Commentary
African-American women shouldn't have to defend hairstyles
Les Lester is a freelance journalist and author of the novel "The Awakening of Khufu."
Several years ago when I reported a story about an African-American woman who was getting flak about her hairstyle from her employer, I felt the issue of black hair represented the last frontier of African-Americans settling into the corporate lifestyle. But the recent firing of Rhonda Lee, a meteorologist for KTBS TV in Shreveport, La., for defending her hair on the station's Facebook page, proved my assessment was premature.
This on the heels of the Gabby Douglas Olympics onslaught, which saw the teen gymnast curtsy to public scrutiny and emerge with the standard European long-hair look.
Rhonda Lee, who sports a short, natural style, seems to have concluded that enough is enough. She says she was previously denied an interview with a station in California because the news director had advised her that her hairstyle looked "too aggressive." She says another station asked her to change her hair to make it more appealing to a mass audience.
KTBS, however, says it didn't fire Lee because of her hair. It maintains the reason was that she violated station policy that outlines how employees should respond to posts on its Facebook page, which is through a third party at the station. Lee contends there is no written policy and says she was not at a meeting where social media practices were discussed. The station says this was not the first time Lee had crossed the line and notes that KTBS also fired a veteran male news reporter who had responded to a post concerning sexual orientation.
The viewer who posted on Facebook, a white male, wrote that though "she is a nice lady" she needed to "wear a wig or grow some more hair." He went on to suggest that she looked like a "cancer patient."
Lee responded: "I'm sorry you don't like my ethnic hair." She wrote that she didn't have cancer. She said that "traditionally our [African-American] hair doesn't grow downward. It grows upward." She pointed out that while many black women use straightening agents, she didn't feel she needed to.
In a television interview with Soledad O'Brien, she said that racially sensitive issues need to be addressed by all of us. She explained that after the viewer's post had remained on the page for six days, she felt she needed to respond.
And I agree with her. African-American women should be able to wear their hair in keeping with its natural requirements. And given the history of the issue in this country, it needed to be addressed.
I'd love to see black women go back to more natural styles, like the Afro and braids. Straightening via hot combs and chemicals often damages hair, and the new trend toward weaving can get expensive.
From a historical perspective, black women and men in Nile Valley civilizations, like ancient Egypt, would simply cut their hair bald and wear braided wigs for special occasions. It's pretty hot in Africa, so long hair is not naturally functional for black people.
Rhonda Lee is the type of journalist we should applaud. Some issues are too important to simply sweep under the rug.
Comments (7)
Let's be honest, society is changing the way they see things to be natural. The more fake it is the better they think. I personally cannot fathom why someone should be sacked for wearing their God given natural hair. It is one of these reasons why I setup and still developing www.iloveyourhairstyle.com to make people proud of their natural hair styles and encourage healthy hair styles preserving the natural over the artificial. Women, God made you beautiful and gave you good hair. Please focus and keeping your hair natural and love your hair as it is.
She wasn't fired because of her hair style. She was fired for her disregard of company policy regarding viewer input.
A company has the absolute right to set company policy, and fire those who refuse to comply with what the management has decided is right for them.
Even though she wasn't fired for her hair, a company has the right to hire and fire based on the visual image they want to project.
F0r instance, if a receptionist comes in on Monday morning with a bunch of tattoos on her neck/upper chest, and a "sleeve" on each arm, the company has ever right to require her to keep the tats completely covered during work hours. If she refuses, the company has the right to fire her. No company should be held hostage to the image a mere employee wants to project, overshadowing the image the company feels comfortable with.
Every job belongs to the employer, not the employee. If you can't further the companies objectives, you are of no use to the company.
And, playing the race card is the signature of the truly incompetent.
Les Lester's assessment of the situation is apt and incisive. The comment of b blevins, on the other hand, has completely missed the point of Lester's commentary. A company should not have the right to fire an employee for her God-given looks. The comparison blevins makes between the employee who does not wear unnatural hairstyles and another (hypothetical) employee who exposes the tatoos on her body while at work, is odd and confusing. How are these two examples similar?
I still don't understand why the need to comment on someone's hair still exists. My afro is not hurting people in any way, shape or form. Do my curls offend? Ah well. Are you mad that you probably can't see the screen if you willingly choose to sit behind me in a movie? Don't complain or sigh passive aggressively throughout the movie, just move to another seat.
My decision to wear my hair natural has nothing to do with anyone else, it's a personal decision, so why must people feel the need to chime in on something that doesn't pertain to them?
Why must this ridiculous division exist and ridiculous examples be drawn up to justify ignorance? Tattoos are not hair. You opt to get a tattoo. Hair is just another part of every person - everyone has it; and yet it's used to further separate us as people. For crying out loud, get an original attack. You wear your hair how you'd like, I'll do the same. Even if that means I walk into work one day with an afro and the next my hair is pressed. Let's both mind our own business about our hair, instead of nitpicking at each other.
I can't believe people still think choosing to have tattoo is equivalent to wearing hair the way it **naturally** grows out of your head. We do not choose our hair texture, yet we choose to put ink drawings on our body. The two cannot be compared. And the company's policy of abiding to viewer input is ridiculous because the viewer made a completely ignorant statement toward the woman's hair. Saying she looked like she had cancer? Why should anyone abide by such an ignorant remark? There is no need to play the race card because race is not the issue, hair is. If a woman with curly hair is told she has to straighten her hair everyday, the same principles apply. She should be able to wear her hair the way it naturally is.
This is ridiculous to speak of race when it's plain that you don't accept the black race for who we are. Our hair is not about a stance or deal with it or not; it's who we are just as our eyes are brown and our lips are full and our noses are wide!!! Please, the problem is that finally we're not conforming to "White is right, America". If that means we have to go find jobs else where...so be it! Blacks own businesses also. There are some that do not have an issue with someone being who they are, the way they were born and were meant to be. We've conformed long enough, haven't you ( whomever has the issue with black anything ) realized that we are free, in every aspect of the word, FREE. Our eyes don't have to be colored to be beautiful, our lips don't have to be thin to be in and our hair doesn' t have to be long and straight to be accepted. It is what it is, period. Blacks and whites not being able to get along but once they come together they make a beautiful person. The perfectly tanned, mosts desired hair, and great facial features that make Halli Berry & Alicia Keys a couple of the most amzing looking women of our time. That doesn't mean Gabriel Union and Cynthia ( of the real house wives of Atlanta) aren't beautuful as well. It just means variety and it's all good Yall, yes, I went there. Later
Have you seen this petition about Michelle Obama's hair? It's right on time! https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/invite-first-lady-united-states-wear-her-hair-natural-hair-style/8z6ckRDV
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