Add yet another black hair discrimination claim to the unfortunate pile. This time, Banana Republic is the culprit.
True to its colonialist name, the Gap-owned brand reportedly sent Destiny Tomkins home because her hairstyle was "too urban," the Revelist reports.
Tomkins posted her account of the incident on Facebook:
Tompkins claims that the Banana Republic manager — who is white — also deemed her box braids as "unkempt."
"He said that if I didn’t take them out then he couldn’t schedule me for shifts until I did. When I tried to explain to him that it was a protective style for my hair bc it tends to become really brittle in the cold, he recommended that I use shea butter for it instead," Tompkins wrote.
The incident allegedly began when a white district manager reviewing the store expressed her disapproval with Tompkins' hair.
"I have never been so humiliated and degraded in my life by a white person," Tompkins wrote, "In that moment, I felt so uncomfortable and overwhelmed that I didn’t even finish my work shift and ended up leaving."
Revelist reached out to Banana Republic for a comment and are awaiting a reply at the time of this posting.
Tompkins also touched on the history of black women's hairstyles being used as a scapegoat for discriminating practices in the workplace concluding with, "There’s no reason why a white person should feel allowed to tell me that I can’t wear my hair the way that I want bc it’s too black for their store image."