Dressing Down: The Weaponization of Clothing Against Women and People of Color

This past Saturday, NBA Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins was turned away from an upscale restaurant in his home city of Atlanta for failing to adhere to the restaurant's dress code. Wilkins turned to social media to express his dismay at being denied service for what he saw as racist reasons. Initially being told there were no tables and then being told his clothing was inappropriate, Wilkins took umbrage with this rejection by sharing that he was wearing appropriate designer clothing. Wilkins shared his frustration with a public tweet which ignited a firestorm on Twitter:

For Wilkins, long considered Atlanta royalty, to be denied service was a massive news story both locally and nationally and sparked conversations about the restaurant in question, an upscale French restaurant named Le Bilboquet. Three days prior, another would-be patron was turned away and he shared his own experience with what he saw as an arbitrary dress code, aimed at preventing people of color from being seated. Since Wilkins' own run-in with the restaurant, other community members have also shared what happened to them at Le Bilboquet and the restaurant's own Yelp page is now being monitored to avoid false and misleading reviews. In the aftermath of what happened to Wilkins, Le Bilboquet brought forth not one, but two separate statements regarding the incident. The first was a rather generic statement about its dress code and apologizing to Wilkins for his experience while the second was aimed at providing meaningful change, including clarifying the dress code and providing its staff with implicit bias training. As of this writing, Wilkins has yet to state whether he has been publicly invited to take part in the reconciliation process.

Heading 350 miles southeast, and a mere 48 hours later, we encountered another dress code issue, this one from a public high school located in St. Johns, Florida, a red and extremely gerrymandered suburb of Jacksonville on the Florida/Georgia border. From a May 24th CBS news article:

Controversy surrounds the digital alteration of photos in a northeast Florida high school's yearbook to cover up some skin exposed in the original photos, which school officials deemed inappropriate.

CBS Jacksonville affiliate WJAX reports 80 students — all female — at Bartram Trail High School in St. Johns had their yearbook photos altered without their permission. Exposed shoulders and low necklines were covered up.

Officials of the St. Johns County School District told the station yearbook photos must follow dress code guidelines and they deemed the 80 pictures inappropriate. The officials said the school's yearbook coordinator, a female teacher, made the decision.

Before-and-after photos of several of the girls showed the clear edits, WJAX said.

Embarrassed, ashamed, and sexualized were the most common terms students used when describing how they felt.

Ninth-grader Riley O'Keefe said the situation has grown much bigger than yearbook photos.

"The double standard in the yearbook is more so that they looked at our body and thought just a little bit of skin showing was sexual," O'Keefe said. "But then they looked at the boys, for the swim team photos and other sports photos and thought that was fine, and that's really upsetting and uncomfortable."

"You're not only affecting their photo — it's not just for protecting them — you're making them uncomfortable and feel like their bodies aren't acceptable in a yearbook," O'Keefe added.

Fellow ninth-grader Zoe Iannone remarked to WJAX that, "They opened up the yearbook, saw pictures and that was the first thing they worried about. It was unfair and I was horrified. I was disgusted."

But one mother of a tenth-grade daughter at the school said she's in favor of the dress code and the edits.

"If parents aren't teaching at home how daughters should dress and dress decently, then the school has to parent," said Rachel D'aquin.

O'Keefe said no matter what people say, she'll continue to advocate for herself and others.

"The dress code and sexualization of young girls' bodies have been happening for a long time," she said. "All the messages I get about people being thankful for me speaking out are worth it, and I'd do it a million times." 

The school said they will refund the cost of the yearbook to parents who complain about the issue. 

On the surface, it might not appear that Dominique Wilkins would have much in common with a bunch of Florida high school girls. Yet upon closer inspection, these two stories are intrinsically related. Because both of them are related to the dominant (read: White male) culture attempting to police those different from them and using clothing to do so. It is an act of arbitrarily determining who is "worthy" of sharing public spaces with the White, male majority. In Atlanta, an upscale French restaurant didn't see Dominique Wilkins as a living basketball legend, they saw him as a thug, even though he was wearing designer clothes. As multiple would-be patrons pointed out, White men with ripped jeans were allowed entry so why wasn't Wilkins? Along those same lines, Bartram Trail High School chose to censor 80 females and not a single male for violating the school dress code in its school yearbook photos. Why weren't the boys held to the same standard as the girls? What was the school afraid of? 

