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
334.229.6885
Lectures, Performances, Workshops,
Consultation:
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.