When Gaia Skye shared her racist experience on Facebook, she didn’t expect to get over 7,000 likes in a day, nor for her inbox to overflow. The employer who fired her because he had a serious problem with her box braids on top of her color, had 563 negative reviews in 24 hours.
It's hard to believe that an employer can say today: "We have a serious problem. Your hair!!! You don't have your color right but this!!!"
But this was exactly what Barry from Barry's Haarmode Bvba told Gaia Skye when she came to work with braids, box braids, for a change. If you think that's the worst, you're wrong. He even went further:
I can already see that I am losing my customers. I can already see it happening. Did you even think about asking my permission first? This is really not possible!! People can seriously get scared of you. No… you are not thinking about that, no this is really not possible for me it stops here. I am completely shocked by your appearance”.
So Mr. Barry is in shock thinking he is going to lose clients because of Gaia's appearance with box braids and worse yet she had to ask permission! Derogatory is bad enough but adding the racist slant on top takes it all. Permission for what? Have you ever heard of a White woman having to ask permission to wear her hair a certain way? Why should we have to?
Ignorance
When Gaia remarks that this is racist, the ignorant Barry says: If one of your colleagues comes in tomorrow with blue hair or a piercing in their lip, I'll have to say something about it too... This is too much.
This is the phenomenon I keep running into. Blue hair, a nose piercing, extreme hairstyles can't be lumped together with braids or frizzy hair in general. Braids are natural for frizzy hair. Braids BELONG to frizzy hair. That's the ultimate way to wear frizzy hair. Straightening frizzy hair is extreme. That's unnatural, that's what destroys the hair. Just like an Afro would be extreme for straight hair because you either have to add dangerous chemicals or take extreme measures like flaxening. But that doesn't mean that an Afro is extreme in itself. No! They are two completely different hair types and that comes with completely different guidelines and standards.
Not surprisingly, Gaia's experience went viral on Facebook, because as always with racism, it is not meant that way, you should not be so sensitive, because the person is really not a racist. Fortunately, there is Facebook that can then point your nose to social facts.
Not only in the form of likes, shares and comments did our crowed heroine receive support, her friends even went to Barry's facebook page to let him know how wrong he is. The negative reviews that he continuously tried to remove kept coming in. You would think that this gentleman would realize that he had made a big mistake. What did Barry do, he demanded that Gaill remove the post from her page and even threatened to go to the police otherwise.
It's all too bizarre for words, but I'm glad that Gaia has now filed a report and that the employment agency is also going to take action. In the links below you can read the whole story yourself. I'm very curious about your reactions and wonder how you would react. Would you also file a report?
The sequel
Gaia Skye 's facebook post
