We Live In Strange Times
Rachel Dolezal, the white lady who got busted pretending to be a black lady, has somehow managed to get herself invited to be a feature at a rally for natural black hair.
But of course there’s a rally for natural black hair. And of course the star turn is a blackface enthusiast who, being white, doesn’t have any.
Naturally Isis is a black hair salon founded by Isis Brantley, a “natural hair stylist” who, according to the description on her salon’s website, “has been a vibrant spokeswoman for black ancestral culture for over thirty years” and has been “actively involved in the fight for preserving cultural identity for African Americans.”
Says Ms Dolezal,
It’s a justice issue and I’ve been a social justice activist for years. It’s really that simple.
That is all. Carry on.
My, how this thread has been hijacked.
To the “please regulate us, we love it” faction: if instead of licensing, the regulator simply gave a recommendation, one solely based on the reputation and trust earned by the regulator, wouldn’t that be just as good?
Why or why not?
Because how do you establish trust when you first qualify?
How do you punish offenders?
Remember, there is often a strong market for the crooked. Bent lawyers are much sought after by clients, but impede efficient justice. Dodgy alternative doctors will still get work, but at least we can decertify them so only the morons go to them. Bent engineers and auditors will still find people who want them to sign off their plans and accounts. Without risk of decertification there is little to hold them back.
That a business thrives does not mean it is straight and true. Markets don’t work to weed out some things.
To the “please regulate us, we love it” faction:
It is unclear to whom you are speaking, because there in no one here that I am aware of who fits that bill. Regardless of whether one likes it, the fact is that if we chose to live in a civilized society, there is going to be regulation in one form or another, whether it is a drivers licence, a speed limit, a prohibition on building your own nuclear reactor in your garage, my having to provide credentials to a panel of peers every couple of years, or my not being allowed to build a 150 meter rifle range in my back yard.
The argument is what types and/or level of regulation is actually beneficial, and what is not.
I used to have black hair, but it is grey now. No doubt these haters would exclude me just for that.
I’m left to assume there’s such a thing as an “unnatural hair stylist?”
If this were the 80s or even the 90s, comedians would have a field day with this. Today, silence. Which reminds me of a song…with a few minor updates:
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a streetlamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a cellphone light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dare
Disturb the sound of silence
“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the social justice god they made
And the phone flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the phone said “The words of the prophets
Are written on campus walls
And dormitory halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence”
Having known several people who have had to go through the hell of professional engineering, plumbing, teaching and daycare licensing in this jurisdiction, I come down pretty firmly on the “licensing is a way to keep people out of the profession to the benefit of those already in it”. It’s guild behaviour, plain and simple.
Having known several people who have had to go through the hell of … teaching … licensing
What jurisdiction makes it “hell” to license a teacher?
The usual rule of thumb, at least for the Anglo-sphere, is that it is extremely difficult to unlicense one. Certainly in NZ once you have a teaching qualification you automatically get a provisional licence, and after a couple of years of teaching you get a full one, with some tiresome but not particularly onerous hoops to jump through. After than being struck off usually means you’ve had sex with a student.
In a lot of the anglo-sphere it isn’t unusual for classrooms to be taught by people who aren’t licenced.
In teaching at least the guild behaviour is at the union level, not the licencing one.
I’m struggling to think of daycare as a closed shop too, to be honest.