This is a draft of a statement I have prepared to send to the Montgomery
Area Association of Black Journalists, regarding a nasty colorism
incident at a workshop for students last Saturday.  FYI, E-K.

 

Re: 2nd Workshop Feedback and UNSUBSCRIBE request.       

 

Thank you in advance for UNSUBSCRBING me from all MAABJ mailing
lists...electronic and otherwise.  I only want to use my time, energy,
money, and ability to compel students to devote the same, to people and
organizations who/that champion and support the self-confidence of those
women of African descent who have kinky hair, develop the self and race
esteem to wear that kinky hair, while excellently performing their jobs
as journalists.  

 

Two-thirds of the students who attended the seminar were there because I
compelled them to do so, stayed throughout the seminar, took attendance
at the beginning and end, docking them for leaving early, or arriving
late.

 

          Granted, the poorer one's skills, the more one would want to
conform as much as possible to conservative, White standards of beauty,
regardless of the toll it may take on one's self-esteem or health.
Others may just want to straighten their hair. That's fine.  However it
was sad and misleading of some MAABJ print reporters and managers to
assert that a black woman wearing her naturally kinky hair
unstraightened would be so distracting to a White interviewee, as to
interfere with the Black woman's ability to do or get a job.   

 

My radio/TV newswriting students enjoyed MAABJ President Valorie
Lawson's (and Randy Scott's) dynamite session on resume tapes.  However,
the following session titled, "What NOT to Wear to a Job Interview,"
deteriorated into intimidating the undergraduates into thinking that
they can not have kinky hair and get a job. What a sad, long way, in the
wrong direction, we have come since African American journalists and
broader community supported broadcast journalist Melba Toliver in
wearing her naturally kinky hair on the air. 

 

What a depressing near-repeat of a Alabama Associated Press
Broadcaster's Association student workshop some years ago at WSFA.
There a light-skinned, WSFA reporter with damaged, over-processed hair,
with kinky roots showing, declared national award-winning communications
department ASU, now-alumnae, Erica Perkins (a gorgeous, dark-skin,
African-featured woman, professionally dressed, with neat cornrows) as
"unhireable." The White, male, news director at the time said he, "could
fix her (Perkins)," and that my long natural locs would be fine on air. 

This year, at least the lone two female students with naturally kinky
hair attending the workshop last Saturday (neither ASU students) were
both light-skinned, not particularly African-featured, and not directly
humiliated as Erica Perkins was several years ago. I hope the one
Tuskeegee male student, who wore chin-length locs, he said to hide a
scar on his scalp, was not scarred by a newspaper manager pointing an
accusatory finger from 3 feet behind him, as the manager chastised the
student for wearing his neat, clean locs.  At least he did not, thank
God, turn around to see the pointed finger.

 

          I hope those students were not weeping in their cars afterward
as Erica Perkins was after the more personal verbal beat-down by a MAABJ
member absent from last Saturday's seminar.  I hope the students
criticized at last Saturday's workshop are not wearing pin-straight,
waist long, white plastic-scalped, synthetic wigs for weeks afterward,
as the traumatized Perkins did.

 

          I pray God and our African Ancestors support our young media
professionals to have the courage and self-esteem to find themselves
beautiful as kinky-haired professionals.  I wonder if our Nubian-locked
regional ABJ director knows about this notion that natural hair negates
a journalist's ability to do her or his job?  The regional director
certainly seems able to do hers.  Please send her a copy of this email.
The last time I walked the halls of Gannett headquarters, black women
with naturally kinky hair did not seem unemployable, nor relegated to
some inferior status.  

 

          I hope that MAABJ manager and those who will one day be in a
hiring position, do not use their internalized racism to disqualify
employment applicants of African descent wearing their kinky hair as
their genetics gifted them.  Especially after making their prejudices
known in front of over 40 witnesses, a would-be-employee kinky-haired
woman, or a black man with neat, clean cornrows or locs, would be in an
excellent position to sue the manager and that manager's company.  I
doubt the ACLU would have any difficulty proving the aforementioned
straight hair as NOT a bonafide job qualification, especially for a
print journalist. 

 

          No doubt such a case would get its share of national press as
the Jim Crow Theory of divide and conquer would be proven alive and well
in the Association of Black Journalists none-the-less.  I pray the
organization grows with professionals who seek to teach, support, and
champion journalisms students of African descent to hone their skills,
dress as professionally as their pocketbooks and high-end thrift stores
permit and have the confidence, courage and pride to wear their kinky
hair in the same way virtually all Whites and Asians, most American
Indians, many Latinos, and biracial people wear theirs -- without
intimidation from anyone -- especially other African-Americans. 

 

          It seems to me that with natural hair, I look more
professional than I did when I only had the time and money to wear a
poorly-maintained perm that was not a good imitation of the texture hair
most of those without more African descent are born with.  After all, as
internationally famous civil rights activist, Delores Huerte says, "We
are all African of different colors."  

 

          Thank you for ignoring my repeated requests for a membership
application. Now I don't have to resign. I have the $35 to donate to
causes I do believe in.  I am grateful I've seen the horror flick, based
on a true story, "Amnityville Horror," because I know when the house
says, "Get Out!" I should.

 

          As documentary producer and director Kathe Sandler says, the
color caste system in the black community, based on how closely skin
color, hair texture, and facial features conform to a European ideal
causes devastating psychological and emotional harm. I was sad to see
that harm inflicted at the 2nd MAABJ workshop. 

 

            Thanks to all the members who, over the last ten years, have
always held me in high esteem.  Thanks to all who have always been
respectful and valuing of me and all of my students, regardless of the
texture of our neat, clean, and professionally-coifed hair.  Too bad
these members did not prevail in the, "What NOT to wear session," that
turned into a what-NOT-to -be beat-down.  

 

 

Rev. Dr. E-K. Daufin, Professor

Department of Communications

Alabama State University

915 South Jackson St.

Montgomery, AL 36101-0271

334.229.6885

Lectures, Performances, Workshops, Consultation:

http://home.earthlink.net/~ekdaufin/
<http://home.earthlink.net/~ekdaufin/> 

Want More Energy? Relaxation? Motivation?

Balance Your Brain Chemistry, Here's How: http://ekdaufin.isagenix.com

Nappy New Year 2006 

Afrocentric Photoart Calendar

1st of Black Women W/Natural Hair

Dr. D. is Ms. April...Now only $3

Contact Dr. D. if interested.