"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: March 8, 2023
"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: March 8, 2023
Weekly newsletter 23: 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.
Writer’s note: Although “We Need to Talk” is taking the top spot where a new “I Do See Color” post usually sits, I want to take a moment to congratulate Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson and Jonathan Majors, along with the rest of their team. I was already salty about Sylvester Stallone’s comments ("'Tulsa King,' 'Creed III' and Sylvester Stallone's anti-'dark space' stance") regarding the upcoming film. I loved the first two and watched the first one an unbearable amount of times. This one? I raced to theaters to see it this past weekend. I’ll probably watch it two times as much as the first “Creed” when it hits streaming services. The anime was amazing and so was the storyline.
Also, congratulations to the “Creed” team for breaking five different box office records over the weekend, including best Thursday night previews; biggest opening of all "Rocky" and "Creed" movies; biggest ever box-office opening for a sports movie; and ...
BIGGEST OPENING EVER FOR A BLACK DIRECTOR'S DIRECTORIAL DEBUT!
NEW! 1. Chris Rock: Women-hating men will never understand Will Smith ~ Why ‘Selective Outrage’ further confirms Chris Rock is bitter about women
Knowing that I was about to hear him talk about Slapgate a year later — although this man didn’t even need a band-aid nor did he even get hit hard enough to move — I watched anyway. Why? I’m still a fan of his comedy. Sorta. Not quite so anymore.
The main two takeaways I got from the comedy special for this:
Chris Rock really hates women post-divorce.
Chris Rock will never understand why he was wrong.
This comedy special was strange. Women took nonstop hits throughout his entire special.
2. Boomerang employees: How will this affect black workers? ~ The newspaper layoff that terminated long-time black employees
There was only one layoff that threw me for a loop — the sole black lady who stayed with the newspaper after her five white co-workers on the same team left. They’d been there a year or two. She’d been there eight years. And just like that, they laid her off after re-hiring one of the team members who quit to work for the radio station and asked for her job back. At no point during those eight years had she asked for a raise, and they still terminated her. While Business Insider stated that it “used to be rare for employers to rehire quitters … leaving is often seen as a sign of disloyalty,” my response is, “You wanna bet?”
3. Denial on ‘100 Humans’ further proves racial bias ~ No, the red shirt was NOT why J.P. was shot
I had a feeling racial bias was coming. I’d cheered on every other decision made while watching the Netflix show “100 Humans.” Sometimes my cheering of the focus groups were in opposition to my own identity as a 39-year-old black woman. I shook my head at the 30-plus-year-olds and cheered on the 60-plus-year-olds in age competitions. I was pretty sure women would be entirely too talkative and overexplain until I heard that ridiculous “Tic Tac Toe” song.
4. Condoleezza Rice is getting my tuition funds back ~ Critical Race Theory and her anti-“feel-bad” stance for white kids
While everyone else is in an uproar about Condoleezza Rice’s stance against Critical Race Theory, I’m elated. If she truly believes that kids should not be taught anything that makes them “feel bad,” I’m about to be rolling in dough. As a matter of fact, I’ve already pulled up Navient’s Customer Service number so they can stop sending me those reminders about undergrad and grad school student loans. Condoleezza Rice’s views on Critical Race Theory (courtesy of “The View”) just indirectly assured me that my student loans should stop and I’m due a refund. Why? Because I definitely “felt bad” sometimes while I was in school.
5. Has technology improved financial literacy for black youth? ~ Board games, boy crushes and my rebellion against money talk
In all of my childhood, and minus the character Jessica in “The Babysitter’s Club,” I genuinely just don’t remember any board games, books or educational outlets that focused on general money management. Although “Monopoly” fancies itself as teaching players about investing, the goal is to own everything, not partner up with other players to invest together. I’d be in and out of jail, collecting $200 for doing absolutely nothing and right back to buying more property in a roll of the dice. In real life, that’s not how that goes.
6. Social media: The pen pals we’re using wrong ~ An argument for why teachers should let students use their smartphones more — and wiser
Toledo, Ohio. Los Angeles, California. Birmingham, Alabama. Houston, Texas. Nassau, Bahamas. London, England. Ghana and Nigeria in Africa. Those are just a few among many places where I had a total of 50 pen pals before I started my sophomore year of high school.
7. The educational brilliance of ‘The Harder They Fall’ ~ A colorism tweet and Easter Egg made me like the film even more
Three times and counting — that’s the amount of times I’ve watched “The Harder They Fall” since it released on Netflix on November 3rd. Then I went down the rabbit hole of interviews, watching everything from Regina King try to cut another apple in one long slice to her and Idris Elba debate about who won Connect 4. I thought seeing Idris Elba in “Concrete Cowboys” was enough of a Western-style flick to satisfy me, but I was not ready for the brilliance that was “The Harder They Fall.”
8. Is the Human Library most needed for white people? ~ Although a good idea, it further highlights the lack of diversity in some communities
Interestingly, the Human Library® has “hosted personal conversations designed to challenge stigma and stereotypes since 2000” and has published at least 1,000 books in more than 80 countries. Created by Ronni Abergel, a Danish human rights activist, the group came about after his “troubled” friend was stabbed in Copenhagen. According to the official website’s description, this is a place where “difficult questions are expected, appreciated and answered.”
“Deuces” ~ “I Do See Color” newsletter’s bonus interviews:
1. “Chicago Professor Chooses Teaching Over Accounting And Legal Accomplishments,” CBS Chicago, February 28, 2015
"Any student that I have coming into my introductory classes, whether they're accounting majors or not, if they're really sharp I try to encourage them to be [an accountant]," said Linnae Bryant, an associate professor at Chicago State University. "The accounting degree is a degree with unlimited possibilities."
CFOs with a financial background, including accountants, can make over $109K annually, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And according to Bryant, an accounting and business background can come in handy in many careers.
2. “Instructor Says Teaching In Chicago Has Never Given Her The ‘Blues',” CBS Chicago, March 22, 2015
"Leadership is hands down one of the most important courses for anyone," said Chamille Weddington, a lecturer at Columbia College's Business & Entrepreneurship Department. "There needs to be a development of listening skills, team building, a discussion on ethics, and developing people so that they're culturally competent and able to interface with people of different ethnicities."
"College grooms the student in the area of leadership as well. Their candidate strengths are not solely hinged on book smarts, but fortified with integrity, work ethic and resilience."
Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out her Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “Homegrown Tales,” “I Do See Color” and “Window Shopping” too. Join Shamontiel as a paid Medium member, and subscribe to her free weekly newsletter.
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