In spring 2020, a school secretary in Kilgore, Nebraska, cut the hair of two Lakota girls under the guise of “checking for lice” without their or their mothers’ consent. Hair is considered sacred in many Native cultures; cutting it outside of traditional practices invites bad luck and is viewed as an attack on their cultural identity. The girls’ mothers offered to provide cultural sensitivity training to the school and “explained why cutting hair went against their religion, culture and traditions” but were met with little to no response. The secretary apparently told one of the mothers that “you don’t get lice if you have clean hair” (The Reader).
The school’s student handbook states that “Students found to have live head lice or louse eggs will not be permitted at school and will be sent home.” A letter from the principal stated that “the school’s policy regarding the treatment of Native students with suspected head lice is to cut their hair, tape it to a piece of paper, and send it home to the family” (Indianz). Clearly, there is differing treatment regarding Native and non-native students, which means this issue is systemic within the school district itself. The treatment of Native students is discriminatory because hair is sacred to them, and school employees are literally going out of their way to attack them by cutting it. It would be easier to just send those students home; there’s no reason for keeping them there and cutting their hair that isn’t racially motivated.
This incident was familiar to many older Native people, recalling their experiences under the Civilization Fund Act of 1819. This act forced Native Americans to assimilate into white society by separating children from their families and putting them into boarding schools, where they “punished them for speaking their language and often cut their long hair” (The Reader). Zitkála-Šá, a member of the South Dakota Yankton Reservation, had her hair forcibly cut in 1884 when she was only eight. She later wrote, “I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair. I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit…now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder” (The Reader).
Zitkála-Šá in 1898
This is a disturbing parallel to the 2020 incident and a clear example of systemic oppression; the One (white people) forcing the Other (Natives) to look and act like them to control them. It’s horrifying and illuminating that Native Americans are still affected by this prejudice more than 200 years later.
Men at the Genoa Indian School in Nebraska, 1905
Women learning to sew at the Genoa Indian School in Nebraska, 1930
Links:
https://thereader.com/news/a-school-sees-a-lice-check-lakota-people-sense-centuries-of-oppression