October 27, 2012
Why Being A TV News Reporter Almost Kept Me From My Natural Hair
Ah, the politics of black hair. It seems like every week, there’s a new entrant wading into the conversation about the tonsorial logistics and cultural implications of how they rock their hair. Abi Ishola, a television journalist, writes at the Huffington Post that her profession made her choice more complicated.
I’ll admit: I was also afraid of how I would appear on camera. I had grown so accustomed to the way I looked with straight hair, I couldn’t picture the old kinky hair me. I only have two photos from my time back when I first went natural (digital cameras weren’t popular then) so it was hard to see myself as that girl. I placed those photos on my mirror and stared at them for months in hopes of embracing her all over again. She was brave and ready to take on the world as she is. I searched her face for the beauty I wanted to reclaim. I also searched for flaws as a way to talk myself out of parting with my security blanket.
Ishola has a gallery of her gradual transition, at the bottom of her blog entry at the Huffington Post.