26 March, 2025

Black Lawyer
Mar 26
3 min read

Entry: Exhibit H—Hair Today, Court Tomorrow

Filed under: Edges, Ego & Emergency Orders

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Dearest Diary,

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There are grievances of such constitutional weight that they summon the full majesty of the law—constitutional crises, landmark precedents, billion-dollar settlements. And then, Diary, there was The Haircut.

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My client—let us call her Madam Geneviève Baptiste (rhymes with petty and prepared)—possessed the unwavering conviction of a woman scorned not by infidelity or fraud, but by follicular treachery.

She called me in a state. Not a legal state-an emotional one.

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The offense?

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She’d just discovered—brace yourself—that her 7-year-old son had returned from a weekend with his father… with a fade.

Not just any fade. A “high and tight” monstrosity, complete with the kind of side part you only see in barbershop calendars and vintage JCPenney catalogues.

And the culprit?

The paternal grandmother.

Diary, reader, she was infuriated like Beyoncé’s WiFi cut out mid-Homecoming on Netflix.

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The child, formerly adorned with an impressive afro, now resembled a junior cadet at military school—scalped, shellshocked, and bewildered.

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Madam Geneviève Baptiste was furious.

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“Madam,” I ventured, “perhaps we can address this as a co-parenting misstep?”

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“This is an attack on my legacy,” she replied, clutching a Ziploc bag of the child’s severed hair as though presenting a smoking gun in a murder trial.

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“I need you to file an emergency order,” she declared.

“…For what exactly?” I asked, already sensing I was entering the upside-down.

“For unauthorized follicular mutilation.”

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She then began emailing me photographs, timelines, and—yes—a notarized letter from her child’s preschool art teacher, attesting to the cultural significance of “his baby hair.”

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Diary, she wanted—wait for it—an emergency injunction.

I tried to explain that while the Texas Family Code has many provisions—conservatorship, possession and access, rights to designate the residence of a child—it was not typically concerned with edge-ups and barbershop drama.

She wasn’t having it.

I explained, gently, that barring a scalp-based hate crime or clear violation of a court order, this was… not litigation material.

But she was undeterred.

“I want to amend the parenting plan. Add a clause. Nobody touches his hair but me and Jesus.”

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And so, with solemn dignity and a straight face forged from years of courtroom nonsense, I filed a motion requesting that the paternal grandmother refrain from:

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Cutting the child’s hair
Arranging for others to cut the child’s hair
Speaking of cutting hair
Suggesting haircuts in metaphor

We called it:

Petition for Primary Hair Custody with Protective Style Provisions.

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The judge read it thrice.

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Then looked up.

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“Counsel… is this satire?”

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“No, Your Honor. It’s Texas family law.”

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He sighed so deeply I thought we might both fall in.

“Your Honor, this is cultural erasure.”

And while the judge did not grant it (nor did he suppress a laugh), he did warn the father about unilateral decisions that “may not rise to the level of emergency, but certainly rise to the level of foolishness.”

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The judge, visibly aging before us, suggested the parties enter into a parenting plan that included hair decisions.

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Genevieve wanted a Hair Clause.

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I drafted one.

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It read:

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“Neither parent nor extended family member shall cause, arrange, or propose the cutting, trimming, styling, braiding, or bartering of the child’s hair without mutual consent, a written schedule, or divine intervention (e.g. specifically okayed by the Lord).”

The grandmother has not attempted another haircut since.

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Diary, we were victorious.

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But what a peculiar war it was.

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Because beneath the afro and clippers was a mother—wounded, weary, and wrestling for control in a world that kept taking liberties.

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The child, for his part, just wanted screen time on his iPad.

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As for me? I just wanted silence.

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But I got a story.

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Because in family law, the absurd is not an exception.

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It is the docket.

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I remain, as ever—

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Gracious. Grounded. Grimly amused.

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Shiraya Genea Jackson, Esq.

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Disclaimer: This entry is legally embellished, emotionally accurate, and, as always, likely to recur in courtrooms near you. The afro was real. The chaos was inevitable.

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Tag someone who would absolutely cut their child’s hair over the other parent’s objection.

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