I’ll never forget the first time I was on air as a broadcast journalist. I was senior at Forest Hills Northern High School. All I knew was that I wanted to be on every television in school for the morning news. This was my first time reading from a teleprompter or broadcasting live in front of a large audience. I wasn’t afraid. I knew it would be a piece of cake because I knew how to read and I do not get nervous easily or suffer from stage fright. I did this for the rest of the year and even created my own talk show-like segment, which involved interviewing students. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t know at the time that it was broadcast journalism. To me, it was just another high school class.

I officially became a broadcast journalist as an undergrad at Michigan State University. I was naive and faced for the first time the shortcomings of the world within the broadcast field. It did not see me as an individual, but just as another African-American woman. I would be reminded in small class sizes that were predominantly white that my name along with the other two Black girls' names didn’t matter. Because they continuously would switch our names and mispronounce them, no matter how many times we corrected our professors. The act of being categorized continued when comments about my hairstyles or choice of hair wraps. Classmates who were not Black did not encounter the same hypervigilance on their hair. And not to mention, the casual microaggressive, misogynistic or racist comments that I tended to tune out because as an adult, I knew how reacting as a Black woman can harm an individual’s well-being.

It is exhausting. On top of all the practicing, editing, script writing, video shooting, audio gathering and performing in front of a camera, I endure experiences that only exist because of my gender and my race. I have experienced this for most of my life. I expected it growing up in a state like Michigan. Yet I still face it living and studying in one of the most diverse and accepting cities in the country – Los Angeles, where I am pursuing my master’s degree at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Professors and colleagues are still mixing my name up with the other Black women in my program. Now that I am more confident in my skills and talents, I am told hs to tone it down. I have no such plans.

Sometimes I feel I will never be truly accepted and that I can’t do anything about it. Hurtful comments, ever so subtle, are potent. Which is why it is so hard for me to share my experience as a Black woman broadcast journalist. I do not want to give power to those who have discouraged and doubted me in any way. But it does hurt.

What makes it even more more painful is that even though I can handle it now, this industry poses problems that jeopardize my progress. Most broadcast journalists who want to be on air start out as a reporter or multimedia journalist as their first job. Even if that were the route for me, I couldn’t afford taking one of those jobs. They do not pay livable wages, and I’d need help from family members or friends to get by. I would never want to put anyone I love in such a position.

In 2020, Black people and women represented the highest percentage of people in poverty, according to the U.S. Census. So imagine the number of Black women broadcast journalists who either choose to not take the starting job as a multimedia reporter or put themselves in financial ruin in hopes of one day making it big and worth the struggle?

They need people like us in the news rooms and TV stations not only for representation of ourselves and culture, but also to help bring new perspectives to different kinds of stories.

Our trials, tribulations, creativity and success provide a new lens to traditional news l that viewers will appreciate.

I finally understood what all the other Black women broadcast journalists were telling me. To acknowledge the inequity, but don’t let it stop you. Our mistreatment and lack of consideration is not just in a certain part of the country or a certain part of the world, but everywhere. And it is not just at a collegiate level, but will actually get worse as we advance and grow in this industry. For those of us in broadcast journalism whether we are in front of the camera or behind the camera, our stories and part of our livelihood is on display for the world to see visually. And because of that visual aspect, those of us who are Black women are held under a microscope and picked because most feel they have the audacity to do so. Though I understand this is how the world is and I must keep pushing, I do feel the responsibility to call it out and continue to inform others as much as I can to change this way of life.

One day, everyone, no matter who they are, deserve a positive experience in broadcast journalism like the one I enjoyed in my high school class. Let us be accepted and appreciated for who we are.