{"id":58907,"date":"2019-09-19T02:19:51","date_gmt":"2019-09-19T02:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58907"},"modified":"2019-09-19T02:19:51","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T02:19:51","slug":"the-untold-story-of-wrestler-andrew-johnsons-dreadlocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58907","title":{"rendered":"The untold story of wrestler Andrew Johnson\u2019s dreadlocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The untold story of wrestler Andrew Johnson\u2019s dreadlocks<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Undefeated<\/a>
\n2019-09-18<\/p>\n

Jesse Washington<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Buena<\/a>
\nAndrew Johnson is pictured during his 120-pound bout at the Williamstown Duals on Jan. 5 in New Jersey<\/a>, Johnson\u2019s first time back on the wrestling mat since he was forced to cut off his dreadlocks<\/a> or forfeit his match on Dec. 19, 2018. Andrew Mills\/NJ Advance Media\/Barcroft Media<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

How the high school athlete endured his infamous haircut<\/em><\/p>\n

When Andrew Johnson walked into The Line Up barbershop last April, all eyes focused on him. Since that awful day in December when a referee had forced the 16-year-old Buena Regional High School wrestler to either cut his dreadlocks<\/a> or forfeit his match, he felt as if the world was constantly watching him, especially in his small New Jersey<\/a> town. Watching and whispering about things beyond his control.<\/p>\n

Yo, that\u2019s that kid who got his locs chopped by the white ref.<\/em><\/p>\n

Andrew, who goes by Drew, sat down in Chris Perez\u2019s chair. Perez has tended Drew\u2019s hair since middle school. After a video of Drew\u2019s shearing attracted a massive social media audience last December, he had reshaped Drew\u2019s hair into shorter dreadlocks that radiated from his head.<\/p>\n

But now Drew had a new problem. The night before, he had grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen and hacked at what remained of his dreads, then asked his little sister to finish the job. Drew loved his hair but was tired of it causing so much trouble. Tired of being treated differently and made into something he was not. Tired of looking in the mirror and seeing the referee, Alan Maloney, looking back.<\/p>\n

Maloney already had a racist incident in his past before telling Drew that his hair was \u201cunnatural\u201d and giving him 90 seconds to cut it. What resulted was far more than a humiliating haircut for one high school student. It became a shared and painful experience for many who see how issues of identity, subjugation, power and freedom are intertwined in African American hair…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How the high school athlete endured his infamous haircut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2895,8,20],"tags":[30276,11238,30278,2823,5366,7222,25860,30277],"class_list":["post-58907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-campus-life","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-alan-maloney","tag-andrew-johnson","tag-buena-vista-township","tag-jesse-washington","tag-new-jersey","tag-sports","tag-the-undefeated","tag-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58908,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58907\/revisions\/58908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}