VI News Journalist 3 years ago
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VI Crown Act Sponsor Discusses Discrimination on National Network

A nationwide initiative to end racial and ethnic discrimination on the basis of hair texture or style, known as the CROWN Act, also continues to advance in the Territory on a local level with its passage from a Senate committee in late November.

The local version of the CROWN Act, Bill No. 34-0147, will now receive consideration from the Senate Rules and Judiciary Committee. If passed by the Rules and Judiciary Committee, the bill will move on to the full 34th Legislature.

As the bill continues to chart its course through the legislature, a key sponsor of the measure, Senator Alma Francis Heyliger discussed the legislation with the national broadcast network, Black News Channel on its primetime news show, The World Tonight. During an interview with host Nayyera Haq, Sen. Francis Heyliger outlined the bill’s intent.

“It is so important because it’s a natural, God-given thing. The fact that we were born the way that we are, we should never live in a society where we decide that someone should be discriminated against, or someone should be isolated or said that they’re not enough or less than just because of their hair or hair texture or hairstyles. So that was one of the things I recognized as a representative that we really needed to focus on. We’re trying to look at the definition of race to not only limit it to the skin tone, but a lot of times it follows over to your hairstyle and your hair texture that you’re born with.”

Haq suggested that the legislation both locally and nationally may change how the United States defines civil rights by including a broader definition of racial and ethnic characteristics beyond the scope of skin tone or color.

“Exactly,” said Sen. Francis Heyliger, who went on to say: “It’s not right in our society to say ‘I don’t like you because of your skin tone.’ It’s not right to do that to a person. But in our society, as we move away from certain things, and we almost mask it and say: ‘Well, okay, society said that this is not a good thing for us to do upfront. We’re going to figure out another way to discriminate against someone. We don’t like the way that their hair that naturally grows from their head looks. So therefore that’s another way to treat them in a way that we should never be treating each other as human beings.”

As a follow-up, Haq asked Sen. Francis Heyliger why she felt it important to remove references to religion and creed from the bill in the attempt to dismantle discriminatory practices.

“If we’re trying to focus on understanding what the definition of race is, culture is a narrative that’s individual because I can be born and raised into a specific culture and that can change depending on where I might live, depending on who my parents are, how I was raised, and that’s not something thats definitive just based on genetics. Race is. Your hair texture is. And that is one of the reasons. If we are going to attach it to race, we have to recognize that they’re separate things.”

In response, Haq expressed her appreciation to Sen. Francis Heyliger for the nuanced language and conversation she brought to the topic of black hair and asked where the legislation stands on a national level. The sophomore senator pointed to the companion legislative efforts waged by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and the multiple States, municipalities and juridictions, which have passed similar laws.

“It has to be a way of protection for people that were born black, that were born with specific hair textures, that were born with things that you cannot now decide,” said Sen. Francis Heyliger. She later continued: “I hope that the other 14 States that have enacted some form of the CROWN Act [that] many of them continue to push forward, as well as the other States that have legislation going through their chambers, as well as even here in my Territory here in the Virgin Islands where it’s going through the process as well.”

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