In what is yet another installment in a long line of people completely missing the forest for the trees, a San Antonio restaurateur made waves after jokingly calling for a ban on “The Edgar” haircut at his establishment.


Advertisement

The haircut, a bowl-cut style popular with young Latino men, has become increasingly associated with crime in Texas, particularly after an incident earlier this year in which two gunmen opened fire at a festival; one of the gunmen, 18-year-old Mikey Valdez, was sporting The Edgar at the time.


San Antonio food truck park El Camino posted a meme to their Instagram that jokingly depicted a ban on The Edgar haircut, adding in the caption, “Should we enforce a no chili bowl policy?” In response, many took to the comments to call out El Camino owner Ricky Ortiz, calling him racist and accusing him of discriminating against his customers.


Hair discrimination has a lengthy history in the U.S., with policies disproportionately affecting Black Americans who wear their hair naturally. This led to people calling for the passage of the CROWN, or Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, Act in 2022. Unfortunately, while the act made it through the House, it failed to gain enough support in the Senate to override a filibuster from Rand Paul.



People targeting accessories, clothing and hairstyles they associate with crime isn’t unheard of, but it doesn’t make a ton of sense either — belonging to the same group or subculture as someone who has committed a crime isn’t a crime in and of itself, and refusing service because of a haircut is a genuinely bizarre business strategy.


Ortiz told the San Antonio Current that, as a first-generation Mexican-American, he isn’t racist, but is rather just fed up with “gangster antics” in his city. He also speaks from experience. He told the Current that he spent his teenage years sporting The Edgar and getting involved in “hood rat shit,” but has since turned his life around. Perhaps he could brainstorm ways to help the teens he’d rather see banned from his establishment turn their lives around, too, instead of writing them off based entirely on how they style their hair.