Donicia Hodge, lead editorial content creator at BET, worked her way up in the communications field despite racial biases. Born and raised on Long Island, Hodge has had many uncomfortable experiences in her positions before being recruited to BET.
Hodge said she worked a lot through the Town of Babylon before getting to digital media. She interned at Ujima, for former Town Supervisor Steve Bellone in the public information office in 2004, and worked for Robert Sweeney in the New York State Assembly for four years.
“When I had made the transition of working in the New York State Assembly, I decided that I didn’t want to go into politics anymore,” said Hodge. “I had wanted to go back to what I originally went to school for.”
In 2015, Hodge was recruited at MSNBC working with the crew of the Andrea Mitchell Reports. She also had the opportunity to write for the Dateline team on NBC news in 2015 while she was in graduate school.
Hodge heard from word of mouth that Chief Executive Officer of BET Deborah Lee was looking for someone to temporarily work as her assistant while another staff member was on leave. Hodge was not only selected to work with Lee, but always asked to come back.
“I worked in brand creative, I worked with the PR team, I worked with the BET Experience team,” said Hodge. “That really just led me to the role I have today with the social editorial team.”
For Hodge, the BET environment was more welcoming and accepting than previous positions. Typically, Hodge was the only Black woman on the teams she worked in, she said that most of the hardships she experienced as a Black woman was about her hair.
“I think it was really with the hair conversations,” said Hodge. “It was very interesting at the time. You try to explain and they would try to touch your hair.”
The CROWN Act wasn’t passed until 2019, but the way hair was previously seen in a workplace was very adamant in the journalism field for Hodge. Being young and fresh out of college, Hodge said she was just trying to get a job and pay loans, but didn’t recognize how much damage it would do to her, and her hair in the future.
The CROWN Act wasn’t passed until 2019, but the way hair was previously seen in a workplace was very adamant in the journalism field for Hodge. Being young and fresh out of college, Hodge said she was just trying to get a job and pay loans, but didn’t recognize how much damage it would do to her, and her hair in the future.
“I was getting perms because I felt like that’s what I needed to do to fit in, to be in this industry,” she added. “Now I’m natural….because I was damaging my hair and I was causing stress to it to feel like I needed to fit in, in this predominantly white space, because I wasn’t going to get the job. I would go to all of these panels on women in journalism and they would try to tell you how to wear your hair.”
Hodge said that because she was a college graduate with two degrees, her concern wasn’t what she looked like at the time but getting a job and paying loans off. Pay was also a problem for Hodge as a young Black journalist.
Often the minority amongst her co-workers, Hodge understood that she had to advocate for equal or more pay compared to her white counterparts. Sometimes this meant sending an email detailing her work and efforts to show why she deserved to get paid more.
“We don’t get paid enough,” said Hodge. “It doesn’t matter how many degrees you have and they might not even have the same experience or schooling as you, it’s because of who they know.”
Hodge said working with people who look like her has made her grateful for the people who saw the potential and gave her the opportunity to work at places like BET. She encourages anyone in the same situation to stay true to themselves and speak up for what they believe in.
