Female TV news anchors with Natural hair forced to wear wigs
Is natural hair a no, no for news anchors?
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I can give you 1000 bob for each anchor you are able to name from the top of your head.
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Just run all of them in your head right now. Tick, tock, tick ,tock. Okay, I will help you.
KTN news anchor Betty Kyallo always wears her relaxed hair, weaves or wigs.
Citizen TV news anchor Victoria Rubadiri actually has VERY beautiful hair but most of the time, you will find her in weaves or wigs while anchoring the news.
I bet you actually have no clue how Citizen TV Lillian Muli or Anne Kiguta’s real hair looks like because they both put on weaves and wigs almost all of the time.
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How about news anchors at NTV. The gorgeous Olive Burrows always graces our TV screens putting on her weaves.
I can actually go on and on but name dropping is not the point here. Neither is my point to say that weaves, wigs or relaxed hair is not in any way beautiful. It actually is and I love them (well the good-looking ones).
Nor am I on a mission to glorify natural hair.
However, the focus of this piece is to challenge a façade that straightened free-flowing hair is the epitome of being presentable or rather professional!
Being a naturalista myself, I was irked when a reporter friend of mine who works in the US posted insta stories highlighting the frustration she undergoes in the newsroom just because of her natural hair.
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Em, that is how we will be referring to her, is now walking around in a wig simply because her natural hair is not professional enough to appear before a camera.
What? Yes, you read that right.
Her natural hair is not presentable for the audience to listen to the content of an intelligent brain like hers.
Em’s hair is those kinky ones that cannot stay straightened for a whole 24 hours. Before the end of the day, it is always in a shrunken state.
"Some people have very long natural hair and they don’t have to flat iron it every day to keep it straight. I have very coarse hair, I can’t be straightening it every day because it will result to excess hair loss,” the budding reporter opens up.
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In a candid talk with her she describes it as a colonizer mentality most African nations have picked from the West.
"It might appear as something petty to others but I believe that content, talent and skill is what mostly matters. I just feel like it is one of those things that were forced on us by the West and colonizers,” she "says with a conviction.
Though Em recognizes that some people prefer straightened hair which tends to appear more put together, she is of the opinion that there are numerous styles that can keep natural hair professional.
“For some, it may be a personal preference, however, I have talked to people who said they wish they could wear their natural kinky/curly hair. There are so many ways to make our hair type to look presentable and professional,” she opined.
Is it professional to walk around with natural hair?
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The views expressed in this article are those of the writer.
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