I have never experienced a hair appointment that felt rooted in genuine care. Even childhood grooming—often romanticized as a bonding ritual between Black mothers and daughters—was defined more by pain than connection. My earliest memories of hair care weren’t soft or nurturing; they were about enduring discomfort. In many Black communities, we’ve normalized pain as part of beauty, and that normalization starts early.
Atlanta exemplifies this culture. The city is overflowing with hairstylists, yet the abundance doesn’t translate to care. The turnover is constant. Recommendations are endless. And unprofessional encounters—including financial exploitation—are common enough to be expected. I’ve even been scammed simply for trying to have my hair done. The beauty industry in our community has become a space where harm and hustle often coexist.
In 2019, Queen & Slim offered a cinematic mirror. The film gave us a rare portrayal of young Black love, but its ending reminded us of a truth we often avoid: intra-community harm is real. “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk” isn’t just a saying—it’s a pattern that shows up everywhere, including in the ways we treat one another in intimate spaces like salons.
As Black people, we say we love each other. But what does that love look like in practice? Does it hold up when money enters the picture? When ego is triggered? When patience is required?
The salon chair reveals a lot. How do we treat a sister who comes to us vulnerable, exposing not just her hair but her sense of self? Do we approach her with care or with convenience? And when we look at ourselves in the mirror, do we see someone we actually know? Someone we genuinely love?
When “Black women” comes to mind, the stereotypes often surface first: loudness, sass, curves, food, nails, attitude. These are the images that dominate social perception. But beneath them lie deeper realities—internalized insecurity, generational trauma, and unresolved self-concept. We often gather to “look cute,” but the conversations rarely go beyond aesthetics. We hype each other publicly, yet struggle to support each other intimately.
These patterns raise a larger question:
How can we build a thriving community externally when we haven’t examined the internal dynamics shaping how we see, treat, and understand one another?
And what complicates all of this even further is our relationship with our natural hair. In our community, we rarely embrace our coils in their untouched form. Type 4 hair—especially 4C—gets labeled as “too much,” “too coarse,” “too unmanageable,” long before we ever hear the words “beautiful” or “worthy.” Many of us don’t even know our true curl pattern because we’ve never seen our hair long enough or healthy enough to understand it.
I remember growing up and getting a perm before I even understood what my natural texture looked like. In middle school I did the big chop, but even then, I didn’t like what I saw. I didn’t understand my hair. I didn’t know how to care for it. So I hid it—behind weaves, behind straight hair, behind “protective” styles that were more destructive than nurturing. My hair wasn’t something I owned; it was something I managed, disguised, or escaped from.
And this isn’t just my story—it's many of ours.
How many of us know how to make our own hair masks?
How many of us take time to truly detangle our curls instead of rushing through them?
How many of us have ever looked at our coils with curiosity instead of frustration?
The world already pushes self-hate onto us at every angle—through media, through Eurocentric standards, through the constant messaging that our features are “too much” until someone else adopts them. The pressure to alter ourselves externally becomes internal long before we realize it.
But at some point, we have to decide to pave a new path.
One where we understand our own textures.
One where care replaces convenience.
One where beauty doesn’t begin with pain.
One where Black women are not just styling themselves—but truly knowing themselves.
Because if love is going to exist within our community, it has to start at the roots. Literally. And figuratively.
