> The rules to cut hair in NY are harder than the rules to be a computer programmer: Occupational licensing was a key element in Jim Crow. Why should there be

> The rules to cut hair in NY are harder than the rules to be a computer programmer: Occupational licensing was a key element in Jim Crow. Why should there be exams and licenses for barbers (who are legally allowed to cut facial hair) or cosmetologists (who are prohibited from cutting facial hair - beards & mustaches)? Because black people might get away with doing the job. And if black people were doing that job, then other black people would never go to a white barber or cosmetologist. Vagrancy (the crime of not having a job) was enforced almost exclusively against only non-white people. Then, they'd be sentenced to work on the chain gang (or other slavery-equivalent) in accordance with the 13th Amendment. Requiring a license (which minorities could never get) made it far easier to punish people for failing to be born white. Whenever something in America seems to make no sense at all, the key is to think about how a white supremacist would use it to abuse non-white people. One key to understanding the history of racial inequality and civil rights in America would be to imagine that the South actually won the Civil War. TL;DR - it is racism all the way down.