, it's like, why would anybody of any color want to wear sleepwear in public? It's it's so disturbing to me. I just don't understand. And now when you mentioned the um the way that bonnets now are a style, the way that I see people uh mostly women wearing bonnets, I've seen men wearing bonnets too. The way that I've seen people wear bonnets, it is not as a style. It is as a, I just got up and I my hair is not combed, perhaps, or whatever. You made me some um hats or some covers if my hair were not whatever that I can, and I started to um put it, bring it um on camera, but um, that are beautiful. So what I'm trying to say, there are stylish ways to go out with your hair undone or not the way that you want it, or in part in process for some other, you know, outing or what have you without wearing sleepwear. Listen, I have on slippers right now in the house. I'm not wearing these slippers outside, even though they're very comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

And the and the key part, the key word in that is I.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

I'm not, I would, I would not choose that either. But you're saying that people have the right and should not have any backlash about wearing pajamas in public.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Um I'm saying that a school of higher learning.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Learning, a school of higher learning, um, especially the ones that are um shaping young. Black Peders. Um there are so many other things that they should be focused on rather than how these young people are covering their hair. And this conversation is about bonnets and do-rags. I'm not really talking about the other things because I'm talking about bonnets and do-rags because they represent this style aesthetic that young people have. But what I'm saying about I don't know if it's style. I'm telling you what I mean when I say the bonnets and you referring to them as sleepwear. I'm not saying that they're not. I'm saying that, you know, I'm in beauty supply stores all the time.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

What it used to be, this little pack that you got for $199 and, you know, three in a pack type of bonnets, the bonnets are all different. You'll say Kente cloth. You'll say I've never seen them.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

You'll see, okay. I see pink play satin, meaning polyester. Play, play, play satin with uh uh a white or black lace

Rights, Consequences, And Personal Freedom

SPEAKER_03 23:28

border around it. It looks like it needs to be on an uh episode of Bugs Bunny when they go Oh my god. You seem to be and what I'm trying to say is I don't see the stylish ones that you're talking about. Because I mean, listen, look, I I often have a need to cover my hair. I wear caps a lot. But I am just saying, I also I honestly I look at it as a form of respect of between student and professor. I think that there is a hierarchy that you can't like, it's I find it as you would say, slack. You know, it's it's I think it's disrespectful. Let me give you another example, and this is very interesting. I've said this before and I see it, it's the same equivalent, and these are not black people I'm referring to.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

I just said it just yesterday. I saw um it was 7 p.m. I was leaving the hospital, and the nurses, these are RNs professionals with degrees, and they, you know, changed out of their scrubs and they were going home. And most of them, this I saw like a group of three walking, and they wear like short, like jogging shorts to work. I mean, it's hot, it's 85 degrees out. Jogging shorts and like tank tops or whatever to work. And I was looking, I was walking behind them, and I looked at them and I'm like, maybe I'm just old. But I'm like, why? And I've asked one of the nurses one time, I'm like, why do you wear gym wear to work? One of my anesthesia colleagues, she's um anyway, um, why do you wear gym clothes to work? Like, and I know we we go to work and we change our clothes and stuff, but I just don't, I think that they're I don't know, I don't think it has its place. Well, well, my thing. And and to me, I think that's I I see that that's to me an equivalent. So yeah, so I wouldn't have a problem if my hospital exec said, you know, like they do with no fake fingernails or no long nails over a certain length or whatever they say.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

But um But there's a reason for that because it's Well, it's it's infectious control, you know. So let's not do that one.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

No, no, no. I'm saying, like how they do a, you know, they enact codes of of whatever, where decorum or what you can wear and what you can do. So, but I don't think it's appropriate for professional people to dress like that in when they go to into work. I don't think so. Okay, so so I want to So I look at it, I look at the bonnet stuff, sorry. I look at that in the same way as don't present yourself like that to professional people.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

I I I get that, right? So two things I want to say. One is your your focus has been on what you think is professional, what you wouldn't do, what's true? And and and it could all be valid. My position is I'm not taking away what you think is appropriate, what you I'm taking away now. You get to say what somebody else does. And that is where I start to get a little, you know, no, I'm not by the same. I'm not gonna go by to say you can feel how you feel, you can be offended however you feel. There are people who are offended just from you walking down the street, from you walking into their operating room and say, How dare you, black beat, come and try to put a needle in me? There are people who are offended about everything about us. That's true. This really, this is what you're gonna this have have the people registered to vote. Um, how are they doing in school? What are their grades doing?

