Dermatologists say Marines' tightened shaving waiver could hurt Black members' careers

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NBC News

May 24, 2025, 7:00 AM EDT


Air Force veteran Ed Anderson can’t recall any time past puberty when he didn’t get razor bumps after shaving his face. His coarse facial hair would often cause painful inflammation and itchy bumps as it grew back. Anderson, now 70, remembers requesting a shaving waiver when he entered the service in 1975, allowing him to bypass the military’s requirements for men to be clean-shaven.

For him and other Black airmen, the waivers became a symbol of unity. “It was seen as an identifier of solidarity with other Black GIs having that shaving waiver,” Anderson said. The military as a whole began issuing these waivers in the 1970s, with the Navy taking the strongest approach in 1970 to allow the elective wearing of beards to address medical conditions. But the policies of the different branches have changed multiple times since then. Now, a new U.S. Marine Corps grooming policy that affects people with curly or coarse hair is drawing ire from critics who say it targets Black men.

The guidance, issued in March, states that a diagnosis of pseudofolliculitis barbae, or PFB, a skin condition more commonly known as razor bumps or ingrown hairs, could lead to a service member’s expulsion from the branch if the issue persists. The U.S. Air Force also updated its guidance on PFB earlier this year, saying shaving waivers will expire 90 days after an airman’s next annual health assessment. But the requirements for those who may still qualify for a waiver remain unclear.

The condition affects up to 60% of Black men, according to the American Osteopathic College of Dermatology, a far higher rate than for any other group. Anderson said he sees the move as yet another example of “ongoing attacks” on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government. “It’s mostly soldiers of color who are impacted by this,” he said. “I don’t see this as a productive and effective means of retaining and recruiting troops.”

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/dermatologists-say-marines-tightened-shaving-waiver-hurt-black-members-rcna208090

[KatyaR]

1. The things the Right find to complain about....

I guess a soldier's beard is more important than providing education, food, and health care for children and adults.

[brush]

3. I dunno? These guys must have never heard od "Magic Shave", long know in the Blaci communnity for getting clean shaves..

Last edited Sat May 24, 2025, 01:08 PM - Edit history (1)

with no razor bumps. It's been advertised in all the Black magazines like Ebony, Jet and others for decades.

[Blackbydemand2008]

6. Magic shave is toxic...

Magic Shave has been linked but not confirmed to cause cancer. Also, it triggers severe allergic reactions in many people.

[brush]

8. News to me. Not confrimed you say? I've used if for years with no negative reactions. As have many others.

[druidity33]

10. Cancer causing agents don't work that way...

they're insidious. When you "use something for years" is when you should be most worried. Think Talcum powder, which of course EVERYONE thought was so safe we put it on babies... and on our most sensitive areas.

[Be Leave On]

18. insidious indeed

They were used for years before doctors quit advertising for Chesterfield King cigarettes.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

24. Welcome to DU

[marble falls]

25. Magic Shave has a very low danger causing cancer ...

https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/products/939486-Magic_Regular_Strength_Shaving_Powder/

[BonnieJW]

13. Or FEMA assistance to tornado victims

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. My nephew, who was white, could only shave two or three times a week because he'd get bumps.

He had a waiver when he was in the Army from about 1998 to 2002.

[TomSlick]

4. In the 28 years I was in the Army, it was common for black soldiers to have shaving profiles.

In that time, I never saw an instance where a soldier with a shaving profile looked unprofessional as a result.

Black servicemen would rather shave than draw attention to themselves for being "on profile." Soldiers got shaving profiles only if they had to do so.

This is just a way to suppress black people from service.

[JMCKUSICK]

5. It's these subtle little changes that undermine

the Jenga tower which is then toppled by the ones we scream about. It's overwhelming.

[jmowreader]

7. I predicted this a while ago

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220143418

[Seinan Sensei]

9. If Pete the Gleet could grow a beard

... then you could bet your bottom-dollar that shaving profiles would be a-okay
I would have thought that macho-man Petey would defer to actual manly-men who actually grow beards.

[BonnieJW]

15. Hey Petey is so a manly man!

He has racist tattoos. assaults women, and has been married 3 times. He also cheats on his wives. How can you say he isn't manly?!

[LudwigPastorius]

11. The ONLY real-world reason I could possible think of to demand that soldiers be clean shaven is...

to ensure that a gas mask doesn't leak.

But, given that fact that waivers were routine for years, this stinks of Trumpist racism.

[niyad]

12. JFC, is there a single aspect of our lives that these hate-filled,

authoritarian scum have not thought to go after?

