Corallys Ortiz, the weekend meteorologist for WBBJ in Jackson, Tenn., got sick of straightening her naturally curly hair over the weekend so she gave it a break.
“About 90 percent of the time I wear it straight. It’s the way I was accustomed to wearing it growing up. The last few years I’ve grown to manage and love wearing it in its natural state, the big curly fro or ‘poof’ as I call it,” she said.
But as Oritz shared in a long post on Facebook, one viewer didn’t approve of her natural look. So she called the station and left Ortiz a voicemail, which included a racial epithet to describe her hair. Ortiz recorded the voicemail so everyone on social media could hear it.
Ortiz got support from curly-haired WFFA traffic anchor, Demetria Obilor, who dealt with the same pushback from viewers last year.
A viewer called her and told her to stop wearing her “n*ggery-looking” natural hair on air. https://t.co/iP0vDydABs
— Demetria Obilor (@DemetriaObilor) September 19, 2018
“I hope a post like this brings to light the constant criticism a person of color might face just for being themselves,” said Ortiz on Facebook.
A day after her original post, Oritz shared a photo of flower bouquets from viewers who support her natural look.