Say it gently, then maybe I will listen – On the natural hair discourse
A STORY
2026 arrived slowly. The fatigue of the previous year still clinging at the weary bodies that endured. Winter air was crisp and bit at the skin for recognition. On this Thursday evening, the sun had descended, leaving the sky to its own design. Workers exited office buildings entering their cars or waiting impatiently for their public transits. There Kachi stood, squeezed between strangers, at a bus stop shelter. Their warmth kept her cocooned, a buffer to the winter that stalled. Kachi spotted two Black women within the huddle, as her eyes tend to reach for this familiarity. She looked at their heads, a ritual she had added to her spotting. One of the women wore a yellow head wrap interlaced with purple and green wax prints. A design that Kachi thought a bit too extravagant for Canada and winter. So, she drew her eyes away with a feeling she couldn’t quite comprehend but she knew to avert her eyes from those bright loud colours. The second woman wore her natural hair in locs, letting the years of its growth fall past her shoulders. Kachi felt herself shrink within as her eyes observed her own hair, a 36” lace Brazilian wig. A wig she coveted for nearly 2 months and spent the whole of Sunday prepping the hair and installing it to a perfection. Even with the winter air, her nose managed to smell the newness of her wig and felt the silk of the hair softly brushing up against her skin. Kachi remembered her reflection that held her Brazilian hair, a shiny silk that framed her oval face. This would usually bring a reassurance of beauty, a kinship to the beauty she knew and understood. However, 2026 had a different promise. It came with a quiet rejection that Kachi felt was slowly eroding her ease.
“Kachi, you know you’re beautiful with your natural hair, right? Stop hiding it” Zim causally advises over the phone. Kachi paused mid-cut to her onion, an ingredient to the egg sauce she would have for breakfast. Zim shared with Kachi in October 2025 that she would not be adding any extensions to her natural hair. This Kachi replied to with laughter so deep it shook her shoulders and silenced sounds from escaping her. Since Kachi had known Zim, she knew her stylish friend for the various styles of braids she wore using extensions. From knotless to goddess braids, Zim was known for wearing a length that graced her lower back. In fact, this is how their friendship started, when Kachi worked up the courage and complimented Zim’s Boho braids and Zim returning the compliment to Kachi’s bobbed wig. Its shine reflecting the searing sun of 2018 summer. Kachi wonders if Zim remembers this day too. That morning however, as Kachi stared at the person on her phone, a stranger with a tiny afro stared back. She had the same round face as Zim with the same matching pair of dimples dotting her face as she spoke. But her afro, it sprouted a new personality that Kachi felt ill-equipped to engage with.
“Abegi, shut up. How many days have you been wearing your own nko?” Kachi managed to reply. She couldn’t help but seethe at her friend and her unsolicited advice. Kachi quickly ended the call shortly after and ate her egg sauce with the biting anger she tried to stuff down. Zim was not the beginning of her anger. It had been laying dormant in her since the start of the year.
January 4, 2026:
“Wear your God given hair and you would activate your natural beauty”.
Kachi stared at the YouTube title and then at the thumbnail. On there, a Black woman is embraced by a White man. Her eyes lingered a little longer at the thumbnail, which followed a click of her tongue, accompanied with rolled eyes.
Later that night, Kachi straddled Nonso, her fingers deep in his hair. She enjoyed the way his thick afro lightly wrapped itself around her fingers, warming her stay. She teased them too, stretching strands out and releasing them to their recoil. This felt familiar, this afro on Nonso, as well as that of Dave, Kofi, Jay and Brian – Her previous boyfriends. Just as she understood the rightness of their hair, they understood her wigs and braids. They knew not to grab her hair during sex or the frustration she felt when rainy seasons threatened her new sew-in.
January 15, 2026:
“This woman said, ‘Afro hair is tough and so hard to maintain,’ yet she has another person’s hair on her head that she takes care of as if-”
Kachi paused the video on a Black woman that made TikTok on this topic. She felt her heart beating fast, yet Kachi couldn’t locate her feelings. Rather, these videos attracted memories. Memories that seized to reconcile its time away.
