Facial Hair

[Adam]

Originally posted by JRutledge

I belong to one association that is 99% African-American, we do not have officials working with long hair. Not unless you are female. Now several individuals have facial hair, including myself, but it is cleanly shaven and taken care of. So trying to increase the numbers of African-Americans should have nothing to do with looking professional. As a matter of fact, I do not know many African-Americans with long hair period. Most African-Americans like to keep their hair short, not long.

Peace [/B]

I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I was making an assumption based on my own experience. I work in a mid-sized metro area with relatively few African-Americans. I was indicating that perhaps there was a desire to bring more A-A refs into the fold, and thus a willingness to relax some appearance standards that don't really reflect an official's abilities.
I don't like the idea of doing it, but I'd have a hard time condemning an association for allowing it without knowing more than was given.