It's taken me years to learn how to really appreciate the beauty in my Afro hair. While many women's biggest social media phobia is to be pictured bare faced, for me, the concept of showing my natural hair (and not hiding it under a wig or braids) was absolutely terrifying. Growing up, I never disliked my hair, but I certainly didn't appreciate it enough – and I probably cared too much about how others could perceive it.
For a long time, I'd never have considered rocking to work sporting my beautiful jet black coils. The last thing I could have imagined is showing up to a job interview with them. It's World Afro day (15th September) and this years mission is to tackle Afro hair discrimination in the work place.
"On the 5th September 2016, a U.S. federal court, ruled it was legal to ban dreadlocks in the workplace! This is a barrier not faced by any other hair type or group in the world. Bias against Afro hair in society can create exclusion, shame and and feelings of inferiority. This has also had a long-lasting impact on health and economic opportunity, especially for Black women, who are pressurised to conform to societal norms." World Afro Day representative.
I can relate to this sentiment. Wearing wigs and weaves had always been my comfort blanket – my mask. Cut to 2020 and in a climate where masks were there to actually protect people from a deadly virus, it seemed a much better use than wasting my energy masking my insecurities. For the first time, I really embraced my natural hair publicly and proudly. Letting my hair free for the world to see reminded me that I am beautiful and that I am a fruit of my heritage, simply by existing, and to me, that's very powerful in itself.
The uncertainty of the pandemic left me without a full time job and although I jumped into freelance life ten toes down, I was longing for some security. I was new in journalism and felt I had a lot more to learn and I needed a team.
Around the same time, I was approached by the founder of a magazine for a role that was pretty much identical to what I was already delivering. After I missed a couple of Instagram DMs from them, this individual even reached out to my former boss to get her to nudge me. This was also coincidentally during the heights of the BLM movement, shortly after George Floyd had been murdered.
It was a sensitive time for Black people, and I had heard on Twitter and through peers that they'd built a bit of a reputation for themselves and their brand on social media, for not being the most inclusive or safe space for people of colour. I was reluctant, but it was clear that perhaps they needed someone like me to create change? I was wrong. But more on that later.
On interview day, I was feeling mildly nervous. I was confident in my ability to nail the talking part, I was way more anxious about looking ‘the part’ – whatever ‘the part’ is supposed to look like. I'd done my research, and knew who their brand catered too, and I made sure I represented that. It's a creative industry, so I put on an oversized black blazer paired with jeans, a nice plain white top and some kicks. Besides, that's not too far from my personal aesthetic so I was happy to comply.
I played it safe when it came to clothes, because I knew that one thing that I was not going to do is hide away my Afro (not playing safe), which I'd been sporting publicly the previous weeks.
The mixture of the pandemic, plus hearing stories about the Black experience around BLM, plus diving deep into my role as a beauty journalist, made me really tap into that side of my existence. I’d only just started to grow a real love for my natural hair. The feeling of shame had left the chat. So I wanted the person who could be my potential new boss to see me in my truest form, because that was the women that was going to show up everyday to their establishment – no catfishing here.
Beyoncé's natural hair is thriving, so whatever she's putting in it, we want in…
I arrived a couple of minutes early, but no-one was there. So I waited on the office steps for another 30 minutes until they turned up late, explaining that their nanny – who they needlessly told me was Asian – had quit on them that morning and told me “this is the problem with these people, they have no care for the children.” We were not off to a good start.
I vaguely remember them making a comment about my hair. “Oh, you have…" they pause "so much hair” they continue. It was less about the message, more about the messenger. This person's reputation on the Black corner of journo Twitter was in tatters, and any comments about my physical appearance made me uneasy coming from them. They then proceed to comment on how I was stylish.
It's a huge victory for equality campaigners.
The interview became a therapy session where this person proceeded to explain to me all the reasons they're not racist. They asked me uncomfortable questions, including how precious do I feel about my hair.
Granted I would be writing about beauty but the line of questioning was loaded and rarely leaned on my journalistic background. They told me I reminded them of their sister-in-law, an African Black woman, who they got on very well with, so they knew they would get on well with me. This was a mere few moments after greeting me.
