Years ago, one of the biggest motivators for my starting the Cornrows.co.uk project was that state governments were making it impossible to braid as a legally legitimate profession. I wanted to render the laws that basically made braiding without a license illegal, but at the same time made getting a license impossible, obsolete. Online and offline, we’re doing pretty good at making natural hairstyling education that meets and exceeds the U.S. federal standard, accessible to anyone who wants to put in the time and effort.
This sounded an alarm to others whose professions are currently unregulated or only mildly so because they are traditional practices: one day, your state government could arbitrarily decide that your job is illegal, and that you should have to go to a school that doesn’t exist for a license that they hope never exists. The bell tolled on braiding, and now it seems that they’re going after Yoga instructors next.
Y’all better wake up. It is happening in Virginia. If the past is any teacher, somewhere in Texas, a Yoga instructor’s on her way to getting strip searched and jailed for telling people that stretching is good for them.
