Dear Penna,

Last Saturday I was sitting in my stylist's chair about to have the Yuko Perm done and in walks a very beautiful-but very confused and obviously disheveled- Black chic.  She sits down on the chaise in the front of the salon by the receptionist's desk (my stylists' station is the very first because he's the owner of the salon); then one of the other sylists walks by and first asks her who she was there for, she says "a consultation", then he winks at her as if to say, "I'm going to wink at you and make you feel better because nobody else is, and I don't blame them because you are looking tore up."  Anyway, so my stylist, who hears that she is there to actually see him, has her to sit in the station right next to where I was sitting so that he could take a look at her hair.  He didn't think I heard him as he mumbled under his breath, "You have got to be kidding me.  I really hope you're not her that is here for the consultation."  He said it in such a haughtily disdainful way as to speak down about her.

He left my hair for the minute or two that it took him to tell her that she should just consider cutting her hair all off and starting over because "it is a mess".  Smacking his arrogant lips together, he belts out, "Honey, I don't know what to do with your hair.  And it looks like some of your extensions are still in because your hair is kinky and the extensions are Nordic hair."  She says, "I took out all of the extensions.  The straight part of my hair is from the Yuko Perm that my stylist used on me."  He said, "Um, I think your stylist did one too many steps on your hair because Yuko is not for your kind of hair."  The way he looked at her while he spoke down to her completely turned my stomach.  He continued at her by saying, "See her?  The Yuko is for someone like her."  Lo and behold he was pointing at a Caucasian chic in another station.  I was flabbergasted!

I direct my attention back to her and her expression of helplessness and embarrassment.  Before she could regroup and say anything he says, "I know of a really good salon for you because we can't help you here.  Even with Caribbean hair its got some sorta straight to it and then loose curls, but you have straight up African-American hair."  She just looks at him.  He then proceeds by saying, "Oh,yeah, the salon that you should visit is Oh! My Nappy Hair! I've seen some of their work in magazines and they seem to be able to do good work on your type of hair."  He then gives her the I feel sorry for you look and mutters, "I'm sorry.  I wish I could give you some uplifting words but I can't."  She grabbed her Louis Vuitton (It was real by the way!  Trust me, I checked it out!), smiled, thanked my stylist and exited the building.

I was amazed at how much Grace she handled herself with.  I was more amazed by him and the nerve of him.  I mean, I was speechless.  This salon is one of the most upscale/high end/ whatever salon in Los Angeles, with a huge client list, and an even bigger wait list.  But I didn't care.  There is no stylist in the world, no matter the social status, that should treat a person this way.  I was spending about $650 a month in his salon for the whole year that I was going there (plus any extra gratuity).  How could I have not seen this before?

PLEASE tell me what to do!

Obviously your stylist was facing issues that day because you would have spotted his egotism a long time ago, right?  He may also be going through "things" because he chose to embarrass her instead of really trying to help her when she obviously needed it.  Also, it sounds as if he had no intent of helping her from the moment she walked into there.  If he does great work on your hair, then maybe you should consider staying.  But if you have a stronger feeling against his judgment in handling an "other" then go on how you feel.

There are hundreds of great stylists in Los Angeles that could possibly do just as good or better on your hair.  And especially great stylists with a lot of talent and and the ability to be able to better handle a visit such as that one.  I'm sure these issues go on all the time and it's very difficult to excuse this behavior because it is close to home.  I'm not saying excuse it.  However, I do recommend that you nicely confront him and ask if he realized that his actions were dis-empowering to her.

Again, sometimes we do things that we are not consciously aware of.  If he knew that it made her (or you) feel bad then would he have made a different choice?  That is what's important.  Would he have made a different choice in actions?

You've been seeing him for a year and you have never noticed such a rude act, so maybe it was just this single act of "power" (I call it).  Most of the time we feel empowered by taking someone else' power away.  I know it sounds as if I'm saying it is okay what he did, it's not at all.  I'm saying that sometimes you have to look at situations like this and get to the root cause of the behavior.

Go and talk to him.  Actually listen to what he has to say, and have compassion for his answers.  Don't we wish that sometimes people would just hear us out and not judge us for the nasty things we do?  (Like, you checking out the girl's bag to see if it was real or not?  Don't worry, someone did that to me a few weeks ago too!  :)

---Penna