SPEAKER_03 27:43

And see, when you say that you wish that when you said that you wish that they would concentrate on something else, how do you know they're not? How do you know this is a yes and it could be dress code and we want everybody to get a B or a B. This is how I know dress code and if you want to stay in your sleeping clothes, log in online.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

This is how I know that that um they've they've gone into a range on this on the spectrum um of coming into school naked and coming into school in a shirt in a suit and tie. They've gone into the range of the spectrum where I think they are um overstepping when it comes to these two uh items that that I want to focus on.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

You're limiting your conversation to bonnets and do-rags, is that what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 28:50

It does yes, but it's not because my arguments don't fit in other areas, it's because this particular one is where we can both make our particular arguments because I think this goes into the um you just mentioned the fingernails. There's a reason for that. Of course. There's a reason for that. There's a but this is purely presentation. It's purely presentation. I think it is.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

It is it okay if college is supposed to develop a mind. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Start at age 18 with okay, but then tell them in college, tell them that they have to wear uniforms. Like, like let's just go all the way there. Tell them at 18, 19, 20 that they um when do you start? That they need to wear uniforms because there's a reason for wearing uniforms because it makes everyone equal. People who have and people who don't have, they still have the same. There are always these really meaningful, well thought out. I think it's when you um the the particularities around bonnets and do rags, that to me becomes a cultural thing, right? Because do-rags are often worn to get waves. I agree, right? You don't want to mess up your waves. Um, bonnets, you see it as only sleepwear. I know that bonnets are also protecting your hair because a lot of our hairstyles are synthetic hair. It gets on the back of the neck, it messes up your hair. You just paid $300 for it. You don't want your hair to get messed up. Yeah. So you wear your bonnet. Some of the bonnets are made long for longer hair. Right. Um, you may have um curled your hair and you're covering it because it's you're going out. I get it, right? Yeah. So I don't I know that it is more than um it's more than sleepwear. Sleepwear, and it's also more than um showing too much skin and so on. You're going into a ring an area where it's like get over it.

SPEAKER_03 31:14

Like, like really, you don't have to like it, but but this is in a uh an uh an institution of higher learning. So what? What does that what does that protect them from? So you know because your sister is an administrator at a university.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

She there has to be rules, decorum, and ways of conduct and behavior and dress perhaps.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

But I'm saying it's going too far to say that you can't wear um uh bonnets and that that is a particular, you're calling out a particular thing that you um you'll and by the way, I didn't mention when I talked to um my my son about this. He's like, Mom, if I saw that on campus, it was so little because everyone is trying to look good, everybody is trying to show off, and we're known for you know having nice fits and so on. And he used language that I don't know, I'm not even gonna pretend to know what is the the updated way of speaking to this. But he was like, we're

Should Parents Teach Presentation Rules

SPEAKER_02 32:18

trying to, you know, present ourselves and and and wear our really nice, cool stuff. And if I saw that, it was very little. So I don't understand why they're making a big deal about something that so few people are doing. Some people just don't freaking like it. So they want to make these grand things because they don't like it. It has nothing to do with teaching them this, then make them wear suits. If you don't like it, say you don't like it. Don't make it into this. We're teaching them how to operate in corporate. I I don't buy it. I don't buy it.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

You're positing that there it is not a large number because of your son's experience at his college, at his university. You're supposing that there's not a large number of people who are wearing do-rags and bonnets. It's just pro possibly they're making the rule because the person the administration doesn't like the few that are on the campus and perhaps doesn't want it to get out of control. I think And how dare they tell these young people who are paying tuition. Who are paying to who are paying tuition. Right. What right do they have to make rules?

SPEAKER_02 33:39

I'm not saying how what right do they have to make rules? I'm saying that um these specific rules are uh addressing something that is so um it's so like uh it's almost like pointing out this is this way of dressing is beneath you. Um they didn't use obviously the language of um ghetto or ratchet or that type of thing.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

But that has been used, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:15

And we know that that's what it's all about, right? And that to me is respectability. That's to me is saying we don't want to look like them. You you shouldn't want to look like that. Don't wear those things, and we do not um we do not allow that type of of dressing here. Um our it sounds that I I understand. It sounds really elitist to me. I know you were gonna say that.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

Really elitist to me. The elitist part about it is is I don't care for that, of of course, you know, but do you think that that's a part of I do, I do think that's part of it, but I don't think there's any loss if they never wear that in public. You know? Yeah, but I think again, it's what I think. I understand it's my opinion, but it's not just my opinion because it's school administrators that made that there, you know. I'm in total agree with that, agreement with that. Yeah, I I I think I think that there needs to be, it's much like what I the example I gave for um p m uh my staff. I think there needs to be some type of separation between the way that people dress in play, in their home, in lounging, and at work. I just I just do. Okay, but Les, okay, so stick a pin there, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:36

