Dreadlocks: I was asked to leave the office for looking unprofessional, unkempt – Journalist shares experience

Amidst the controversies about prejudices surrounding the subject of dreadlocks and Rastafarianism, a former Joy FM and JoyNews journalist has recounted her ordeal when she decided to keep her natural hair albeit neatly.

The subject which began on the premise of the refusal of one of Ghana’s elite’s schools, Achimota to enrol students with dreadlocks has since exploded with many commenting on it.

“…While I worked in the Joy FM newsroom, one day I laid down my wig and I appeared in my own hair; low and combed. What happened next was also shocking. I was asked to leave the office because my appearance was not professional, I looked like a small girl, my hair was unkempt,” Francisca Kakra Forson, now with Metro TV, revealed in an editorial on Inside Pages on Saturday.

She intimated that it took the intervention of two men whose identities she can’t disclose, for her continuous stay in the company as well as keeping her hair naturally.

“Fast-forward, sometime after 2013, my hair had blown-out and I had started wearing it in twists and later big twist-outs; surprisingly this style was somewhat accepted.

Kakra Forson also noted that colleagues, some of who were women called her names, going as far as to suggest that her hair was smelly, despite the fact that she washed them every day while they wore weaves sewn to their hairs.

She described the year 2015 as a lonely one because she kept a natural hair.

“The next problem was going on TV in my own hair, some people at work had problems with it…. Being a woman on TV in Ghana around the year 2015 with natural hair was lonely.

“By virtue of my hair, I was the hard woman, the I-know-my-right woman who wouldn’t find a husband soon. I was the bushy-haired woman who needed to get herself a comb. Some colleagues even suggested I had stinky hair even though I washed my hair every day while they wore weaves sewn on their hair which meant no water was passing through and there was lots of warmth and so bad odour.”

“I was automatically called Rasta and associated with Rastafarianism even though I didn’t make such proclamation. I was treated like them, and that is with contempt…

“Because of my unprofessional hair which was being accommodated at that time at work. I had to dress formally to look professional, that means I always had to do a shirt…

“Sometimes I worried about ending up jobless because of my hair. I always thought a day would come I would have to choose my hair or my job; between the two. Thankfully that day never came, at least for me…” she further noted.