Brickbat: That's Inhuman

Officials in the Greenville County, South Carolina, school system gave Hannah Adams, 13, in-school suspension for dying her hair red. Official says she violated a school policy barring "non-human hair color." But a photo of Adams with her hair died seems to show a shade of red that's within the norm for natural redheads.

Brickbat Archive

Comments

[l0b0t]

It would seem the school doesn't have a leg to stand on because of the way they worded the policy. No matter the color, once a human has died their hair that shade it becomes, by definition, a human hair color and not subject to the ban.

[Ryan]

Don't get all philamisophical on them.

[Groovus Maximus]

But a photo of Adams with her hair died...

Fun med fact: hair follicles, after the matrix cells (located sub-dermal in the papilla of the follicle) divide, push the hair follicle past the dermis and epidermis, where it is in fact, dead. Otherwise, haircuts would be extremely painful.

[db]

Would they be? Is there a mechanism for a pain signal to originate in the follicle itself? Seems there would need to be nerve tissue there. I kkow it hurts to pull out a hair but I always assumed that was just annoying nearby nerves, not that the follicle itself was generating a signal.

[Groovus Maximus]

If the follicle pili were alive and required discrete blood circulation, then there would be a network of neurons within the cortex and medulla of the shaft to accompany and would probably have some pain sensing neurons. The nerves receptors would probably be very sensitive to pain and pressure.

Otherwise, you are correct; when a follicle is removed with force the pain receptors associated with the dermis and arrector pili are irritated. Hence the pain.

[db]

I see. So the nervous connection does not exist, but it would have to in order to support a "live" hair.

[Drake]

It's the no Gingers rule.

[Pound. Head. On. Desk.]

Beat me to it!

[Scooby]

Lemme see if I can master Greenville school administrator logic. Since gingers have no soul, they are technically not human, therefore red is a non-human hair color. QED.

[Abdul]

I'm not seeing any logical flaws here.

[Rich]

The fact that a teacher took action against the student is prima facie evidence that the hair color was disrupting the educational process. The rules are the rules.

/sarc

Just wait'll some kid dyes their pubes an "inhuman" color!

[Groovus Maximus]

"Excuse me. Can you tell me where the pube fair is?"

[Ice Nine]

Yeah, you guys laugh and mock about this girl disrupting the educational process - just because you choose to ignore the wilding and rioting of the other students that ensued after they saw her "red" hair!

[creech]

It's surprising they didn't conduct a strip search to see if the carpet matched the drapes.

[DangoRoRo]

That jsut makes no sense at all dude, none.

http://www.Net-Anon.tk

[Just Dropping By]

Sigh. I knew this post would lead to a bunch of comments using the obnoxious British-ism "ginger." Hence, this open letter:

Dear British People and British-wannabes,

The ginger root is not naturally red. The skin isn't red. The woody parts aren't red. It doesn't turn red when crystallized, dried, or ground. The only place you find "red" ginger is in certain brands of pickled ginger and that is only because it's been artificially dyed that color. The natural color of pickled ginger is yellowish-white. In short, please stop calling naturally redheaded people "gingers" because it's stupid. It was bad enough when this was limited to Britain, but now it's poisoning the rest of the world. If you must come up with a "clever" term for redheads, you could more justifiably call them "strawberries" or any of thousands of other things that are, you know, actually red in color.

Sincerely,
Just Dropping By

[Invisible Finger]

Maybe they didn't use "ginger" as meaning red; maybe it's British humor using ginger as an anagram of something else.

[Scooby]

After you just drop by here, why don't you drop your ignorant ass by a library and check out the OED. You might just find that "ginger" has been used in the English language to refer to "red" hair for at least a couple of centuries.

The word "Ginger" did not always refer exclusively to Zingiber officinale, but also to other members of the genus, such as tumeric, which has a very orange rhizome.

If you really want to be pedantic about it, why would you use the name of a red fruit to refer to someone with orange hair? Strawberries are nowhere near the color of "strawberry blonde" or "ginger".