You uh believe that there should be certain rules around how people are um dressing and so on for um you're you're talking about as they come into work. You're not even talking about when they're at work, right? I'm thinking, how dare you then say, sir, make a rule so that my um sensibilities are not. That is what you're saying. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

I'm not saying I'm not sure if you wish you want that to go away if they had a little bit more professionalism on their own than it.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Nope, you said, and I wouldn't be mad at something I'm paraphrasing. I wouldn't be mad if they made a rule.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

I wouldn't be mad at them if they made a rule so that my sensibilities are you going? Where are you going? What where are you going? To 24-hour fitness? You going to planet fitness? Where you going?

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Well, where where is the line then drawn?

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Around I can't believe you're holding so strongly to the end. Where is the line drawn? You're arguing the ability. You're you're arguing that people have the right to wear whatever they want in institutions that they're paying, etc. And they will suffer the consequences of that. While maintaining that you wouldn't wear it or you don't think it's particular, whatever, but you think that they should have the right to do and and incur whatever consequences come from it.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

If the teachers disrespect them, or if young people hold on, hold on, or if, or if they learn that asserting their rights is a noble thing to do. So I'm not saying that the consequences are always negative. Yeah, okay. Right? Because guess what? To me, it's just like um, and I know you're not gonna agree, but you gotta see the through line. I see the through line. Everyone can um practice their own religion. Listen, right. I'm not telling anybody I'm not telling anybody that they need to be Christian. I'm just saying you can't wear a hijab here because people are gonna be offended. People might think you have a bomb. But I'm not telling you.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

Uh, you know I'm not saying that.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

I know you're not saying that, but I'm saying that we need to look at these things with a little more care about what freedom looks like and where it makes sense to encroach, and where you're really just um applying your sensibilities on a larger group. And it may not be where you should be spending your time. That's what I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. As you would say, that's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 38:46

I assume that that's the only controversy or issue that that school administrators are spending time on. I would love to speak to your sister and see what she thinks. Get on the phone. What she thinks about this this this issue. I wish we had spoken to her before. No, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

I listen, I'm in the camp where I think there's so much policing on a black body. I agree. This is my final I agree. It ain't I think there's so much policing on black bodies and minds. I agree.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

Really? You're saying this should not be an extra one of them. Leave it alone. I think leave it alone. I kind of think it depends on who's doing the policing.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

Well, I and how it's I don't agree because I think I think I think some some black bodies need to be policed.

SPEAKER_03 39:47

Let it be policed by their parents. Okay, somebody. That's what I'm saying. Okay, but not this institution that they've chosen to go to. And you're I'm not saying there has to be.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

I'm saying if there is to be this in the social constructs that we have, if there is to be this, let it be let it be well placed. Not not you, somebody who they don't know you from a can of beans, telling them what to do. They're going to school to learn. Let me tell you why I'm they used to they they say that afros are distracting. You need to not wear an afro because it's distracting.

SPEAKER_03 40:31

I understand your point. Let me tell you, and now I'm going off on a an another little tangent here. Okay, go. When you said let it be their parents, the first thing that I thought about was the young grade school um people, the controversy children, the controversy over teaching about um different sexuality and um different home um uh fan different family lives and and family situations. And so many of the parents,

Corporate Prep Versus Campus Wide Bans

SPEAKER_03 41:06

some of the parents said, I want to teach my child about this. Don't you teach, you know, you are not the one to police my student or whatever. And more many of the parents, in lieu of that, opted to not teach anything about differences.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Right. You know, so tell me the tell me why this is the same.

SPEAKER_03 41:29

Well, why this is the same is when you when you said ris let the parents, you know, tell the young people the appropriateness or inappropriateness of how different. If it is to be done. If it is to be done, right. So what I am saying is what if parents have so many other things that they don't have to, or they don't even know. Sometimes parents don't know what's happening in and in uh universities with their children, as you know, as we all know that that happens. So I'm not sure if this is an issue that a parent may be even aware of to have that conversation. It could come up if you want to go to the University of Alabama, but you know, they have that rule against durags and whatever. Is this something you want to wear? Is that okay with you? That may be the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

But I think that every the school, private institution, has a right to make rules.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

They do. It's not about whether the school doesn't have the right or not. It's about what a poor choice, is my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 42:34

It's not about it could be uh it could be one choice among thousands of choices.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

This choice is a poor choice. This choice is a poor choice. And why it's not the same at all as the um teaching um age-appropriate um uh sexual health and identity and and gender on on um children is because that is a part of um it is a part of curriculum, right?

