When you get a real, paying job, the feelings of relief and happiness are amazing. Akua Agyemfra, a 20-year-old living in Toronto, didn’t get to experience those feelings for long, however. Agyemfra had to quit her job after being asked to leave work by a manager due to her hair style, Cosmopolitan reports.
Agyemfra told CBC News that when first hired by Jack Astor’s Bar and Grill in Toronto, she wore her hair in a bun, but was asked if she could wear it down for the job, to which she agreed. She wore extensions during her first two training shifts, but then decided to take them out. “After I took out my braids, my Afro didn’t not comply to the ‘straight hair’ rule. To maintain it and look presentable, I had to put it in a bun,” she said in a Facebook post on the incident.
This was seen as unacceptable by the restaurant, and the assistant manager later asking Agyemfra to go home, because her hair was not styled straight down. In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Agyemfra said she tried showing the manager that her hair couldn’t hang straight down, but was still asked to leave. “I’m not a confrontational person,” Agyemfra said. “Then I realized when I went home that it was a violation of my rights. You can’t send me home based on my hair.”
The Daily Mail reports that a spokesperson for the bar and grill says waitress can wear their hair down or in a “stylish up-do”—though clearly Agyemfra’s bun was not considered stylish enough.
Agyemfra, who is of Ghanaian descent, says her hair is a staple of her culture and that rightly, it’s an important part of her identity. “I personally choose to braid it down sometimes or wear out in a bun,” she told BuzzFeed News. “I refuse to be discriminated against because of my hair. That’s my DNA. I cannot change that.”