They emphasised that their mix-raced nephew – who “had an ankle monitor” – attended behaviour classes and they would often take him, voluntarily, without fear. This, they told me, is also where they met another young Black boy who was always in trouble with the police, but they still hired him to model for their brand, as if that was a charitable act. They segued from here into how this clearly proved that they were definitely “not racist”.
I quickly realised that what first started as an overindulgent and gratis therapy session (purely for their own personal validation), had turned into a Blackness barometer reading. It simply felt like they were measuring up how Black of a Black person I actually am and how much Blackness I was going to bring to their business.
My hair was all the giveaway they needed, but I also didn't hold back with my words. The more professional and work related questions they eventually asked were relatively straight forward, and the more I heard about what she expected from the role, the more I realised I was perhaps overqualified, as I'd exceeded those duties in my previous job.
I left the interview perplexed, but was later hired to do a couple of features for their website on a freelance basis (which never were published, although fair to note that they eventually did pay me for it) while they decided on the person they would eventually hire.
In not so many words she really just said mind the hair and the business that pays you…
I knew they were going to hire a Black women, they made it clear that this was their sole intention. However, I quickly realised that it would have to be a Black women that would “culturally fit” their work environment, and that would be a hard task considering the things I'd witnessed in that two hour interview.
Spoiler alert: I did not get the job. Unsurprisingly. I was told they went with someone with more experience. Of course this is a small industry, and I soon realised that was not the case at all, but it would be hard to explain to a Black women why exactly they were not a good cultural fit when the business is doing a diversity hire.
I had a fleeting moment of insanity, by feeling mildly disappointed for not getting the job after everything I witnessed in the interview, but perhaps that disappointment stemmed from the fact I'd shown my whole self, and wasn't chosen. I was worried this could be a pattern if I stayed true to myself going forward. In retrospect, it would have been a mistake to take the role – everyone around me, including my family and my work mentors, had advised me not to.
The sad thing is, this experience isn't unique to me. A new report by World Afro Day, ‘Workplace Hair Acceptance’, revealed that bias against Afro hair in the workplace is likely to cost jobs. It concluded that there's a “hierarchy of hairstyles” that are more likely to get you hired, starting with Eurocentric styles (straight hair, slight waves) before decreasing to Afrocentric styles, with locs and afros at the bottom.
A 2023 CROWN Workplace Research study also found that, despite some progress over the past few years, race-based hair discrimination still remains a widespread issue for Black women in the workplace. The results of the study showed that:
- Black women’s hair was two-and-a-half times more likely to be perceived as unprofessional.
- More than half of the Black women surveyed felt like they had to wear their hair straight in a job interview to be successful. Two-thirds reported that they had changed their hair for a job interview.
- One-fifth of the Black women surveyed between the ages of 25 and 34 had been sent home from work because of their hair.
- A quarter of the Black women surveyed believe they were denied a job because of their hair.
By no means did I go to that interview wearing my Afro naturally, unaware of the repercussions. However, I learned that if I didn't show my true self then, I would not get their true response back, and that, manifesting later on, would be way more detrimental to my career.
This experience also taught me that even in a post BLM world, hair discrimination still affects the way Black people navigate the working world. Bias and prejudice is still active in the workplace and there is still work to be done to promote real (not tokenistic) diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring practices.
“I could try as hard as I wanted to be like the little white girls in my class; my hair didn’t give one f[*]ck about that.”
Rejection, when exacerbated with unveiling your Afro hair, can also be emotionally taxing, but it also builds resilience and it gave me a more carefree approach on how I navigate my natural beauty in the real world. It teaches you to persevere and keep pushing forward, even when faced with adversity. This strength can serve you well in your career and all other aspects of life.
Ultimately, not getting a job because of your Afro hair and all encompassing aspects of your Blackness is truly a blessing in disguise. It allows you to filter out employers who do not appreciate your uniqueness and values. It guides you towards opportunities and organisations that value diversity and that are more likely to nurture your talents and contributions, because that's exactly what you deserve… So for that I thank rejection, but most importantly I thank my beautiful, bouncy, at times unruly, but never embarrassing Afro hair, because you did me a solid.
For more from Glamour UK Beauty Writer Shei Mamona, follow her on Instagram @sheimamona
