Student Submission CUNY Hunter College Spring 2025

Current Event – https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2XtmjKA/

In this week’s current event, a creator named Asia on TikTok gave her opinion on a recent incident where a reporter named Cordilia James (a Black woman) from the Wall Street Journal was covering the topic of the limited supply, high prices, and danger of consuming eggs. Within the video of Cordilia reporting, her wig was worn lower than usual, nearing her eyebrows. Social media did not hesitate to take this woman’s appearance and blast it throughout the algorithm. Most of the videos I’ve seen were with people laughing at how Cordilia wore her wigs and doing background research to see if that was how she typically wore her wigs.

The creator stated she blames the WSJ for allowing Cordilia to appear as such to be mocked and seen as a laughingstock across social media. Though the WSJ turned off the comments for the original video and eventually deleted it, in my opinion, they allowed their employee to be ridiculed by the internet because she was a Black woman. As we previously covered in class, the media and society have normalized Black women not being taken seriously and as someone you can disrespect without backlash. Asia believes the WSJ posted the video, knowing their viewers would not interact for the sake of the content that the journalist was reporting on, but for her physical appearance.