I will never forget the first time my grandmother saw my half sleeve tattoo. Her exact words were, “What have you done?! The only people that have tattoos are sailors and felons!”
And maybe for our grandparent’s generation, that was true, but now a day’s people are getting tatted up at rates never seen before. Yet, as times are changing we continue to see discrimination of people with tattoos, specifically in the workplace and I think it is high time to stop the stigmatization. Therefore, in an effort to do just that, I want to make a couple points about tattoos and tattoo culture.
First off, tattoos no longer represent the same things they used to. Tattoos have been found on mummies from as far back as 3300 B.C., but most of the negative connotations we still associate with them today originate with the ancient Roman and Greek traditions of using them as means to identify the criminals or slaves within their societies. This tradition continued into the modern era but has been slowly decreasing to the point now where criminals represent no larger percentage of the tattooed population than any other unrelated population. Therefore, it’s nothing short of unreasonable to continue to associate a practice with something it no longer represents.
Additionally tattoo discrimination in the workplace is just that, discrimination. The United States has a history of being complacent with gross cases of discrimination in the workplace, however we have tried to address such concerns with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Equal Pay Act just to name a few. These prevented employers from discriminating for a wide base of reasons, nationality, sex, place of origin and age among other factors. Yet there is no law that outlaws the discrimination of employers based on body modifications such as tattoos, even when an individual has the right to change their appearance however they desire. I am at a loss as to any legal reason not to protect the rights of individuals bearing body modifications.
I also realize however that just like other freedoms afforded to us by the United States constitution, there are limits to acceptability. I can respect employers refusing to hire an individual with something offensive such as a swastika tattooed on their face as that would be found horribly offensive by the average person.
I will end on this. Tattoo discrimination is wrong, but in the end it will only end up harming those who engage in it. As younger generations with more and more tattoos enter the workforce and you refuse to hire them, the loss is yours, because you will be refusing to hire some of the brightest young minds in your respective fields. So before you discriminate, I would quote the words of Martin Luther King and ask you to not judge by the color of someone’s skin but rather the content of their character, no matter what color that skin may be.
