Ameliorating in the Workplace

As a person of color, Black History Month is always a time to reflect on my race. After watching the PR Week video and reading about research studies on race in the newsroom, I was reminded of a conversation I had with my mother. I called my mom about a week ago, and we were talking about how she got a new promotion at her job. While on FaceTime, I noticed that her hair was a little different. As a 52-year-old woman, she let the color in her hair go "early" because she liked the silver hair look. Also, this time, I saw blue and purple streaks in between the silver. Something a little like this:

Example of the highlights my mom had in her hair

She smiled when she saw that my face lit up when I noticed because she was excited about it. She said, "Oh yeah, I did something new; Do you like it?" Of course, I loved it; It was just different for my mom. We started talking about why she decided to put color in her colorless hair. Her response was something I would have never expected.

She responded by saying that she wanted to feel youthful with her "old person hair." I asked her if she thought that her boss cared. She responded with no because her boss is very inclusive and not as conservative about what people wear at work. Then she started saying that she loves her hair and loves showing it off at work because she is the head of HR, and employees would look up to her. She then explained that if the head of a pretty high position in the company has blue and purple hair, employees at a lower status in the company see that and feel more included. She then said, "Back in the day when I was a recruiter, I would look at people differently if they had unnatural color in their hair. But then I thought, as a white woman with brown children, why am I judging people on the color that's in their hair but would never think about judging someone that has color in their skin?" The simple answer is that she married a black man and has three children with him. However, the more profound answer is that she found prejudice when she was younger and a recruiter. Her dying her hair is a way of acknowledging that she had that prejudice, not liking it, and making a statement against it.

 

If more people had this same mentality, I would not have had a weekly reading section in my college class titled "Diversity and Inclusion." Although to play devil's advocate, maybe I would, their stories in the section would look more like the one I just told you rather than Journalists Must Train Their Brains to See Past Stereotypes. We can only hope.