"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: February 22, 2023
"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: February 22, 2023
Weekly newsletter 21: 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 The CROWN Act include white people with locks? ~ My mixed opinions regarding white people with 'natural black' hairstyles
The whole time she was talking, I was trying to stop focusing on these tangled twists and turns that I’m pretty certain were supposed to be locks (controversially also known as “dreadlocks”). As she rambled on about this rebate program, I thought about how much hell black women went through to be able to wear their natural hair at work, and it took the CROWN Act* to finally make them not have to wear a relaxer, a weave or straight-iron their hair to death to be considered “presentable” in Corporate America. But here’s this blonde, straight-haired white lady who is just enjoying the look without the fight.
2. When black women have work friends ~ If you want us to have work friends, don’t criticize the friends we make
“Oh, we hired someone new,” my boss said to me before one of the new employees arrived for her first day. “I’m sure you’ll like her.”
I raised an eyebrow, wondering what was so special about this new hire. Shrugging, I figured I’d find out in time. When I first met her, I didn’t really get why I was supposed to like her so much. We briefly chatted, but she seemed like any other woman I’d worked with.
Then it hit me — this was like the time a prior boss (also a white woman) emphasized how I would be the “best mentor” for a new male intern coming in. We had absolutely zero in common (outside of the same degree field), but as soon as he walked in the door, I saw the same pattern: He was black. By the time another black woman came aboard and I heard the same thing, I just expected it to happen and shrugged.
3. Life before slavery: African history gets the silent treatment in U.S. schools ~ Teaching U.S.’s mistreatment of Africans is important, but what about pre-slavery?
I had no idea what a Moor was. According to National Geographic, a Moor “came to mean anyone who was Muslim or had dark skin.” However, it was reportedly derived from the Latin word “Maurus,” which describes Berbers and other people from the ancient Roman province of Mauretania (now North Africa).
We were both born and raised in Chicago. While I respected his enthusiasm about his African origins, all I kept thinking was, “You have absolutely no idea where your ancestors are from.”
So I challenged him. “Can you point to five countries on a map of Africa right now?”
He scowled at me.
“You love to point out how your elementary school taught black history,” he said. “But public schools act like black people’s history started with slavery. Like kings and queens and everyday people didn’t exist before then.”
4. If you have to tell black people you’re an ally, you’re probably not ~ Real allies show and prove, not self-identify
I was getting myself prepared for a bus ride to a protest rally, but I dodged telling my boss why. I just asked for the day off and said I had some travel plans. But a deadline was looming, and she really needed me to be there for certain books to release on time. Finally I gave in and just told her the truth about the rally I was going to, the court case that was going on and why I really needed those particular days off. She immediately changed her tune, said our editorial team would be fine and off-handedly mentioned a couple of protest rallies she went to.
You could’ve heard a record scratch. My eyes widened, and I said, “Wait, what? You did what? When?”
5. Stop running diversity campaigns without a culture change ~ When you hire Diversity Officers, or recruit minority students, the rest of the organization must be prepared
Recently I was hired to write for a client regarding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) officers. I didn’t know what that title meant initially, but as soon as I started reading more about the role, the lower my head hung thinking of how diversity programs continue to start and fail. Although the diversity titles have changed, the attitudes toward diversity programs and recruiters too often has not, and that includes how students are treated.
6. Black women, please ignore the OkCupid study ~ Other people’s idea of beauty can become a self-fulfilling prophecy
Dating. I’m no expert. Ironically, I keep getting affiliated with dating sites though. I’ve written more than 50 reviews about online dating for one company and am a social media manager for two other accounts. Occasionally you’ll see me talking about my dating life on “We Need to Talk.” So it’s not a big surprise when I receive interview requests from sociologists and lifestyle reporters wanting to talk to me about dating and race. “We Need to Talk” and “I Do See Color” are a happy medium on both topics. But if there is one thing I wish interviewers would stop asking me about, it’s that irksome OkCupid study.
7. Is the soap debate deeper than hygiene? ~ The link between bathing and race: Is that the bigger issue?
“I stink so much I make myself gag,” Patsey said. “Five hundred pounds of cotton, day in, day out, more than any man out here. And for that, I will be clean.”
When I saw that scene in “12 Years a Slave,” starring actress Lupita Nyong’o, I never forgot it. The day this movie came out, I’d just been laid off from a newspaper job. I have always lived by the motto, “No matter how bad it is for you, it’s worse for someone else.” It’s a strange take on “misery loves company,” but I tend to try to find something to humble myself when bad news happens. So off I went to the movie theater the same day that I got the news. I’ll never ever watch “12 Years a Slave” again; once was all the time I needed. It wasn’t a bad movie, and it did what I needed it to do. But to hear a black woman have to beg to bathe made me wince as much as the whips.
8. The point Jay Z critics keep missing in Basquiat Tiffany ad ~ The art education will last far longer than the ad will
My art teacher was really into Vincent van Gogh during my elementary school years. She’d go on and on about the myths of him cutting off his own ear when she wasn’t assigning us to work on paintings like his of vases of flowers. Three decades later, I still remember how much of a fan this black woman was of the Dutch painter. When she wasn’t talking about van Gogh, we were creating our own versions of Grant Wood’s “American Gothic.” In later years, because my elementary school was so Afrocentric, I wondered why this sista didn’t bring more African- or African-American artists to our attention. But she liked who she liked.
“Deuces” ~ “I Do See Color” newsletter’s bonus interviews:
1. “Marilyn Rhames: Journalist Pursues A Teaching Career In Chicago,” May 11, 2015, CBS Chicago
"Teaching is the absolute hardest job there is," said Rhames." Schools are a microcosm of society. Everything that's wrong with society and everything that's good with society is in every single classroom, especially in an urban environment."
But that hasn't stopped her from guiding her students "mama style." Rhames didn't start off in education. She used her bachelor's degree in English and creative writing and a master's degree in journalism to become a professional journalist. After completing college internships with Time and People magazine and becoming a professional beat reporter for the Journal News, she started questioning her bigger purpose on September 11, 2001.
2. “Fred Brown Jr.: After 22 Years In Military, Chicago Nurse Now Directs His Own Unit,” May 4, 2015, CBS Chicago
John Barfield fought to become a male nurse through the civil rights movement and stereotypes that only women wanted to go into nursing. Later on, Barfield noticed a recent change in his 42 years as a nurse: an increase in male nurses coming from the military.
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