The answer to all those questions is, quite simply, equality. The snooty French restaurant and the overzealous high school teacher both wanted to establish a culture where they felt comfortable. For the restaurant, that culture was one where non-threatening patrons (read: White) were allowed to dine in while others who were potentially threatening (read: non-White) were denied entry because of the way they were supposedly dressed. For the high school yearbook teacher, that involved digitally editing 80 yearbook photos to present the female students as more conservative and proper. Each case was done to protect the dominant culture and to make those in the minority feel ashamed about how they presented themselves. Each case was done to continue to marginalize non-White male populations in a way that brought shame and disgrace for the sole purpose of maintaining White male supremacy. And each case was done in a way that would have undoubtedly continued if brave individuals hadn't spoken up. 

Modern-day White supremacy takes on many forms but it is the subtle ones that can cause the most damage. It is very much psychological warfare from those in power and it starts from an early age. Countless young girls have degrading experiences based on arbitrary school dress codes. At a time when they are growing into their bodies, being shamed for who they are and how they look can have lifelong psychological consequences. The same goes for restaurant and club dress codes. When a young professional of color, out for an afternoon on the town with her or his friends, gets turned away from an upscale venue, that can cause profound psychological damage. At a time when they feel like they've finally overcome the systemic barriers to success, being denied entry due to one's clothing can be a dramatic blow to the self-esteem of anyone unfortunate enough to end up in that situation. In both cases, those impacted are left wondering what more they have to do to be accepted in society and why they still don't seem to fit in when others seem to do it so effortlessly. 

Making young girls and people of color feel this way is intentional and is also strategic. Today, public schools and restaurants are no longer segregated like they were in the 1950s. They are two of the more public places where we see true integration. Sure, schools still struggle with self-contained segregation within the school grounds but for many children growing up, a public school may very well be the only place where they share a class or a club, sport, or extracurricular activity with a person of color. It is here where young girls are seen on equal footing with young boys and the statistics show that girls do better academically than their male peers. At the same time, public restaurants have also grown out of a segregationist past. Long gone are the days of segregated lunch counters, thanks largely to a group of brave protestors that launched a nationwide movement in Greensboro, North Carolina. Today, patrons of all races attend restaurants, creating a melting pot of ideas and conversations. Creating these egalitarian public spaces where women and people of color participate on equal ground is simply infuriating for many White male conservatives in this country as it threatens their ideas of racial and gender superiority.

The good news is that social media now allows women and people of color to call out their oppressors. Not everyone has a public profile like Dominique Wilkins so when he calls a restaurant out, people take notice. But it's also the students of Bartman Trail High School who are equally adroit at calling out injustice. Freshman student Riley O'Keefe had previously created an online petition after a March 26 schoolwide sweep ended up bringing in over two dozen girls to the office for alleged dress code violations. The petition had over 5,600 signatures as of this morning with more being added by the hour. Because the national media has now picked up on the yearbook scandal, the school district scheduled a public meeting on May 25th to revisit dress code enforcement. Odds are changes are around the corner and it is due in large part to strong high school girls like Riley taking the lead and challenging the inherent systemic injustice that has plagued the school's dress code since its inception. By using her voice as a platform, Riley is directly challenging the system that was designed to keep her down. And she is doing it in a way that is deeply upsetting to those who believe that girls and women should be seen and not heard. 

Moving forward, it is critical to continue to draw attention to these injustices. Because Le Bilboquet and Bartman Trail High School are sadly not unique in their efforts of systemic oppression of young girls and people of color. They may have been "outed" but hundreds like them exist throughout the country. But know this: conservatives are afraid because they are losing the culture wars. They are afraid of independent young girls not adhering to sexist and antiquated dress codes. They are afraid of successful people of color sitting one table over from them at a fancy, upscale Atlanta restaurant. They no longer own public spaces like they once believe that they did. This scares them. Freedom and individuality scare them. Public integration scares them. They are scared because they can no longer use a person's clothing as a guise of denying them service or to receive a free public education. Without that, they can no longer oppress those who challenge the status quo. 

And without oppression, the modern conservative movement has nothing left to maintain its power.