Diana and Imani devise and apply behavior-changing hair grease to Kendra Rae

Diana Gordon and Imani’s hair-grease project begins as an attempt to make life easier for Black women navigating racism, but its application to Kendra Rae Phillips exposes a sharp contradiction between support and control. The formula is presented as a way to help Kendra cope without surrendering her pride; Diana’s own account, however, makes clear that it is also intended to alter how Kendra behaves. An earlier trial on Kenny, and the years spent trying to make the formula less harsh, give that intervention a history of unintended consequences.

Origins of the Project

Diana reconnects with Imani after returning to Newark and encountering her in the freezer aisle at Wegmans. They had been childhood friends and had attended Howard University together, but had lost touch after graduation. Imani tells Diana that she has since earned a PhD in chemistry from George Washington University and recently started work at a cosmetics company. Alongside that job, she has been developing a project in her own time: a product intended to make life a little easier for Black women across the country.

The project’s purpose is framed against the pressure of racism rather than as a rejection of Black women’s identity. Diana distinguishes the formula from an attempt to make its recipients conform to a caricature or give up their pride. In her account, it is supposed to help them endure racism with less effort. That stated distinction matters: the product is conceived as assistance, yet its effects reach beyond appearance or ordinary hair care and into temperament.

Intended Effect and Its Limits

When Diana discusses the formula’s use on Kendra, she describes the goal as helping her relax and regain her footing. Diana regards Kendra as better off when less tense, and treats that judgment as a reason to intervene. The rationale is therefore personal as well as practical: the formula is not only intended to ease a broader burden but is also used to bring one particular woman closer to the manner Diana considers preferable.

That logic puts the project’s benevolent purpose under strain. Diana’s language of preserving pride sits beside her conviction that Kendra should be made calmer. The distinction between helping someone withstand an unfair environment and changing her response to that environment is never secure. The intervention can be understood as an effort to reduce the cost of racism, but it also makes Kendra’s temperament the object of deliberate adjustment. The scene thus presents care and the wish to manage another person as closely entangled, without treating Diana’s stated good intentions as proof that the method is harmless.

Earlier Trial and Reformulation

The memory of Kenny shadows Diana’s later use of the formula. While reviewing a spreadsheet of young Black women identified as needing to be fixed, Diana recalls the last time she saw Kenny: Kenny’s face appeared sickly, her eyes were glassy and still, and her voice had become dull and monotonous. The intended effect, Diana remembers, was supposed to be purely temperamental. She also acknowledges that she and Imani had been frighteningly optimistic about what the early formula would do.

The project’s development consequently includes a long period of correction, not a single successful invention. Diana recalls that it took Imani years to produce a less harsh formula. That history changes the meaning of the later application: the version used on Kendra belongs to an ongoing effort to revise a product whose earlier effects were more severe than expected. The account does not establish that refinement removed the underlying ethical problem. It shows a technical response to an adverse result, while leaving intact the decision to use a substance to influence another woman’s behavior.

Application to Kendra Rae Phillips

The application is prepared with care in its immediate handling. Diana remembers Kendra’s thick, dark hair divided into eight sections and describes applying the creamy formula with a gloved hand. The particularity of that memory links the abstract project to a concrete act: Imani’s work in chemistry and Diana’s decision to use the resulting product converge in the treatment of Kendra’s hair.

Diana recalls that Imani had assured her the batch would not burn, and that she had promised not to do something before reaching into Kendra’s hair. The account does not specify the promise’s object in the available passage, so it cannot establish more than Diana’s recollection of that commitment. What it does show is that the application carries both a practical concern about the formula and a moral hesitation. Diana proceeds, saying a small prayer as she begins. The gesture does not resolve the tension between intention and consequence; it marks her awareness that the procedure is not ordinary grooming.

Wider Scheme and Significance

The project sits within a broader system of identifying Black women as people who need fixing. After opening an article, Diana consults the latest spreadsheet of potential subjects. One entry concerns teachers at a women’s college in Atlanta; Diana finds the prospect unappealing because the group is unfamiliar territory and the women are older than those with whom the operation has more experience. She nevertheless reasons that, if Richard Wagner has not refused the dean, she cannot refuse either. The spreadsheet and the chain of permission place Imani’s formula within an organized practice, not merely a private experiment between old friends.

Diana’s recollection of Kenny and her later decision to treat Kendra create a pointed contrast between learning from a harmful result and continuing the project. The formula is revised, its stated aim remains relief, and its use is extended to another woman whose conduct Diana believes should change. The episode therefore gives the product a double significance: it is presented as a response to burdens imposed on Black women, yet it also turns their behavior into something to be managed. Its history of technical refinement does not settle the question of who has the authority to decide what kind of relief another person needs.