She remembered her childhood, of the itchiness and burning sensation that accompanied relaxers. The smell of its chemicals a familiar infusion to Saturdays’ air, where Kachi occasionally watched her cousins get their hair relaxed too. Kachi remembered the way her aunt’s body enveloped her and her hands massaging the white cream into her scalp. A gentle touch solely invited by the burning sensation – a testament to the removal of the bends and coils of her hair. She tranced her sheer joy to the compound of her primary school in Nigeria, where she displayed her new matching hairstyle to her best friends, Nkechi and Chidera. They spotted relaxed hair put into ponytails, secured with colorful pompoms.
February 8, 2026:
“Black women are fueling a multi-billion industry on their self hate. Can you believe it, fam?”
a podcast voiced by a man’s voice beamed in the background. Kachi glared at her brother who enjoyed listening to his podcasts on loudspeaker.
“Dubem, turn that shit off. I am trying to work” Kachi yelled, her voice cutting though the distance of her workstation to the living-room’s couch, where her brother sat.
“Why are you even working on a Sunday? For that admin job that doesn’t even pay much.” Dubem scoffed, maintaining his eyes on his video game.
“Abi you no get sense like those two idiots you listen to. It is a HR associate job! I have to post-”
Dubem waved his hand at her, “Abeg abeg abeg, spare me that speech.” He paused his game and within seconds, left the living room, taking sound with him.
Silence descended on the space, but Kachi’s anger remained. An anger that splintered to various targets. She raged at Dubem for listening to men that sprouted nonsense. She imagined the topic’s connection to his life, but she found none. Dubem dated solely biracial women. A couple months ago, he brought his recent girlfriend home, there was an ease to her that Kachi thought resembled that of someone used to being welcomed. An ease so seamless, it mirrored the loose curls of her hair. Kachi remembered the delight on her parent’s face and the turn in her stomach when her mother said, “You two will make me beautiful grandkids.”
February 23, 2026:
“Issuing for termination of Chantel Dixon: Under the clause of Inappropriate fit to the work culture.”
Kachi read over the email from the manager of the accounting department. She had represented human resources for Chantel’s interview late November of 2025. Chantel had answered all the question well and scored high on the technical testing too. Earlier in the year, she saw Chantel in the company’s cafeteria with a big afro, softly billowing in response to her turn to grab her handbag. Chantel also donned a brightly rimmed orange and green glasses, with dark green velvet trousers. Kachi thought she looked nothing like an accountant and nothing like the person she met in the interview. The email gnawed at her attention and so she flagged it to her manager for HR attendance, quickly removing it from her screen.
In bed, her stomach knotted and the residues of that email haunted her night sleepless. It called on a fatigue that felt so ancient.
March 14, 2026:
“It is self-hate! Do you think it is normal wearing someone else’s hair and calling it your own?!” Zim raised her voice, an octave higher than the general hum of the crowded restaurant. Aisha immediately gestured at Zim to lower her voice. Where Kachi sat, she felt a collide with a great wave of emotions. They carried a decay that wrapped around her, violently recalling the torments of the past few months. Her mouth had dried up and a ringing affected her ears.
“Zim! I am tired of your nonsense! We get it, you have your natural hair out, let us hear word! Did I cut the hair out of the person’s head? I like wearing wigs, they make me look pretty and presentable, is it a sin? Please jo” Kachi took her bag and walked out the restaurant. Leaving Zim and Aisha seated there with the attention and stares from the restaurant guests.
Kachi knew that day was the end of her friendship with Zim. Her friend’s new presence made her uncomfortable. Her loud opinions, suffocating, encroaching on the crevices of her choices. Zim felt wrong too in that displaced sort of way, where Kachi struggled to understand her. Her new choice of clothing, the topics she focused on, all a mismatch to their previous friendship agreement.
March 31, 2026
“She said it is self hate.” her fingers coiled to mimic quotation marks, enclosing Zim’s words. She knew Bukki never liked Zim and so she felt safe in this shared nest of their disdain. Kachi would not believe in Zim’s words because at her core, she knew of their wrongness. She knew that hate was not the premise of her relationship with self, because she understood love well and the safety it brought. The ease it allowed and the protection it garnered. So, she chose it daily. A type of love she refuses to let Zim and all the social media noise disrupt.
