I was stunned but willed my face into a mask. Trying to one-up him, another colleague took off his tennis shoe and presented it to us like a gift. Midway through, one colleague thrust his adorable dog toward the camera lens. Unfortunately, I did this hair-tuck dance throughout the two-hour meeting. In frustration, I muted my image, re-tucked the rogue braid, then un-muted my image. Were my fellow Zoomers uncomfortable watching me and that damn braid? Feeling like Issa Rae caught in the headlights, my agitation grew. I spent a few minutes in polite, uncomfortable silence, pushing it over my shoulder and out of the camera’s view, then I finally self-consciously laughed, saying, “I don’t want to deprive you all of my natural hair woes.” No one replied or laughed with me. Yet as hellos echoed and we waited for the team leader to join, I was uncomfortably aware that one of my braids kept sliding onto my shoulder like a black garden snake.

Waist down, they could have been in their pj’s for all we knew. I noted that others were in T-shirts or sweaters. My headband wasn’t quite hiding their awkward thickness. Whether due to my older hardware or my lack of Zoom savvy, I was unable to substitute a still profile picture for my live image or to hide my environment with a cute virtual background.Īnd right then Zoom was magnifying everything, including my long locs, which I had formed into eight large braids to shape them into waves. Zoom offered a window into our private spaces, and closing off mine, like some others had done, wasn’t an option. As such, I represent Black women and girls everywhere.īut in a virtual space, with just my cute smile, unruly locs and quickly typed questions in the chat box, I felt odd and spatially closer than I’d ever been to my colleagues.

I have cultivated my image there over 18 years of university-level teaching - operating with the understanding that I am a role model by default. In the classroom, I wear slacks or a skirt, a blouse, maybe a shawl.

I also realized that my colleagues, mostly white and Asian, were seeing me for the first time in my natural, fuss-free cultural state. As soon as my image leapt onto the videoconferencing screen, it dawned on me, a smiling African American woman wearing a sleek, multicolored headband, that I was probably a little too relaxed in my appearance.

Black history zoom background images