With the World on Fire, You’ll Be Astonished at What the House of Representatives is Doing
American taxpayers pay members of the House of Representatives $174,000 a year, and for that we expect them to give us something in return, something beneficial to American interests and American citizens. There is plenty for House members to work on these days, what with the war in Ukraine, Biden’s handlers’ looming Iran deal that enriches Russia even more than skyrocketing gas prices in the U.S. already have, out-of-control inflation, and more. And you can rest assured that Congress is hard at work on the issues that are of vital importance to the well-being and future of the American people: on Friday, the House passed the Crown Act, a bill prohibiting discrimination based on hair.
It’s all about (you guessed it) racism. The bill is designed to ensure that, in the words of the Associated Press, “black people who wear hairstyles like Afros, cornrows or tightly coiled twists” do not have to endure “bias in society, school and the workplace.” Now, if a tony restaurant opts not to hire the fellow with his green hair fashioned into spikes as a maître d’, “such discrimination is a violation of federal civil rights law.”
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-The Past), the chief sponsor of this urgently needed piece of legislation, explained that “there are folks in this society who think because your hair is kinky, it is braided, it is in knots or it is not straightened blonde and light brown, that you somehow are not worthy of access. Well, that’s discrimination.” Yeah, I guess it would be if that sort of thing really happened, but it seems as if Bonnie Watson Coleman is living in 1952, not 2022, and enough members of the House agreed with her to pass this prime example of legislative irrelevancy, 235 to 189. Fourteen Republicans voted in favor, including (you guessed it again) Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney. If it passes the Senate, Old Joe Biden has (yes, you guessed it a third time) said he would sign it into law.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) injected a note of sanity in the proceedings when he said: “This is what the Democrats are focused on. Fourteen months of chaos and we’re doing a bill on hair.” But Rep. (yes, you got it once more) Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) was depressed at the Republicans’ incorrigible racism, saying their opposition to the bill was “quite disheartening,” and adding: “These members, who are mostly male and white, who have never experienced this kind of discrimination, who don’t have the ability to actually speak to it … really should leave it up to the policymakers who have done the work and who have experienced this level of discrimination.” Ilhan Omar, of course, is a highly influential and much-lauded member of the House of Representatives. It is unlikely in the extreme that she has ever faced discrimination because of her hairstyle, since no one knows what her hair looks like, anyway.
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Sen. Cory Booker (D-Spartacus) is the lead sponsor of the bill in the Senate, and he is ready to get to work to get it passed, saying that it is of cardinal importance so that all people can “wear their hair proudly without fear or prejudice. No one should be harassed, punished, or fired for their natural hairstyles that are true to themselves and their cultural heritage.”
Well, all right. It’s marvelous that our elected representatives are tackling the all-consuming problem of hair discrimination, but it does raise inevitable questions about their priorities. With so many crises both domestically and internationally, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Cory Booker look as if they’re auditioning to play the part of the Emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Future historians will remember that, with the United States in one of the deepest and most encompassing crises of its entire existence as a nation, the House of Representatives was busy making sure people with braided hair didn’t feel discriminated against.
There is, however, always a silver lining, even amid all the dark clouds that have gathered today. Given the ideology and outlook of most of our Representatives and Senators these days, maybe it’s for the best that they’re busying themselves with hair discrimination instead of turning their attention to real problems and doing even more lasting damage than they already have. We can be grateful for small favors.
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