I find this.... Interesting

After a referee forced a black varsity wrestler to cut his dreadlocks, a New Jersey school district decided it will not send its sports teams to any events where that referee is officiating https://t.co/EdsHgXlL8O

— CNN (@CNN) December 27, 2018

Now this is one of those stories that I see dominated as much by what information is left out than it is by the information provided. As a former wrestler, I have seen referees make wrestlers cut their hair, dry shave heavy stubble, and more frequently cut their fingernails prior to a match. Never once, did I ever see anyone question anyone "other" than the wrestler who was not in compliance.

 Now the interesting thing in the New Jersey rules is that there is an actual "hair cover" that can be worn if your hair is out of regulation. Parts of this article sort of imply (but don't quite say) that this black wrestler had a hair cover and that referee still wasn't satisfied.  But another article I read suggest that part of the issue was that nobody told the wrestler earlier (during weigh ins) that his hair was out of compliance ant that it would require a cover.

So ultimately there is no clear clarification as to whether or not there was a hair cover involved or if one was actually available. That likely means that there was no hair cover involved, and that the idea was that the wrestler would somehow push his hair under the normal headgear and call it good. But the more relevant issue to most seems to be the fact that previous referees chose not to enforce the regulations, and therefore the wrestler in question was unprepared for it happening this time.

But why is this a story and why are people so upset? Well there appears to be a suggestion that these wrestling regulations should not apply to this particular person because of his "race" and the fact that the dreadlocks were "part of his self-image". It's as if the implication is that there is an obvious exception to be made here, and a refusal to make that exception is an act of racism.

One of the things I was taught growing up was that you could never get in trouble if you simply followed the rules. But it seems like that is no longer good advice in our over-the-top PC 2018 culture. Apparently some rules need to be shunned if enforcement happens to "trigger" anyone, especially if that person is a minority or otherwise a protected class. 

I have a feeling that this particular referee will learn this the hard way.