The Power of a Simple Haircut

How soon can we return to “face-to-face’’ encounters? Who touches more new people daily than our friendly hairstylists?

It’s always the “Davids” defying Goliath: merchants dumping tea into Boston Harbor, a Polish electrician jumping a wall, the quiet man standing in front of Chinese tanks.

And now? The people standing in the front of the proverbial tanks of the 2020 “invisible war?’’

Barbers and hairstylists from Shelley Luther in Texas to Michigan barber Karl Manke to Joseph LaLima in Kingston, N.Y. (accused of infecting customers) are on the front line of the debate over freedom and re-opening the economy.

We side with one set of politicians over another. We tune out or condemn the angriest dissenting voices we don’t want to hear. But when a regular working-class person gains a leading role, more people pay attention to the story.

“You can’t really socially distance and do a haircut,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, accusing barber Joseph LaMina of infecting more than a dozen people. “That is by definition an up-close and personal occupation.”

LaMina, now recovering from coronavirus and ready to return to work, knows states ordered the closing of barbershops, salons, and tattoo parlors. Still, he also knew people could “work from home,” so he worked from his home, the back of the building where he runs his business. He denies infecting anyone but says he did receive the virus from a customer.

Right of passage? Risking “up close and personal’’ relationships?

How soon can we return to “face-to-face’’ encounters with other human beings? And who touches more new people daily than our friendly hair-cutters?

When most Americans lived in farms and small towns in the 19th century, the barbershop became the one place where most men gathered to interact. The first uniquely American form of music, four-part acapella barbershop harmony, began in these gathering places.

Watch a rerun of “The Andy Griffith Show,’’ and one of the few buildings where characters collide is Floyd’s Barbershop, based on a real place in Griffith’s home town of Mount Airy, North Carolina.

It’s easy to hate politicians and public figures, particularly if they represent “the other side’’ of a debate. But barbers and hairstylists earn their living by talking and getting along with everyone, one of the oldest forms of therapy.

As Anthony Hamilton said, “Being a barber is about taking care of the people.’’

Do we need to look the way we choose to look?

After more than two months of being locked down, the memes about the longing for hair care, are flying across social media:

• Photos about a stampede of women rushing to get hair colored.
• Gags about most blondes disappearing.
• The meme about a prostitute offering to “do anything for $50” where the driver responds, “Can you cut hair?’’

Nearly three months after my last haircut, I find myself remembering my 1970s “wild hair’’ that hit its peak-length in early 1982, on my 16th birthday when my father took me to get a haircut, a new suit and then threw me the car keys and said “OK, drive.’’ For me, the ’80s officially began that day.

A new “look’’ is almost mind-altering for men and women alike. “You’ve either got or you haven’t got style,’’ Frank Sinata once sang.

As Coco Chanel said: “A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life.”

Barber from Owosso, Michigan inspires Operation Haircut

Karl Manke, 77, the now nationally-known barber from Owosso, Michigan, insists, “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. All I want to do is work.’’

Manke supporters, protesting the stringent lockdowns of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, are planning Operation Haircut, where protesters will gather on the grounds of the Michigan Capitol May 20 for “free haircuts.’’ The Facebook post reads:

“Barbers and stylists — bring a chair and your scissors or clippers! Set up on the lawn of the Capitol! Bring a tip Jar, wear a mask if you would like too! We support all barbers, hairstylists, nail techs, massage therapists, salons all over Michigan that have been shut down and can’t feed their families.’’

Operation Haircut is being organized by the same Michigan Conservative Coalition that organized Operation Gridlock April 15, where most participants circled the Capitol in their vehicles. It inspired a string of protests nationwide against lockdown measures seen as infringing on fundamental rights. Manke spoke at the event.

The 1947 Operation Haircut was different but eerily similar to 2020

In 1947, students from the University of Michigan marched in front of the Varsity Barber Shop and other Ann Arbor barbers, demanding they serve African Americans. The 1947 Operation Haircut was one of the first civil rights marches that exploded into an ongoing civil rights movement.

“In a way, the philosopher and the barber are of the same guild; the barber cuts hair and the philosopher splits hairs,” José Ortega y Gasset explains.

Fast forward 73 years and Michiganders are fighting for the rights of all people to get hair cuts and to do business and relate as they please. The other key question: who has the right to such personal care? Just the powerful?

In Illinois, also subject to strict lockdowns, voters fumed when the mayor of Chicago filmed ads telling people they don’t need to color their hair: the mayor then got her own hair colored while the people couldn’t. The mayor said she needed to look her best because of her regular media appearances.

More than 50,000 Michiganders have been infected by COVID-19, with more than 4,750 deaths, the third-highest of any of the 50 states. And the governor says more protests could mean more lockdowns.

“The fact of the matter is these protests, in a perverse way, make it likelier that we are going to have to stay in a stay-home posture,” Whitmer countered on ABC’s The View. “The whole point of them, supposedly, is that they don’t want to be doing that.”

Manke, the Owosso barber, said Whitmer’s original lockdown, set to expire April 30, was too long. Still, two extensions to May 15 and now May 28 are unreasonable and crippling his ability to survive.

Michigan sent eight state troopers to order Manke to stop cutting hair.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said: “We’re not looking to throw people in jail. That is, to me, a very, very, very last resort… Mr. Manke, he’s not a hero to me. He’s not a patriot… Mr. Manke is doing just the opposite of that and he’s being selfish in his behavior in that what he’s doing is allowing the virus to spread.”

Manke won a court fight, and sheriffs declined to enforce Whitmers’s orders against him. The state responded by saying they would pull the license. Republicans, fighting Whitmer in court for defying the state Legislature, are rallying around Manke as a hero, standing up for his rights.

“I’m going to hold my ground,’’ the 77-year-old Manke says. “My faith is pretty strong… What are they going to do? Give me life?’’