[JT45242]

14. If you want the military to do KKK cleansing of domestic areas with African Americans....

You need to get the people who look like what you are going to dehumanize out of the military.

This is yet another step towards using the military on US civilians.

The camps are coming...it's a matter of when not if at this point.

[Irish_Dem]

16. The goal is to destroy the careers of POC, women, LGBT, etc.

Only christian white males will be in the US military.

[DFW]

17. "It's mostly soldiers of color who are impacted by this" Mostly, maybe, but not only

I suffer from it as well. I also suffered from my high schools (2 different in 11th, and 12th grades) pressuring me to shave, them being totally indifferent to the fact that if I shaved, my face would turn bright red like a boiled lobster. I bent in 11th grade, stopped bending in 12th grade. There were two guys in my graduating class with beards. One was a libertarian right wing type, so he was tolerated. I was not, and so the pressure, while not quite reaching the level of mobbing or harassment, was relentless. As a partial revenge, at graduation, when we were herded together for the class picture, my brother, one class below me, and at a rival school, who was next to me, tried to scramble over the arrogant jocks to be out of the way when the picture was taken. No one would let by, and I said, "look, the school doesn't care about us anyway, so stay put. I bet they'll never notice." Indeed, they never did. I let word filter up about six months later, but they were so indifferent, me being no Republican president's son, to this day, no one ever figured out who the ringer in the photo was.

My high school social life, never the subject of sitcoms to begin with, dropped to flatlining until I stopped shaving. Indeed, my last year of high school, the school paper ran an article about how the girls' school down the road considered us "Freaks, Jocks, and Zeroes," and then ran a photo of me under the headline (and they wonder why I never send them alumni contributions). It didn't take me long to not give a rat's ass if their alumni were put off about one of their students having a beard (this was 1970, after all) or not. That kind of emotional scar lasts a lifetime, and I never forgot it. I stood in unshaven solidarity with every beard-wearer I ever met since.

[RobinA]

29. School...

developing new ways to bully children since compulsory education was a pup.

[DFW]

30. That last year, 12th grade, was a low point for me, though I learned from it

It pointed out things that Nixon’s America tried to hide from the masses. “More” didn’t mean “better,” it only meant “bigger quantity.” And “prestige” was very much in the eye of the beholder. The more that eye was opened, the less prestige it perceived.

It was my only pre-college year of boarding school, and the most important things I learned were not learned in the classrooms. Talk about George Carlin’s big club that I was not in! I learned not only why, but more importantly, that I didn’t care (the most important lesson of all). Once you don’t care, the club holds no sway over you, so they do their best to convince you that what matters to them should matter you. Once you don’t give a rat’s ass, you are free of their social yoke, but schools like that did their best to make sure their students never figured that out.

Only one of my daughters ever expressed an interest in attending a boarding school in the USA, and the one she was interested in was six time zones away from the one in Massachusetts that I went to. I went with her to look at it to make sure it was nothing like the one in New England that had tried to break me. It was twelve time zones away from our home in Germany, so the other side of the world, but this was MY kid, and I was leaving nothing to chance. It turned out to be just fine, very nice people, and she did end up going there.

[twodogsbarking]

19. I have so little body hair I should have been a General.

[cstanleytech]

20. I hate shaving as I have sensitive skin of course I also hate having a beard so I'm kinda FUBAR 😆

[BumRushDaShow]

21. So do you perpetually have the

"Ari Melber 5-o'clock shadow"??

[cstanleytech]

23. No but it gets to the point every few days where I have to shave or scratch my own face off to stop the itching.

[Skittles]

22. WTF

when I was in the Air Force you'd see some some airmen with very closely-cropped facial hair - PROBLEM SOLVED. As someone who worked in a base personnel office I sometimes ADVISED guys about this condition (those bumps look very painful indeed). This is just more repuke cruelty.

[johnnyfins]

26. Matter of time

"They got this here, see, scissor-happy, beautify America thing going on around here. They're tryin' to make everybody look like Yul Brynner."
-George Hanson

[k_buddy762]

27. Um

its about being able to get a good seal on a gas mask or other filtration device for chemically-, biologically-, or nuclear-contaminated environments. The fighting force can't perform if everyone is dead from exposure to toxic soups.

Folks with waivers may not be able to get good seals on PPE, and would either be excluded from the environment altogether (reduction in fighting force) or would be put at risk by continuing.

Not everything is a "gotcha"

[BumRushDaShow]

28. "Not everything is a "gotcha" "

When it comes to these racist fucks, it IS a "gotcha". There is a long long history of it.