Marine Corps' new grooming policy slammed for targeting Black men
Kyle Bibby of Black Veterans Project tells theGrio that the new guidance represents 'another discriminatory policy enacted under a Secretary of Defense with a history of hostility to Black people.'
A recently updated grooming policy issued by the United States Marine Corps is being slammed by advocates for negatively targeting Black male service members.
The policy is a reversal of a decades-long waiver that allowed Black men with coarse or curly hair to electively wear their beards as a result of a skin condition. The waivers allowed Black service members to avoid the military's requirements for men to be clean-shaven.
In March, the Marine Corps issued a new guidance on pseudofolliculitis, or PFB, which is a skin condition more commonly known as razor bumps or ingrown hairs. PFB disproportionately affects Black men (60%), according to the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology. Despite allowing waivers since the 1970s, the new guidance from the Marine Corps now states that the condition could lead to a service member being expelled from the military branch if the issue persists, reports NBC News.
In January, the U.S. Air Force also updated its guidance on the skin condition, informing service members that waivers will expire 90 days after one's next annual health exam. The military branch did not indicate what the requirements would be to still qualify for a waiver.
The Marine Corps says that its new guidance will best position the military branch for 'warfighting capability' and that service members with PFB will have to undergo a medical evaluation within 90 days. If their condition does not improve within a year under a four-part treatment plan, they could be separated from the branch at the discretion of their commanding officer, according to NBC.
A Marine Corps policy in 2022 barred service members from being kicked out of service solely based on PFB, as it was determined that topical medication does not effectively treat the skin condition. Dermatologists, including a military dermatologist, told NBC the latest policy reversal on PFB waivers are unnecessary and has 'nothing to do with readiness.'
'The Marine Corps' new directive targeting medical shaving waivers for razor bumps — a well known condition in the Marine Corps that disproportionately affects Black men — represents another discriminatory policy enacted under a Secretary of Defense with a history of hostility to Black people,' Kyle Bibby, co-CEO and co-founder of Black Veterans Project, told theGrio.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has aggressively pushed President Donald Trump's agenda to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies, calling DEI and 'wokeness' a threat to military strength and preparedness. 'We're done with that sh–,' he said earlier this month.
The Black Veterans Project notes that Black service members make up a larger proportion of the military compared to their overall representation in the civilian population. Therefore, the new policy on PFB creates 'unnecessary barriers to service for Black Marines and poses its own threat to military readiness that outweigh any concern around grooming standards,' said Bibby.
'These medical waivers have existed for decades without compromising mission effectiveness and the military routinely relaxes grooming standards for operational needs,' he added. 'Threatening administrative separation for Marines needing longer-term medical waivers reveals the true intent: forcing Black Marines out of service for conditions beyond their control.'
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Chicago Tribune
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Yahoo
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Opinion - My challenge to Charlamagne tha God
I am not interested in pointing fingers. I am not looking to assign blame. I have no interest in diving into the sewer of partisan politics. I am simply trying to reach out to one person who I believe can make a real difference with regard to the greatest failure in American 'leadership' over the course of the last seven decades. I refer, of course, to the complete abandonment by both political parties of millions of innocent men, women and children in America's crumbling inner-cities. The vast majority of those abandoned are Black, with children paying the highest price of all. This is a national disgrace and an obscenity that should haunt our dreams. But it is largely ignored because it has become one of the electrified 'third rails' of politics that should never be acknowledged or addressed. Why? Because of blind allegiance to those who created the tragedy. Who truly cares about the most continuous and inhumane failure in modern American history? Honestly, next to no one. Why? Powerful forces from both political parties want and need to keep it that way. Some people will give me little credibility on this subject just because I am an older white guy. But I have a history in this dystopian urban world. As a child, I grew up in abject poverty and was homeless often. By the time I was 17, I had been evicted from 34 homes. A number of those evictions relocated me into housing projects and school classes where I was often the only white child. That experience was one of the greatest blessings of my life. At an early age, I got to witness that Black America was a great and caring America. I bonded with that community like none since. My earliest heroes became some of the single Black mothers I saw working two or three jobs at a time to support their children while sacrificing their own happiness — women who are my enduring role models to this day. 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Earlier this week, Charlamagne made news by airing his concern that the war in Ukraine 'could get stupid real fast' because the clashing egos of President Trump and Vladimir Putin 'could be the end of civilization as we know it.' It is gratifying to see him focus on a conflict that could trigger World War III. That said, there are people hurting unimaginably in our inner cities who no doubt believe they have long been experiencing 'the end of civilization as we know it.' The horrors happening in Ukraine may soon dissipate via a coming ceasefire, but the horrors taking place in our inner cities will go on unchecked, as they have for decades. Preordained suffering for the convenience and self-interests of various powerbrokers. Who today can expose this literal crime against humanity? I truly do believe the voice and platform of Charlamagne could begin the upending of this travesty of justice. And just how bad is it? What follows are but two examples out of literally hundreds in various inner-cities which could be highlighted. As the Chicago Tribune reported several years ago, over the course of the last 60 years, more than 40,000 men, women and children have been murdered in the city. More than 100,000 have been wounded, most of them Black, thousands of them innocent bystanders, including hundreds of children. If you extrapolate that number and timeframe across other large American cities, you will discover — shockingly — that those killed in our nation's urban areas equals or exceeds all U.S. soldiers killed and wounded during World War II. Again, the vast majority being Black men, women and children. Why are we not screaming out in protest against such a preventable perversion of justice? Going back to Chicago and speaking of children, a shocking headline from the Chicago Sun-Times a few years ago stated, 'Violence in some Chicago neighborhoods puts young men at greater risk than U.S. troops faced in Iraq, Afghanistan war zones, study finds.' As the paper reported, 'The risk of a man 18 to 29 years old dying in a shooting in the most violent ZIP code in Chicago … was higher than the death rate for U.S. soldiers in the Afghanistan war or for soldiers in an Army combat brigade that fought in Iraq.' Think about that: Almost twice as deadly as a heavily-engaged combat brigade. And now here is a truth I would like to bring to the attention of Charlamagne: Children must cross those 'war zones' five days a week to get to and from school. Again, it is but one more truth political forces from both sides have decided must never be admitted or discussed. An obscene reality that again can — and must be — extrapolated across multiple inner cities. These are innocent young boys and girls, children whose futures are being robbed from them in broad daylight. Yet we are told to look the other way. I believe Charlamagne tha God knows the a true problem when he sees it. He has an outstanding record of casting aside partisanship to speak truth to power — most especially for the disadvantaged. I am hoping he will laser-focus on this subject at some point and address it on his program. This is not about politics or choosing a side. It is only about exposing a crime against humanity and finally telling the millions living in orchestrated misery, 'We see you.' Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
