Joy Reid - Host, MSNBC
Primetime is high stakes in television. It’s the key after dinner hours when more eyeballs, and more ad dollars, are historically up for grabs. Right now, there is only one Black woman hosting a weeknight, national evening news show in primetime. Her name is Joy Reid. In July, the Harvard alum and New York Times best-selling author was named host of ‘The ReidOut’ on cable network MSNBC. “My making it to primetime means that some little girl looking at a TV in her parents' or grandparents' house can say to themselves, ‘I can do that.’ That mattered to me when I saw Gwen Ifill and Carole Simpson,” said MSNBC host Joy Reid. With a high profile spot in primetime, and the ability to influence the next generation, Reid knows everything matters — including how she shows up on air. She decidedly debuted a new hair style for her show’s premiere, embracing her freedom of choice. “I think that Black women have come into our own in every aspect, including in insisting that we will be ourselves, including in the way we wear our hair. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to embrace our hair as it is, or how we reimagine it, and it's an affirmation of our full arrival as citizens and cultural leaders. And yes, our natural hair is a political statement,” said Reid.
This topic is of particular interest to me, because in 2017, I wrote a book titled ‘Pretty Powerful: Appearance, Substance, & Success’. It explores the role aesthetics can play in a woman’s career ascension. The policing of Black hair in particular has deep roots in our country. In fact, a brand new Duke University study in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science shows Black women with natural hair are less likely to get job interviews. For Black women on network television, there’s almost a right of passage, that I too have experienced. We’re all subject to the television network’s hair and make-up teams. Those teams are often unfamiliar and inexperienced with styling Black hair textures. This is a byproduct of not having enough Black women on television in the first place. It results in our hair being burned out by curling irons and flatirons that are too hot for our hair types. Reid described seeing her hair come out in clumps during her early days on air. “I was traumatized,” she said. “So traumatized, I spent hundreds, actually thousands of dollars on specialists, treatments, wigs and weaves to try and save my hair. All things I’d never done before,” said Reid.
As ‘The ReidOut’ was launching, Reid just happened to be coming out of braids (a style she frequents during summer months). She wanted to give her edges a rest, a common practice among Black women everywhere when we step away from tight styles to allow the perimeter of our hairlines to rest. Instead of opting for a blowout, or other standard looks seen on TV, Reid decided her new show presented an opportunity to lean into a new look — a crown of beautiful coils. “If it’s going to be a new show, a new moment, let’s go with a new visual too,” said Reid.
It was a new look for a new moment and it was by design. Reid affirmed a reality that Black women in America know from birth — choosing to wear our hair in styles that are natural to us is not always considered “professional.” We are often encouraged to opt for hair styles that emulate our white female counterparts. Those more “allegedly professional” styles include: chemical relaxers, keratin treatments, and thermal treatments such as blowouts, flat ironing, and other heat intensive processes. These processes almost always lead to breakage, burns, and other tremendous damage to our hair and spirit. However, this is changing.
It’s why Reid decided her history making new show was an opportunity to be intentional with her choice of hairstyle. It was indeed a political statement. Actually, her choice was a revolutionary act. Reid says in the 1970s her mother at one point rocked an afro. A hairstyle widely seen to represent Black pride & protest. Reid is simply continuing a generational value system, by enacting a protest of her own. “My husband recently showed me side-by-side pictures; one from my Instagram and one I have on my desk, that kind of blew my mind, because at present I'm wearing my hair the way my mom did,” she said. Reid is exercising intention that rejects conforming to mainstream expectations of a straight, white-adjacent aesthetic. She’s choosing to show up at work on her own terms, because she finally can, drawing her hair inspiration from her mother and stars like Diana Ross. “[Ross] has worn her hair in every conceivable style, from a short or long Afro to a straightened look and has always looked amazing,” said Reid.
Reid’s on-air hair journey really resonates with me. I’ve always had a lot of pride in my thick and healthy hair. My mother, who was a licensed cosmetologist and daughter of the rural segregated south, suffered her own struggles with the respectability politics of Black hair. It was ingrained in me at an early age that as a Black woman, our hair was our crowning glory and should always be well coiffed. When I first started guesting on television news shows, my hair started breaking off and falling out in clumps. Like Reid, I was also traumatized. I, too, spent thousands of dollars on treatments to regrow my hair and invested in half-wigs to cover my naturally damaged hair as I endured a years -long grow out process. My experience brought shame, insecurity, and stress. As if working in national television isn’t stressful enough, Black women who work in this space must also contend with this added traumatizing element of our professional experience.
