Locs Down

Well, this is in fact old news, but for some reason I can't shake the feeling it gives me. [nostalgia sometimes make me nauseous]

So this guy is a young journalist and he's doing a summer internship at Black Enterprise magazine. Before the internship he let them know he has locs and they say that's cool.

Then he gets to the job and starts getting shade that, from what I've read, is both subtle and overt. He is subsequently asked to go clean cut.

He says, No Prob, and now sports a cute brush cut.

No harm no foul, he was cool wit it, he keeps the job, all is well that ends well. And to be sure, I wish to foster neither a dialogue nor debate about whether he should or should not have cut it. That's his grown man prerogative, and he did what he had to do.

But still, the whole thing just feels, well...icky.

Before you attempt to half-pipe down my throat, I am well-versed in the corporate American culture. I get it. Well, I get that it exists, but it's the subtext that I'm not feeling. And particularly so from this particular company.

[And now for a personal anecdote from the vaults of Wise's private historiography]

My first job out of college was at a TV network in NYC. It was magical walking into that newsroom on my first day...well, night. I started off working on the overnight news programs. So it's just before my 9pm start time and I walk in, and...um, am I in the right place??? Why there so many, brothas...and sistas up in here?! I was under the impression (and experience) that I'd be one of a palm full at most.

It was like Soul Plane up in there. I was stunned. So when I was promoted to dayside, I realized just how isolating the overnight really is...namely that that's where they store the black folks for safe keeping...cuz dayside wasn't having them. FINALLY I was back to being a token. Whew!

Yet there's a twist... there are also a few tokens in key positions. Assignment editors and such. And to be sure, they are of the fiercely loyal variety. And they are also decidedly, and as I had come to expect, of the citrus complected variety. [No offense to my light skinnded contingency. I'm a chocolate sis, but got no issues in that regard...however, my bosses REALLY did. That's another hellish story for another day]

As usual, I digress...

So the thing about working overnights is that for all the free time that you have during the daylight hours, it doesn't really translate into free personal time. No meeting your friends for 1/2-off appetizer dinners in midtown, no scheduled TV time (I was dying! Barely had time to set the damn VCR to tape shit!)

No time to do my hair, even.

But I lived in Brooklyn, and I had a more convenient personal option. One day right after work I jumped on the BK-bound Q train, woke up in time to hop off at Dean St and heard music to my ears...

"Haaahh brrrraydee, Meez?"

[translation... "Hey sis, I can tell you out here hustling just like me...but your shit is tired. Come let the Africans hook you up wit some braids. We got bout 7 chicks ready to braid you all at once. You'll be done in an hour."]

Why, yes. Thank you.

So I'm on dayside now, and I got braids right, and I'm actually making it to work on time every morning bec there is no curling iron to contend with (sue me, I'm a perm girl). And I look real fly too, cuz the braids are the same length as my natural hair, and very well groomed and beautiful. Well worth the 7 hours in that God forsaken chair listening to the girls cuss me out in Wolof and broken French for not washing my hair beforehand.

So one day the exec producer of the evening news requests a sit down with me. We hit it off immediately. He's a very tough, very fair man, who called me a "Pistol"...which I surmised was Baby Boomer white-speak for what today's corporate climbing black girl would be called "sassy" or "energetic." He liked me.

When word got back to one of the Light Bright Assignment Editors about our meeting, she dismissed it as the boss just "needing to figure out the girl with the braids."

I was stunned. Clearly she was hating...she had never made any effort to be supportive, accessible or even cordial to me or any of the other 'Of Colors' there. She may as well have been grey.

But clearly, there was also probably some truth to it. She had been there a while. I'm sure she'd seen many like me come and go. And obviously she played the game well enough to climb to where she sat comfortably (or so she thought. She got reassigned shortly thereafter).

I pondered what that meant. Was it possible for my hair to eclipse my performance? Was that all they saw ...my impossibly sharp parts brandishing my impossibly clean scalp, and not my consistently improving output and work ethic? I didn't put it past them. That's what they're taught...myopic, asinine manners of categorizing and judging black folks. Hell these were the same people who hired only gay black men, in an effort I imagine, to keep the fast tail black girls still.

I expected that from them.

I expect something different from Black Enterprise, but should I?

What the articles don't point out is that this young man, who I've met on several occasions, is an officer in the organization that reps his fellow black journos. His behavior and reputation is intrinsically linked to that position. He's also from Atlanta, so had he been sent packing that woulda been tough I'm sure on his housing, his summer dough, not to mention school credit perhaps.

I think those things are relevant to note, but at the end of the day he valued the job more than the aesthetic. [I could see if his shit was a mess, but damn!]

He chose his battles closely.

But should BE even have put up the dukes under these pretenses? I think THAT'S what's bugging me. Should a young man, an INTERN no less, be forced to make this decision? Is it fair to assume that an internship is fertile ground for growth and understanding what you do and don't want out of a career?

And while BE appears to side with Hampton Univ, which also bans its Business School students from wearing locs...in an attempt to align more closely with the "realities" of Corporate America...is it actually perpetuating the same short-sighted culture blockers as the white boys?? (And why is a messy perm with ends doing a full split, and new growth piled high to heaven ok on the job???)

I dunno. It's complex. There are lots of black pros who wear locs and are accepted as such with no problems.

Then there are others who insist that you shouldn't give white people a reason not to hire you. To me, if that's the *reason* then for all I know the reason I got hired could be nothing more than a free pass for the boss to jack off to the sight of my azz swaying daily.

I tend to agree with Susan Taylor and Essence who suggest perhaps bringing in image consultants to our black biz schools and train on personal grooming. Lawd knows, us perm girls could use the help, too.

Bottom line...as a subscriber to Black Enterprise, I'm a bit disappointed. I mean, I think it's bizarre...a black publication forces a kid make that kind of decision and all, but he's an adult. He doesn't need a pat on the back for choosing to stay on the books. [hmmm, can you collect unemployment if you get fired from a paid internship??]

But as I open up this month's issue as I do every month, I believe I have found the true root of my unease with this whole thing...

HAVE YOU SEEN THE HAIR ON EAR.L GRAVES, SR. (BE Publisher) ??? [tried to post it but blogger be trippin]

YO, in the July issue my man has on a ski helmet and his super-burly side burns are clamoring for attention even underneath the ear straps! Good Lawd!

THIS muhfucka has the audacity to tell somebody about grooming?? GTFOH!

And before you say, "Mr. Graves has earned his right to wear his face fur in any manner that he sees fit. He has sustained a respectable career and is a pioneer in this industry"...

I don't give a good gotdam. He has sustained a respectable career and is a pioneer in this industry, and he has been a black man even longer than that...he oughta know better!

Perhaps he just likes to remind his staffers they always have a long way to grow before they reach his "status."