I am below BSL, approaching WL and I am an attorney, working in corporate America. My work culture is extremely conservative legal department of a very large corporation where I am the only black and only female attorney. My boss and colleagues haven't said a thang about my loooong hair (except 'how beautiful') cuz they don't care about that. They care about my professionalism, how well I do my job and the results I get on matters assigned to me. Period. I mean, I don't THINK about my hair relative to my workplace. What does that have to do with it. Nobody else gives a hoot so long as it is clean and well groomed.
I have other professional black women in my office, one lady is a geologist and she rocks dreads down to there, and she manages a department full of whites and is pretty high up the company food chain. Before doing in-house counsel, I worked for years in a very large, very conservative law firm right out of law school and I interviewed in braids and was hired by a white lady -- and I wore my braids for like year there, neva a problem. Corporate america, in my experience for the last 20 years, is waaayy ova how we wear our hair
(they don't want no lawsuit ). Plus, they into this DIVERSITY thing and I think it helps their image to have sisters in braids, or dreads or whatever. But that's just me.
I feel I can wear my hair any way I want, the key is it MUST be clean and well-groomed, just like any one else.