This is why sisterhood is so important. Reid says at one point in her on-air hair journey she went to Tamron Hall (who was her NBC News colleague at the time) about a hair experience. Reid says Hall emphatically told her it was unacceptable. Reid says herself, Hall, and Jacque Reid (fellow NBC journalist and Reid’s good friend and play cousin) took action. NBC News now has one of the most diverse teams of Black hair stylists, and non-Black hair stylists, proficient in styling and protecting Black talent’s hair. The team built by Reid and her two Black women colleagues spanned from the network’s New York City and D.C. bureaus. Reid emphasized the importance of diversity on camera as well as behind the scenes. Reid says she insisted on this geographical scope, because it wasn’t enough for her to be the only beneficiary of this new experience. “I needed to ensure that my show contributors and guests, everyone on my show, got the same opportunity that I did to feel good, look good, and just be fabulous,” she said.
Reid represents the top of a Black women collective that has decided to fully prioritize ourselves, the health of our hair, and our right to show up at work as our authentic selves. FOX Sports’ Joy Taylor has recently joined this political movement to emancipate the Black woman’s aesthetic on TV.
Joy Taylor - Television Host at Fox Networks
After years of straightening her hair because of the pressure to look a certain way for television, Taylor finally chose to rock her natural curls and even a protective style called passion twists. Like myself and Reid, Taylor’s evolution was filled with stress and trauma before her current liberation.
“I've had a difficult relationship with my hair my whole life. I used to get perms to straighten my hair and change the texture. I've straightened my hair for many years. I’ve never felt comfortable wearing my hair natural on air,” said FOX Sports host Joy Taylor.
Taylor says her hair became damaged from straightening it and she was inspired to make a change. She says she understands that as a Black woman with a national television platform she has a powerful opportunity. “I think it’s so important to represent beautiful, natural, healthy Black hair on television and in media, so the young women who feel pressured to look a certain way can see they are beautiful and their hair doesn’t have to look a certain way to be professional. My friend MJ Acosta (NFL Network Reporter) recently went through a natural hair journey and has been my inspiration,” said Taylor.
Taylor’s point is ultimately what led me to finally wear my own hair in a natural style while hosting my own national news show, REVOLT Black News on REVOLT TV.
Eboni K. Williams - Host
I transitioned from working as a trial attorney to working as a national television broadcaster because I wholeheartedly believe in a simple truth: representation is power. As a Black woman with a national media platform, I see showing up on-air in ways that empower young Black women as my primary personal and professional responsibility. When I decided I wanted to opt for a go-to favorite protective style of mine, bohemian faux locs, I was operating with the same intention held by Reid and Taylor. In choosing to host REVOLT Black News with my locs, I’m choosing to disregard ignorant and anti-Black tropes that disqualify natural Black hair of being exactly what it has always been; simultaneously beautiful, interesting, and professional.
Black hair continues to literally be the subject of litigation in America. New legislation like the Crown Act, which is designed to protect against discrimination based on hair, must be passed in every state. Until that time, we must rely on the political statements and revolutionary acts of Reid, and every other Black woman, who is doing the work of normalizing and empowering natural Black hair.
Key to this liberation of Black women and our hair is the central theme of choice. This movement is not about shaming, limiting, or restricting Black women from choosing to continue to wear their hair straight. When asked specifically about this point, Reid said: “I think Black women get to choose how they want to wear their hair. It’s a personal choice. Whatever makes you feel beautiful. If that’s bright blonde, bald and beautiful, whatever you want. If you like it, I love it. What’s important is that you’re not being pressured by others and as long as you’re choosing it — it’s great.”
Joy Reid exemplifies Black women’s right to show up at work fully on our terms. Reid is making a political statement of being fully Black, fully representative of her audience, and fully herself. And by doing so, she empowers every Black woman to make that same choice to exist in all spaces as our most authentic, confident, and beautiful selves. “Showing up as my authentic self at work means having the flexibility to get as dressed up as I want to be, I say what I think, hopefully diplomatically but unapologetically, and I walk through the world deliberately as a Black woman who is determined to represent my community in every aspect and to build and encourage diversity wherever I go,” said Reid.
