"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: February 15, 2023
"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: February 15, 2023
Weekly newsletter 20: Combination of race- and culture-related posts from "We Need to Talk," "I Do See Color," "BlackTechLogy" and "Window Shopping"
Welcome to the “I Do See Color” newsletter (with a bonus section of two first-person interviews called “Deuces”).
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Each week, eight carefully selected posts will be chosen from Substack’s “I Do See Color,” “Black Girl In a Doggone World” and “Window Shopping,” along with Medium’s “We Need to Talk,” all of which focus on culture, politics, health and race from a black (wo)man’s perspective.
NEW! 1. Should there be a Statute of Limitations on racist tweets? ~ Black men who are anti-black women: Who hurt you?
I enjoyed listening to the first few podcast episodes and curiously found myself more intrigued to hear from a contributor who would only pop in for a few minutes toward the end of each episode. As I do with any social media personality I like, I hopped onto Twitter to follow him and see what other amusing things he had to say. Shortly after, my shoulders slumped. As I do with anyone I follow on Twitter, I always look up their username and the following three topics: “black women,” “vote” and “racism.” It tells me everything I think I need to know regarding how long I’ll follow them.
2. Ben Garrison, can I get a seasonal pass to Woke Disney? ~ How the Woke Disney World image doesn’t do what it think it does
Imagine an amusement park where Make America Great Again (MAGA) is not allowed, where everyone is vaccinated, where programs like Social Security are widely embraced and no one is casually using racial slurs. Does this sound like a place you want to be? Because I looked at Ben Garrison’s “Woke Disney” comic and thought to myself, “How much is a seasonal pass?”
3. This is how wokeness ends — for white people ~ From morning coffee to evening reading, I’m still black
I raised an eyebrow at the headline, but I was trying to be open-minded. I saw the post shared in a client’s newsletter and was curious about the New York Times op-ed— “This Is How Wokeness Ends.” But the whole time I read the post about Corporate America, intersectionality, patriarchy and diversity in the workplace, I kept thinking one thing: “I still wake up black — even when you lose interest.”
4. Police harassment: I’ll never understand the upside of CompStat ~ Racial profiling affects mental health as much as physical health
In Mase and Diddy’s collaboration “24 Hours to Live,” this question sounds intriguing. Even in movies like “Contagion” and shows like “The Walking Dead,” it’s a conversation starter and fun to watch. In real life though, the average person does not want to constantly be reminded that the odds are against him. So can you possibly imagine what it’s like to have four people (two police officers included) show up to your door to tell you that an algorithm built by the Chicago Police Department predicted that you will be involved in a shooting?
5. Hollywood, what do you have against Asian women? ~ The final season of ‘Kim’s Convenience’ was as bittersweet as ‘Girlfriends’ and ‘Half & Half’
The show was canceled. I’ve seen this happen enough times to know it’ll happen again, and somehow I’m still sad when it does. It happened with “Girlfriends” and “Half & Half.” I watched it happen with the Latino/a version of “One Day at a Time.” I shrugged my shoulders when it happened with “Fresh Off the Boat” but only because of the tantrum Constance Wu went on, and quite frankly, the show was strong enough to survive with just Randall Park and Lucille Soong as guardians. Somehow though, the CBC/Netflix show “Kim’s Convenience” ending was more confusing than the other shows.
6. No, I don’t work here — stop asking me if I do ~ Not all black people work in the service industry
“Do you work here?” she asked.
I paused for a second and looked down at my shirt. Anybody who has ever been within a 50-foot distance of Target knows the staff always wears those bright red shirts. Meanwhile I was wearing jean capris and a gray college alumni shirt. I didn’t even bother to acknowledge her. You could clearly see me continuing to scan my items, mobile app displayed and focused on my percentage discounts.
7. Black businesses receive less attention, lower ratings ~ Are reviews underrated in these communities or are they just plain bad?
It bummed me out a little to see the Brookings report stating, “Businesses in Black neighborhoods receive lower ratings from customers and less attention.” It went on to say that the number of reviews per business sharply falls as the ZIP code’s black population increases. So not only are the reviews low; they’re also minimal — and that goes for whether the store is owned by someone white or a person of color, and largely centers around it being in a black neighborhood. On the other hand, businesses that have a minimal number of black residents receive two times as many business reviews in their neighborhoods.
8. Clinical trials done on black people, no black people on your health teams ~ If black people can be part of your research, we can be part of your staff
Sex education was my favorite one to cover as a speaker, reporter and volunteer (mainly due to hard-headed people who thought HIV/AIDS wasn’t real), and then came health studies for everything from Alzheimer’s to diabetes to sickle cell and psychology. I was fascinated by the industry. I created a Twitter page to keep track of any studies that were focused on African- and/or African-American participants. Too many studies that related to us kept getting buried on the page. Our readers were not predominantly black, but I wanted to bring attention to these posts for people in my own social circle.
However, there was one thing that started to rattle my patience. I was constantly getting tagged and emailed about patient trials on African- or African-American people to spread the word. But when I would go to these same research sights, I didn’t see one spot of melanin in the leadership team, in the partnership team, on the board and definitely not on the staff as a health care professional.
“Deuces” ~ “I Do See Color” newsletter’s bonus interviews:
1. “Chicago Lawyer Shares The Ups And Downs Of Success In The Field,” May 11, 2015, CBS Chicago
The path from law school to successful attorney may have detours, but for students who are trying to find ways to break into the industry, positions like paralegals and judicial law clerks get their feet wet.
"When you're a clerk, you automatically will have a mentor as a judge," said William C. Martin. "I had the honor of serving under the most distinguished judges, specifically Judge James F. Holderman and Judge Ann C. Williams. They helped shape my career, helped teach me how to practice law in the correct way — ethically, responsibly, thoroughly and being an advocate for my client."
2. “Chicago LPC Blends Yoga Into Her Clinical Work,” April 26, 2015, CBS Chicago
Although yoga has been used for thousands of years, its recent popularity in American culture has increased by millions.
Candice Wu, a licensed professional counselor (LPC) at Center Therapy Chicago, is all too familiar with the mental and physical perks. As a fresh face to the therapy world, she's been blending yoga with clinical work since June 2014, after receiving her master's degree in clinical psychology.
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