Hair Braiding Deregulated
By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
The Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) ? To hear one side tell it, African hair braiding is an art
passed down through the generations, a form of expression that shouldn't require
any bureaucratic licensing.
To hear the other side, it's a practice that needs to be regulated so braiders
will learn about sanitation to prevent the spread of scalp diseases .
Mississippi legislators are being asked to untangle the issue this year.
Current state law requires licensing by the state Board of Cosmetology, and the
board is asking to keep those requirements in place.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses, which has 5,000 members in
Mississippi, is joining several braiders in asking lawmakers to lift the
licensing mandate and encourage entrepreneurs.
Margaret Burden of Tupelo wants to braid for a living but said the state
licensing requirements are an obstacle to her and others.
"To me, it's not just about hair braiding. It's about economics," Burden said
after attending a state Senate hearing last week. "My goodness, they talk about
wanting to take women off welfare, women needing to get jobs and pay taxes. This
is a way to do it."
Gayle Lunsford of Taylorsville, a licensed cosmetologist, said lawmakers should
not exempt "one small segment" of hair care professionals from state regulation.
"You disintegrate the whole, entire licensing process," Lunsford said.
Valorye Whittaker, a Washington state native who has worked as a licensed
cosmetologist in Mississippi for two years, said braiding is a part of her
business. She said practitioners of "natural" black hair care need formal
training because they sometimes use chemicals to gather hair at the top of
braids or to seal the ends.
"If they're not using a chemical, they're using a needle and thread," Whittaker
said.
Current Mississippi law says a braider must hold one of two licenses. One is a
cosmetology license, which requires 1,500 hours of education in everything from
salon management to hair cutting and styling. The other is a wig specialist
license, which requires 300 hours of education in how to fit, style and care for
wigs.
Burden is a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed last year by Institute for
Justice. The lawsuit, which represents only one side of a legal argument,
challenges the constitutionality of Mississippi's regulation of braiders. No
trial date has been set.
The Washington, D.C.-based institute said Arizona, California, Kansas and
Maryland already exempt hair braiders from cosmetology licensing and Michigan
has a voluntary licensing system. In a news release last week, the institute
said Washington state "recently interpreted its laws so that braiders do not
fall under the cosmetology regulations."
The question of deregulation is popping up in other states, including Tennessee.
Longtime state Sen. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, said he has filed a bill this year
at the request of a constituent who braids.
"The cosmetologists want to keep the hair braiders down," Cohen said in an
interview last week. "It seems like it's a justice issue. It's not a health and
sanitation issue. It's control. It's power."
In South Carolina, Gov. Mark Sanford in December vetoed a bill that would've
required hair braiders to have 60 hours of training. They now need 1,500 hours
of cosmetology education.
Sanford said either requirement is "absurd" and the attempt to mandate 60 hours
of training was "designed to protect the financial interest of folks in the
cosmetology industry, not the safety of people getting their hair braided."
The Mississippi House last month passed one version of a cosmetology bill that
would remove licensing requirements for people who braid, twist or add
extensions to hair without chemicals or dyes. But when the Senate Public Health
Committee considered the bill last week, the committee voted almost along racial
lines to keep requiring oversight by the Board of Cosmetology.
Only one white senator ? Hob Bryan, D-Amory ? voted with five black senators to
deregulate braiding. The other white senators on the committee voted to keep
licensing in place.
The bill could be changed again when it goes to the full Senate.
Sen. Hillman Frazier, D-Jackson, says he's listening to arguments on both sides
of the issue, but favors having the least government interference possible. He
said in his travels around the state, he never heard of an outbreak of scalp
diseases because of braiding.
"You could find a reason to license any group if you want to," Frazier said.
"You could find a reason to license shoe salesmen because they could cause
athlete's foot."
Frazier said his own daughter, a freshman at Jackson State University, saves
money by having her hair braided by a friend who's unlicensed but is putting
herself through college by charging a few dollars a head to do cornrows, twists
and other styles.
Sydnia Townsend of Jackson, who's working as a head page for the Mississippi
Senate this year, drives three hours north to Holly Springs to get her hair
twisted once a month. She's been going to the same unlicensed stylist since
2001.
"It's hard to find people who work with natural hair," said Townsend, 22, who
sits for six hours at a time to get her hair redone.
Like many other Mississippians, she found her natural hair stylist through word
of mouth. Many say hair braiding and twisting is a sort of underground economy,
with work often done in homes.
Frazier said allowing people to practice natural hair care more openly could
create more taxpayers in a state that's struggling with its budget.
Melony Armstrong of Tupelo ? another of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit in
Mississippi ? said she earned a wig specialist license after being told that's
what she needed to work as a professional hair braider. But she said the
curriculum had nothing to do with braiding.
Armstrong said she perfected the art of braiding after years of practice. She
also took a weekend course, but it wasn't offered by the state Board of
Cosmetology.
Armstrong has operated her own salon, Naturally Speaking, since 2000. She said
she wants to hire more braiders, but she can't find any who have the time or
money to earn a cosmetology or wig specialist license.
"Other people are in the predicament I'm in," Armstrong said.
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