Hair Care Surchage--Racist?

Take a look at this story from The Washington Post about so-called racial discrimination at Dillard’s department store.

“LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- An Alabama woman is seeking class-action status for a lawsuit against a Dillard's Inc. hair salon for allegedly charging black women more than white women.

Debbie Deavers Sturvisant alleges that a hair salon in a Tuscaloosa, Ala., Dillard's department store charged $35 to wash and set her hair, while white women paid $20 for the same service.

Sturvisant's lawsuit could bring a whole new level of attention to the general practice across the country of charging differently for hair care based on ethnicity.

Officials in Arizona, California, Florida, Maryland and Massachusetts have already addressed race- and sex-based pricing differences at hair salons.

"The stereotype is that all black hair is the same. But that's erroneous, just as all hair for Caucasians is not the same," said Patrick C. Cooper, a Birmingham, Ala., lawyer who plans to represent thousands of affected customers. Sturvisant's lawsuit was filed in February.”

I’m not a hair stylist, but I think that I know a thing or two about haircuts. I easily got twice as many haircuts in the first 20 years of my life than I’ve gotten in the past 25 years, but they all didn’t cost the same—the price depended on where I was getting it cut, who was cutting it, and how long my hair was at the time.

When I lived at home with my parents, my dad, the Army pilot, was a firm believer in “white sidewalls” on the side of a little boys head. I had a fresh $3 haircut, every two weeks, come rain or shine—whether I needed it or not. My Dad did too. If your hair was touching your ears, it was time to visit the barber.

When I went off to college, the only change in my hairstyle was that I grew a thin moustache, but it (the moustache) and my “white sidewalls” haircut had to now conform to the hair standards of the US Navy.

It was a tough life in the late 1970’s, running around with minimal hair while my non-military peers were wandering around with un-kept long hair. There was no reason to go to a fancy hair salon and pay $10 or $15 for a haircut when there was a nearby campus barber shop that would do the job for $7. No shampoo and no conditioner, just little bitty itchy pieces of hair inside your shirt collar when it was all over with. Black, white, straight hair or curly, the price was the same because the time it takes to deliver a nice scalping is the same regardless of skin color.

Times have changed today and there are fewer options in the way of the old classic barber shops for men. Now you have to run the gauntlet of the “unisex” salons and witness women in all states of hairstyle disarray, heads festooned with foil strips and curlers, some looking like drowned poodles as you try to avert your eyes to avoid laughing or being turned to stone in a manner similar to being caught looking at Medusa (the Greek chick with the head full of snakes.)

It’s not uncommon for a woman to pay over $100 for a haircut. Of course, by haircut I don’t just mean getting their hair cut. Noooo, I mean a “Styling.” Shampoo, conditioner, clip, cut, trim, layers, highlights, roots, overall color, pedicure, manicure, it’s a wonder there is anything left of you when you get through spending THREE HOURS in a hair salon. What could possibly take so long?

And ethnic people (I’m trying to be sensitive here…) do some even weirder stuff to their hair. If they have curly hair they want it straight. Relaxers, straighteners, braiding, funky colors like gold and orange, there are shops out there that specialize in the alchemy that is required to deal with the hair of African Americans.

So where’s the beef? I would no more walk into “Lacrisha’s Caribbean Braid Shop” asking to have my “ears lowered” than these silly bitches need to be hiking into a salon in an Alabama Dillard’s and complaining about the prices.

There is obviously a reason that the prices are different, but racial discrimination, in the negative sense, is not it. Being the insensitive asshole that I am, my solution would be to raise all of the prices from $20 up to $35 and tell everyone to go to hell if they didn't like it. Of course I’d probably be out of business in six months and everyone, black and white, would be wandering back down to Lacrisha’s for some “corn rows.”

So the staff of the Dillard’s salon doesn’t do Dippidy Do and Afro Sheen, and takes a little longer to do a nice Afro. Are they legally required to go out and recruit someone specializing in ethnic hairstyles in order to avoid litigation?

I say not, but I’m just an ignorant Redneck, what do I know about haircuts?