SPEAKER_03 43:01

It it's not all, as you know. That's what we're talking about. It's not a part of all curriculum. Okay, and many districts take it out of the curriculum because they don't want, they don't think, I mean, come on, you know, slavery is not a part of all curriculum or whatever. We're going into that.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yeah, but that to me is um is science. Um it's not um uh I understand, I see.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

I understand the difference. The only thing I was I was jumping on was, and they're not the same, but I was only mentioning it in the in the realm of leaving parents to teach. I mean, we can have a whole series of podcasts about what we think parents should teach um their children and whether or not they've taught it or not, you know. So by time it gets to the that level of now they're on their own and making their own choices. What kind of bringing did you get? Did your parents ever teach about that? Or is this, you know, it's like, you know. We've all seen people who we thought were raised by wolves. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

You know, it's like this is this is kind of um there the the um there's always um situations where younger people older people's ways of seeing the world are imposed on younger people, right? Right, wrong, or indifferent.

SPEAKER_03 44:33

And I can't believe I'm one of the older people now saying like Yes, you are. And and and I'm I'm surprised that I'm like pootish and and you should hear the conversations I'm having.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Why is she wearing that ass out?

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Like, what? Is that does that look okay? I think that he says it doesn't matter, but you know what? I'm gonna start dressing like that.

SPEAKER_02 45:00

You'll show him. I'll show him. And all of the rage or all of the indignation that you think people deserve, you're gonna get it just to show them. Just to show them. I I'm gonna wrap in saying that in the cases of bonnets and do-rags, specifically, it goes too far for HBCUs um to put this as a policy for inappropriateness on campus. And different schools have different policies. Some of them you can't you can't wear it in the classroom, you can't wear it anywhere on campus, only in your dorm room. Some schools have you you can't wear it in cafeterias. Um, so there's there's a range of of this rule, but it is too close, it's too on the line of what are you really, is it really true? This is this really where the where the the the lessons about how to dress properly in corporate need to be taught. I know at my son's school, they had um uh in the in the business school, they had days where everyone had to wear um uh suits or business attire to school. It was a part of the training, right? For this particular class. Um or this or this major. But that that to me is how you teach appropriately how to dress for school, not in what you wear walking around campus and going to class. It's a very different thing. And if you want that, all right.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

We're not gonna go too much longer.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

So, Les, my thing is if you want that, if you want that, then create that. Don't make it this all across the board. Not everybody is going into a corporate job. Not everybody, and so do you but you people can leave, you can don your caps when you leave the school.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

If you're not going into a corporate job where that uh where that's frowned upon, well then

Paulie Murray And Generational Pushback

SPEAKER_03 47:06

I mean, I don't really you brought up that issue with the wearing the business, um, yeah, wear business attire, two business classes or whatever, and I see it as the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

I don't see it as the same because I'm uh my point in bringing that up is if their true desire is to teach young people how to dress properly um in corporate settings, then have a designated thing like like like the example that I gave, where for this class it's all it's it's business, it's it's I don't let's say it's MVA type stuff, business, business administration stuff, business administrative, let me make my point, business administration and that type of thing, and resume development and those types of things. It is particular, it's a particular type of training to make that broad and say.

SPEAKER_03 48:05

But maybe the university is is trying to foster that particular type of training.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

I I I I get that. Maybe it is, maybe it is. I'm saying that they're going too far when they broaden it to a campus-wide thing, and they're making too, it's too close for comfort for me by saying that um this shows that you are prepared and this shows that you're not.

SPEAKER_03 48:36

If you dress this way, you're you're you're it's because now that's interactivating because I don't really know why. And again, I didn't read bylaws or anything like that, so I'm not really sure why they instituted that. Well, I think a part of and But you yeah. Um I'm I'm saying it's we're gonna these besties are gonna agree to disagree on this. I didn't get any closer. I can't even meet you in the middle with this. No, that's fine. But I actually I did agree with you in terms of um being on a continuum. I understand that it could be misinterpreted um and taken too far or representative of other things that are coming to the future. We know how things start and then they end up certain way. So that part I do understand.

SPEAKER_02 49:24

But and the part of your thing that I understand is what I understand is if I am looking at these institutions in the most generous generous ways possible, um that it is a way of it's a way of preparing them for a future. That's where I'll stop because that is one kind of future, and it may not be for them.

SPEAKER_03 50:06

No, that's true. That's true. Yeah, I want to see their I want to see their future when they're shaking shit up, but but not when they're performing. Yeah, to be nimble and flexible to they can pivot and shift once they're out. To find their way when they're out of class or what have you. I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

But I think it's telling them something. I think it's communicating something to them. I think it's it's telling them that this way is wrong. Like this way of speaking is wrong. Not different, but wrong. This way of moving in the world is wrong. Not different, not it's gonna be harder for you if you move this way. You're saying that it's wrong. I'm not sure. So much though that I'm putting it in the rules.

