Kevin’s point surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. The drawing ROHS had distributed to students showing unacceptable school attire had another quality beyond the arrows pointing to bare midriffs and sagging pants: both of the illustrated students were—arguably—black.
Kevin, an African American sophomore in my ELA10 class, was understandably angered by it. “What are they saying?” he protested. Was it that the clothing styles were unacceptable or that clothing styles stereotypically associated with young blacks were prohibited? The truth is, I suspect, both.
Walk the hallways of any public high school and we are surrounded by advertising posters of students buying class rings, applying for scholarships, walking college campuses. The group in the posters is always diverse, peppered with Asian girls, black boys, and blonde jocks. All are dressed as preps with tidy sweaters or brand name chinos. Occasionally, as if to test the diversity, an “alternative” dress style is shone: one student adds stylish boots, an oversized t-shirt, a turned cap, or even—gasp—an earring on a boy. But these exceptions are always overshadowed by the insistence that proper school clothing is clean, trim, and conservative. It is academically proper.
The ROHS dress code confirms this idea. Created to avoid “distractions” from the educational process, it prohibits too much thigh and any shoulder, midriff, and jockeyed or thonged rear end. It also removes the kinds of accessories one might associate with gangs or delinquency: bandanas and other head gear, large chains, and the like. This makes sense, of course. One may hardly learn algebra or biology as well if diverted by the latest “hot” style or even intimidated—and the students wearing these styles may also have an agenda different from schooling. In other words, sex and violence as exemplified by clothing styles are not academically proper.
The trouble comes in Kevin’s claim. A black boy and girl are wearing clothing that is not academically proper, that is distracting in a sexual or violent way. In a school which is predominantly white, then, we send a message that students should be academically focused, but we also suggest a racist idea that we shouldn’t dress like blacks because black students are more sexual, more violent, and less academically proper.
No, it’s true that the administration of ROHS did not intend this. In fact, speaking to the principals about the drawing, one mentioned that they found the drawing from another district and simply borrowed it. But this does not change the reading that Kevin did, nor its validity. An acceptable reading of a text is one that is defensible from the context. Kevin, one of the few black males at ROHS or in my classroom, is right to be sensitive to such an image. The question is, why aren’t all of us sensitive to it?
Many students will say that their clothing choices are merely comfortable (and when our school has no air conditioning on muggy days, it’s believable). More likely, though, it’s that fashion images sold to teenagers by magazines and television are more prominent and persuasive as “normal” than what the ROHS cartoon says. Black, white, and Asian girls wear shirts with bare midriffs. Arabic, white, and Hispanic boys sag their pants. For all of them, it’s normal to be sexy, to be macho, to be fashionable. Such an observation says nothing about the racism inherent in the ROHS illustration, though; in fact, it only underscores it. If all students are equally likely to violate it, why must the two individuals be black?
Better, almost, for any other race to be overly-represented in such a drawing. Make them both white, both Asian, both Arabic. Why? Because, like it or not, blacks are over-represented statistically amongst high school dropouts (childstats.gov), pregnant teens (teenpregnancy.org), and prison inmates (US Bureau of Justice). Black males are murdered 2-5 times as often as any other racial group (Child Trends Databank). In other words, statistically, it’s more “normal” for blacks to be academically unsuccessful (though Hispanics are fast gaining in many of these areas, a tragic honor). No one wants such a condition to be considered normal, and I won’t pretend that there aren’t a thousand other factors which contribute systemically to the problem.
However, Royal Oak High School has a choice to make in deciding what image of normal it wishes to send. It’s right, I think, to ask for a dress code which promotes student learning, decreases distractions. But we need to be far more sensitive to the multiple legitimate readings of such a code.
Kevin is right in his awareness of the problem and he is right to bring it up in class. The problem is that it required a black male to do it, when any of us at the high school should have. That many white administrators, teachers, and students (myself included) missed it, raises a question of what we consider “normal.”
P.S.
I have been asked, What should the dress code be? I would affirm and extend what I wrote above and ask, “Which clothing styles best promote student learning?” Some would argue that uniforms accomplish this, but I would disagree. Especially among teenagers, personal style and choice is important to their own sense of individuality and comfort—and where comfort is limited, so too is learning. (In this way, a classroom too hot or cold is uncomfortable and accomplishes less learning, let alone one with broken desks or without ceilings) , but choice extends only so far. Where personal choices work against learning success (and comfort levels) amongst peers and teachers (intended or not), I believe this should be a dress code violation.
Cleavage (of any body part above or below the waist) is distracting as are undergarments, but many items banned in dress codes don’t inhibit learning. Gang attire and messages which promote substance abuse are worn for an agenda contrary to academic success and should also be banned. But bare shoulders? Most piercings? Holes in the knees of jeans? These prohibitions, in my view, are born from a more conservative generation of thinking. They obviously send messages contrary to success is a business environment (my Model UN students would say that they aren’t formal Western business attire), but I don’t see how they affect anyone’s grade in art or English.
Steve Chisnell (um, on the right) is a teacher at Royal Oak (MI) High School. 
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