{"id":787,"date":"2025-04-25T10:18:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T10:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/?p=787"},"modified":"2025-04-27T08:29:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T08:29:54","slug":"im-a-black-journalist-when-my-hair-went-viral-i-became-the-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/25\/im-a-black-journalist-when-my-hair-went-viral-i-became-the-story\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m A Black Journalist & When My Hair Went Viral, I Became The Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As a journalist and presenter<\/a>, I\u2019m constantly having viral moments. I\u2019ll deliver a news story, and millions of people will see it, and that\u2019s just the norm, the day-to-day,\u00a0but I\u2019m not necessarily the<\/em> topic of that viral moment. Yet after a recent news report I made was posted online, millions of people were talking about my appearance on social media<\/a> \u2014 my \u201cbad hair day\u201d at work<\/a> \u2014 and then that became the conversation, people made videos about it, and shared their own ideas of what went on. It\u2019s not something I expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On 28 March 2025, I headed into the BBC offices in London, where I present the news for the broadcaster\u2019s social media pages. We\u2019d been alerted that there was a tragic earthquake in Myanmar, and when things like that happen, it\u2019s all hands on deck \u2014 everyone is working to ensure we cover the story as well as possible. As well as reporting on the tragic event, I was scheduled to interview professional wrestler Tiffany Stratton<\/a> on location that day, but the main aim was to make sure that we were covering the earthquake and the fatalities. It meant that I was quite rushed for time, leaving no time for hair and makeup. I rushed to the interview and was aware that my hair didn\u2019t necessarily look as well as I\u2019d wanted. It was my first time trying a sew-in with a leave-out<\/a>, and to be honest, I do think the humidity had a massive effect, because when I first arrived at the office, my hair was laid and slayed! But that\u2019s the thing, when you straighten your natural hair<\/a>, you just don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to do.<\/p>\n

The interview was posted online on April 1 and soon went viral, and thousands of people commented on how my hair looked. It is a shame, because the story was about women\u2019s empowerment and women in sport. I spoke to a champion in her field, and people weren\u2019t able to take from that when they saw the video.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t notice the comments at first. When I finally did, some of them were quite funny, but as the post blew up, it got more hateful and abusive. When I noticed the hate growing, I needed to make sure people knew that it is never okay, so I posted a video to my TikTok page, @jonelleawomoyi<\/a>, in response to nip it in the bud.\u00a0<\/p>\n

People know it\u2019s wrong, even when they try to disguise abusive comments as \u201cbanter\u201d. When you\u2019re in the public eye, many people have the assumption that because you chose this public lifestyle, if you get praise, then you should also expect negativity. And some feel like they have a right to hold public-facing people accountable. But there\u2019s an obvious line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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In general, women are subject to a lot of criticism based on the way they look. And when you think about that intersectionally, when it comes down to race and gender, it seems Black women are under heavier scrutiny when it comes to the way we look<\/a>. There are massive billion-dollar industries making money from us having these high standards for the way we present ourselves, so I understand where this comes from.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Growing up as Black women, there can be pressures to have our hair \u201con point\u201d and \u201claid\u201d \u2014 and I\u2019m using these words specifically because they emphasize just how culturally significant our hair is. So, it was disheartening seeing that a lot of the comments on the video were coming from Black women. Still, I did try and approach those criticizing me with some compassion. A lot of people have internalized negative messages they\u2019ve received based on the way they look, and then they project those messages onto other people. However, whilst I have compassion, I had to make it clear that the comments were still wrong, regardless of the reasoning behind them.<\/p>\n

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A while back, I posted a video on TikTok of me doing a news report with my natural hair<\/a> and then going on a walk \u2014 the wind just blew it out of the way! It\u2019s one of those things: when I get to my destination, I have no idea how I\u2019m going to look. But that\u2019s fine, because it\u2019s just hair at the end of the day. We all have different hair types, and different hair types will do different things in different environments \u2014 as Black women, we all know that. If you have type 4 hair, you\u2019re going to be aware that when you straighten it or curl it, and you go into a different environment, there\u2019s a possibility that it won\u2019t look the same way that you styled it originally. We should give each other grace.<\/p>\n

In my role as a journalist, there is no one way of presenting myself. I\u2019ve had many different hairstyles when presenting the news. Right now, I have Fulani boho braids<\/a>, I\u2019ve tried stitch braids, red braids, half up and half down, and worn my natural hair, all while presenting the news. I know that other Black news presenters may not have felt welcomed when wearing their natural hair, and hair discrimination in the workplace<\/a> is a common issue many Black women have faced, but I\u2019ve not had that issue. I present myself in a way that I feel comfortable and I feel true to myself. What\u2019s interesting is that when I first got my job in TV, I had long blonde braids. Maybe because my work is aimed at younger audiences on social media, I have never felt my hair was a hindrance to me within this space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Regardless, I don\u2019t think we should steer the conversation to telling Black women how to wear their hair in any setting \u2014 many people were prescribing me different hairstyles to try \u2014 that\u2019s just not the point here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For me, it\u2019s an empowering thing to be a Black woman working in journalism<\/a>, connecting with diverse communities and trying to push conversations that matter. We\u2019re lucky enough to live in a country where we have free press, but there are female journalists in Yemen<\/a>, in Afghanistan, in Nigeria, in Sudan who will face terrible consequences based on doing their job in general, let alone how they present themselves. We must remember how important journalism is and how lucky we are to have free press where we\u2019re allowed to report on things; in some countries, they\u2019re not necessarily given those same freedoms.<\/p>\n

I also think it\u2019s good that we\u2019re now questioning ourselves a bit more about how we post online, how we\u2019re using the online spaces we\u2019re given, because it is so powerful to have an online forum where everyone in the world can get involved in conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rough hair days happen. And I hope as Black women we\u2019re giving ourselves and other people grace, especially on the basis of how they look \u2014 if someone\u2019s hair\u2019s not done, is it really that important?<\/p>\n

As told to L\u2019Or\u00e9al Blackett. This interview has been condensed from its original transcription.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Jonelle Awomoyi<\/a> is a BBC journalist, presenter, and producer\u00a0<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on Unbothered UK<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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As a journalist and presenter, I\u2019m constantly having viral moments. I\u2019ll deliver a news story, and millions of people will see it, and that\u2019s just the norm, the day-to-day,\u00a0but I\u2019m not necessarily the topic of that viral moment. Yet after a recent news report I made was posted online, millions of people were talking about Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fashion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":793,"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions\/793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.habitaliaimobiliaria.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}