Coco Gauff's Natural Hair Shouldn't Be This Controversial

A few days ago, Coco Gauff took to Instagram to share some images taken during a recent photoshoot with Miu Miu, the luxury fashion brand she's been an ambassador for since last year. The campaign photos show the 22-year-old tennis star posing on a sunny court wearing a red collared shirt, cobalt blue mini skirt, white ankle socks, and black loafers. Most of the comments underneath her Instagram post were celebratory and uplifting, but once the photos were reshared on X (formerly known as Twitter)—the dumpster fire of a platform that I've reluctantly gotten back into the habit of perusing again recently—they were unsurprisingly met with a wave of criticism over her kinky hair and the way it was styled. The style in question? A bun. (Gasp, I know.)

For whatever reason, Gauff's choice to wear her natural hair in this style in her ad campaign led a handful of commenters to complain about her hair not looking "polished" enough, even drawing disrespectful comparisons to Ruby Bridges (who's still alive, by the way) and other civil rights activists as a way to insult her appearance, implying that wearing natural texture is childish or out of style. Is it disappointing to see the hair texture that Coco and I—and many, many others—share being discussed this way? Absolutely. But I'm also not surprised.

This all comes a little over a week after a TikTok video shared by a user named @sshozxox went viral for criticizing the differences between how women treat their straight hair extensions versus how they care for their natural hair. That opened the door to a much larger (and, frankly, very necessary) conversation about the discomfort many Black women feel wearing their natural hair in general. It also pointed out the natural hair movement’s own flaws, mainly that women with looser hair textures were quickly able to co-opt the movement after it gained momentum in the early 2010s, thus, eliminating people with type 4 hair (namely 4C) from being represented at all.

Said lack of representation only leads to confusion over what kinky hair is even supposed to look like, so when someone with that hair type (i.e. Gauff) actually embraces it without trying to make it look entirely different from what it is, unfortunately, silly words like “undone” are used to describe it. It's exactly why so many little Black girls grow up hating their hair and thinking that it's hard to manage in the first place.

I’ve never seen a non-Black person, or someone with a looser or straighter hair texture, be ridiculed for wearing their hair exactly how it grows out of their head: un-manipulated. More importantly, when a person with straight, wavy, or loose hair pulls their hair up into a bun or ponytail without slicking it down with handfuls of gel, they get the luxury of those styles being referred to as “chic, messy buns.” So why is it such an issue when a Black woman with a tighter curl pattern does the same thing?

At this point, I’ve seen and heard countless stories about Black women suffering from issues like heat damage, chemical burns, breakage, split ends, and traction alopecia, all of which almost inevitably occur after spending a prolonged amount of time enjoying hairstyles and practices that we’ve all come to know and love. You know the ones—slicking down our edges with thick, heavy gels, wearing wigs, weaves, and tight protectives styles without giving our hair and scalp a break in between, and using extreme heat to iron out all the kinks and coils in our hair.

On a personal level, I stopped getting relaxers when I was 18, but I didn’t fully commit to wearing my hair in its natural state full-time until I was 25. I have type 4 hair that I wear in knotless box braids once or twice a year for two months at a time. I get quarterly silk presses and trims, and I also give myself a weekly blowout before separating my hair into twists. While I love my hair and genuinely enjoy putting effort into it, even I’m aware that all of the above practices can be harmful, and I can completely understand a woman not wanting to deal with the fuss of adhering to these standards.

Just over a week ago when the wigs versus braids versus natural hair debate arose online, it seemed like we all came to a consensus that Black women should be able to do what they want with their hair. So it shouldn’t be an issue when a Black woman actually does, nor should it be an issue when that same woman's choice differs from someone else's. Coco Gauff is a young athlete—one who's already managed to win two Majors at that—and she already faces criticism at all angles when it comes to her talent and sportsmanship. The fact that how a star tennis player chooses to wear her hair is even a topic of conversation at the moment just proves that we have a long road ahead of us when it comes to addressing how we've internalized anti-Black beauty standards—and it's also why the images in her campaign were necessary in the first place.

Gauff certainly isn't the first Black athlete whose hair has been picked apart online, but I truly hope she's the last.