SPEAKER_03 50:55

Listen, I'm not so sure that it's going that far because what it is is we're if we're sticking to bonnets and do-rags only. Yeah. They're kind of the message could only be, could only be that when you are in the presence of a professor, you have to dress a certain way. That could be the only message.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

But Les, even that, even that. I can't help but think about all of the rules around clothing and around how to do that.

SPEAKER_03 51:32

See, but now you're saying that they're more than that. And I'm saying let's just pretend or suppose that that is the only reason. That's not a bad reason.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

It is a bad reason. Here's so I remember um I was doing some research on um on uh Polly. Um what's her first name? What's their first name? Um Polly. Um it it slipped my mind. Anyway, yeah this this um revolutionary leader who did so much for um civil rights, but it's not really um well known because um she was female, they were female presenting, they were um, they created a lot of the structure of the the laws around um in um board v uh Brown v. Board of Ed and so on. But it's the men who took this forward. Um they did a lot of the foundational work that um uh the Supreme Court um woman um what's her name with names. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ruth Bader Ginsburg that um she used to to have these um these monumental rulings for the benefit of society, but she's she's not really named, she's not really known. Um and one of the things that she started to buck up against in these institutions are the more revolutionary young black people who are coming along. She used words like color, she didn't use black, because black was derogatory in in her time. And so there was this kind of um uh um very um um explosive coming together of all the stuff that she'd done in her framing. Um, she was a contemporary of um uh Thurgood Marshall and um Paulie Murray was Paulie Murray. Thank you. Thank you. We're gonna put a link because we had a conversation about her too. Just an incredible, incredible person. Um and that we never hear about. That you never hear about but but but you live under the betterment that um they've created. Anyway, so and how she was she now came up against these young black revolutionaries who saw her her way of seeing the world as old-fashioned and

HBCU History And Agreeing To Disagree

SPEAKER_02 54:18

um and you know, she was uncomfortable, like I said, with with black, and she used words like Negro and things like that. And so I do think that there's always this stuff going on, these layered things that happen, um, especially with with black folks, um, because there were ways that we pushed against back then that looked very different than the ways that we push against now. And I'd like to see us really more open to how young people express themselves. One of the ways is through their dress, one of the ways is in particular around their hair. And I'd like to see us be much more open and give a lot more breath around that and stop kind of um um being so, I'm gonna use the word, being so quick to say if you do that, that's gonna be to your detriment. Because they said that about locks. They said that about, you know, um point point well taken.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

There's a role though. We got to think, and I'm glad that you spoke a little bit about the history with Pauline Murray and what have you, because we do have to go back in terms when we're speaking about these HBCUs that have been around for a hundred years or whatever, and remember what they're founding and how they were founded. We had um um, I'm blocking on her name now, come on on the show and speak about some of the early HBCUs and normal schools and things like that. Yes, Corita Brown. And so if you think about the way and the reasons why they were formed, they were formed and a lot of their um thinking and teaching was some of the, you know, what we would say at this point is outdated and all, but these are their constitutions and these are why they came up. And I understand what you're saying that, you know, you you you need to move into the um the future of of of, you know, if you're educating young people, but they also are built upon foundations of earlier thought.

unknown 56:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:25

You know, and I think that there has to be a mix. This might be the mix. I don't know what other liberal thinking or socialist thinking or more um um or less conservative thinking, let's just say, or what they're encouraging in their institution and their in their um curriculum and whatever. But I could see this being part of perhaps a remnant of some of their old when perhaps they had to use uniforms in general or whatever, but I can't go so far as to say that they shouldn't, that this shouldn't be on the list. I I just can't go so far as to say that this shouldn't be on the list.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

I don't know what else is on the list. Well, agree to disagree. I think this is an easy, low-hanging fruit. No. Don't don't don't don't go there. You're just I don't know. It's just kind of messing with messing with messing with the mojo too much. And you can be uncomfortable. It's okay. It's it's all right. You you you don't get to um uh kind of impose your need for I'm not gonna go back because you're gonna say that's that's not what they're trying to do. But I I I think leave this one alone. Leave this, leave this, leave this one alone. All right, I'll let you get the last word. We're good. We're good about not not not putting this type of policing on on our young kids. Anyway, okay, that is it.

SPEAKER_03 58:00

Whew, I told you, and I still keep her around because another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

Brooklyn! She's crazy, she's