Results: No, It's Not 'Just Hair'

"Hair Love," a story about a black father who struggles and eventually succeeds in styling his young daughter's hair, won the Academy Award for best animated short film this year. The story, which once existed only in the form of a dream and a Kickstarter campaign, is also the basis of a best-selling children's book. Matthew Cherry, the former NFL player who wrote and directed "Hair Love," wanted to give kids a character that normalizes and celebrates black hair. He also says that black fathers get a bad rap in mainstream media, so he also wanted to show them as present and caring, versus the deadbeat dad stereotype that is often ascribed to them in film. Have you seen this short film?

Black hair has often been policed, in schools, which is why the producers of "Hair Love," invited DeAndre Arnold to join them at the Oscars. Back in January, Arnold, an 18-year-old from Texas who was suspended from school for refusing to cut his dreadlocks, was in the news. After returning to school, DeAndre was also told that he wouldn't be able to walk at his graduation unless his hair was cut to meet the school district's hair length standards. DeAndre has received incredible support since his story went viral. Earlier this month, the teenager appeared on an episode of The Ellen Show, and he's even attracted the support of Bernice King, a daughter of Martin Luther King Jr, and Houston Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Are you aware of this story?

This same issue was also in the news last year, when 6-year old Clinton Stanley Jr. was stopped from attending his first day of grade 1, when administrators from Florida's A Books Christian Academy, brought the boy and his father inside the office, and insisted he cut his dreadlocks, or he would not be able to attend their school. The administrator cited a school policy banning dreadlocks. And these two incidents are not isolated ones. Black people have been rejected from jobs, schools and other public places because of the texture and style of their hair. But that's changing. Several states and cities have passed or proposed laws banning policies that penalize people of colour for wearing natural curls, dreadlocks, twists, braids and other hairstyles that embrace their cultural identity. Are you aware of the laws in your state, city or province?

For some of you, this may seem like a trivial issue, or one that does not affect you. These policies -- even if you believe that they are just part of "dress codes" -- say a lot about how society perceives cultural identities. These hairstyles are deemed "inappropriate" and that they "don't fit in", "look professional" or "look clean", and in fact, crosses over to what are personal freedoms of expression of cultural identity. Some even feel banning ethnic hairstyles upholds an archaic notion of white supremacy. Do you agree that we should stop policing ethnic hairstyles?