Many times in the media we see black women with a certain image that is acceptable for what society perceives a black women should look like. Over the years African American women have become more comfortable in their own skin and even coming out in the media with their natural hair. When it comes to the acknowledgement of the work they display the credit moreover focused on what they look like. Just recently at the Emmy’s award, Viola Davis makes history with being the first African American woman to win an Oscar for best actress in a drama series. Instead of people talking about how she made history many were more focused on her image that she presented at the awards and had polls on what people thought about “Her Taking off Her Wig”. This isn’t anything new, but since she is a woman of color in the media it isn’t something that just goes unnoticed. She was considered “Bold” for coming on the red carpet rocking her natural hair with no worries.

As African American women continue to grow in the field of media the focus stares more towards what they look like rather than what they have accomplished. The crazy part is that African Americans haven’t been received well in previous years for rocking their natural hair. More-so for those in the public eye. It has now become a trend that we see on more shows.

Although they have become comfortable with who they are the media has become tolerant rather than accepting. With the fact that African American women have to change so they are seen as beautiful isn’t fair for them nor the generation coming up because they are going to look at this as okay. When in reality it isn’t okay because African American women should be represented as who they are not by what the media wants them to be. African American women have so much to offer even though society tends to focus on images and painting this picture of them with long straight hair, pencil skirts and their hands folded like that is who they are. It’s even more sad that we have become more accepted to them perceiving us as what they want us to be.

By Caroline Senion, Staff Writer, #mygirlsquad