Respect & Appreciation for MSNBC Joy Reid From a Huge Follower…

By Joyce Davis

When I was growing up I had really thick hair that was very hard to manage. One of my memories is how we would play and grab a sheet or something that could double as long beautiful blonde hair. We had no idea we were conditioned to believe that this is what beauty was but we were. One of my favorite memories was Whoopi’s one woman show. It was the first time I saw someone like me on a stage all by herself but then she did something fantastic. She brought out a sheet that she used to show as her beautiful long hair. OMG are you kidding? You mean we were not the only kids who did that? Immediately I felt connected to her. I knew she understood me differently than anyone else because she was bold enough to say she did that. I don’t know if it was in the act or her talking about it but she explained how black kids and white kids get shown images of beautiful people and these are usually blonde hair, blue eyed people.

Women have worked really hard to be seen not for what they are wearing, or their hair, but for the job they are doing. Most men don’t usually have that question thrown at them. People don’t much care what they are wearing. They are just there to see the performance.

With that being said what I say next I say with no disrespect but with all the love in the world. Not too often that I look out and see someone who represents me when it comes to news. I am an eclectic being. One time I went to work and one of my co-workers said sorry you can’t use this door, this door is for employees. I said it’s me Joyce. She looked at me and said she did not recognize me with my hair being different. This happened to me a lot. I was used to it. Now that I think about it, Whoopi was someone who had different hair. Most black women you saw during those times had hairdos that were straightened out. Whoopi had locks. When you look out across most news shows you see the same part down the side either to the left or the right. Which is fine by me. I have no qualms about it. I call it the network uniform. The women and the men did not go outside of the ‘boardroom acceptable’ hair. If you work in corporate America it is pretty much the same. The uniform makes people feel more comfortable. Meghan McCain went through hell online for the many different hairdos that people decided she was not allowed to have either because she was white or it was not acceptable as part of her uniform. If you like her politics or not her hair is just hair.

Once again I have someone that I can celebrate because she represents my eclectic ways. Joy Reid. I saw her recently  with these beautiful braids that had different colors and I cried. I remember being told by someone at my job my braids were unprofessional. When you talk to clients you want them to feel comfortable and you can have them confused by your look. She was not in a position to fire me so I kept my look and asked her to keep her opinion. I explained my hair was an extension of me and how I like to represent myself and if you don’t like me that’s your business I don’t need to know about it. She gave me the ‘how dare you’ look, but again she was not in a position to fire me. Seeing Joy with that hair once again took me to a place of someone understanding me.

I also cried when Joy Reid became the first black woman to host in prime time. For about a week I watched her with tears in my eyes. It meant something to me. Yes, there are a lot of black people in the news. Abbey Philips just started a show, and Lester Holt has been around forever, and Don Lemon is one of my favorites. Joy Reid however was the first woman of color to breach that primetime ceiling. I do like that she and Don Lemon take time to talk about black causes. They speak about how they feel as a Black person reporting the news. That also means something to me. It does not mean they speak for all black people but it does mean someone black gets to tell their view. There are times I wished news were back to the Walter Cronkite days where your opinion of a story was never known; you just reported the facts as they came. No left or right slant just here is the news Jack. There are other times you need the experience of the person telling the story. How can any White man on tv tell me about my black experience? Most of the time it comes out insulting because they don’t understand.

MSNBC I thank you for the freedom that you give your journalist. I thank you for not putting people in boxes. Joy Reid of MSNBC, I thank you for not being the cookie cutter news person. I thank you for showing the many different sides. It lets some women who were told that was unacceptable know it is acceptable. The message of ‘be yourself’ has always been out there but I will tell you I have more “why are you wearing that” than I have “ I like your unique look”. It is rare to see someone on tv mix it up. Even Niecy Nash talked about how she ended up hating the flower because they wanted it to be a signature look for her but it kept her from expressing herself without it. It is a refreshing thing to me to see someone switch it up and do what she feels she wants that day. It effectively pulls in a wide range of people who thought they were not represented.

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