"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: February 8, 2023
"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: February 8, 2023
Weekly newsletter 19: 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. The main problem with the Morgan Freeman "I am American" logic ~ There's nothing wrong with self-identifying as black
“Don’t call me black,” he told me. “Don’t call me biracial. Don’t call me Jamaican American. Don’t call me white. I’m a human American.”
I looked at him from the corner of my eye, turned in my office chair and stared. I opened my mouth to let a flood of words fall out but settled on, “A’ight.” I turned back around to my desk and continued working.
Maybe a month later, he texted me and wanted to talk asap. I told him I was available to talk so he called. He was irate. He’d just left the basketball court. His (white) wife had met him at the gym so they could go out for date night. He drove one car, and she drove the other. But apparently he was driving a little too fast (as he was told), and a police officer pulled him over. Then another came. And another. And a fourth. He was nervous and panicked. They wanted answers—and fast.
2. ‘Two Distant Strangers’: The dog tale you didn’t know you needed to see ~ Joey Bada$$’s Netflix short film earned its right to 2021 Oscar nominee
Somebody had a meeting somewhere and decided Joey Badass should be everybody’s boyfriend who Noah Centineo was too busy to woo. (If you’re an ’80s baby, a better comparison would be Brandon Q. Adams or the late Merlin Santana.) Outside of Tupac Shakur, Joey Badass may be the first Billboard hip-hop artist who seamlessly transitions from rapping to love interest — and he’s doing it well.
On everything from “Boomerang” to “Grown-ish” to “Two Distant Strangers,” he’s not just “the other man” or “the cute rapper with groupies” or “the boyfriend.” He’s managed to make his roles memorable. And by far, his most significant role to date (in my opinion) is the Oscar-nominated Netflix short previously mentioned: “Two Distant Strangers.”
3. The FAQ guide for anti-racist racists ~ Auto responses to your "I'm not racist" race questions
You have questions. I know, I know. There are a lot of things you simply do not understand about these complaining minorities. They’re never happy. Amiright? No more worries. This guide will help answer all of your frequently asked questions (FAQs) so you don’t have to find that one melanin-rich person who couldn’t run away fast enough for you to start your sentence with, “I’m not racist, but _______________.” Let’s go.
4. Should companies advertise themselves as black-owned? ~ Why race should not “matter” … and why it does to me anyway
I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a business and tech entrepreneur, and our discussion was about whether black-owned companies should lean heavily on “all black everything” — especially in an industry that is not “all black everything.” Calendly immediately popped into my mind while talking to him. Whenever I set up an interview, there’s about a 75% chance that someone will send me a Calendly link to set up a mutual time. I don’t know why this particular app took off at the rate it did, but I heard about it one time and it seemed like the whole world was using Calendly but me.
5. The first time I heard a black man say “I can’t breathe” ~ The lesson in humanity everyone should take from that
Before we got to my high school, we had to pass another high school. It was common to see students from both schools during our travels. So when the bus driver announced the next stop for the first school, I wasn’t surprised when he motioned that he needed to get up again. I shifted my hips a little so he could get by me. From the corner of my eye, I saw my homeroom peer march toward the front of the bus at the same time. Then I saw a hand go flying in the air, smacking the back of the head of my seat partner. That hand belonged to my homeroom peer.
6. If you have Indian in your family, why do you know so little about them? ~ Why your show-and-tell moments don’t help when it comes to multiculturalism
Watching the “Real Housewives of Atlanta” reunion yesterday was exhausting, specifically the part about Kenya Moore wearing a Native American costume in Season 13. In the most overused phrase among black folks, she claimed to have Indian in her family. My eyes rolled from here to the front door. Here we go with this again.
And it’s not just black folks who do it. While I neither care for nor respect the 45th president’s “Pocahontas” jokes regarding Senator Elizabeth Warren, she was another person I was suspicious of when it came to heritage.
7. My president was black, and my beauty supply store owner was too ~ The unspoken challenge of being a black beauty supply store owner
For a child born in 2008 or later, it seems perfectly normal to have a black president. Talking to others who were stunned when Barack Hussein Obama won will usually result in them not totally understanding this accomplishment. The same goes for Kamala Harris as the Vice President this year. It’s not that it wasn’t a big deal. But in their world, it’s as normal as having macaroni and sweet potato pie at a Thanksgiving table.
That analogy is the best way I can describe talking to black women about beauty supply stores. The level of discrimination they dealt with just trying to buy hair products didn’t reach my world as a child and into my early 20s. When they walked inside beauty supply stores, eyes and ears were glued to them. Someone was following them around store aisles. Bags were checked behind counters. But in my world, I walked in to see brown faces everywhere, “hey you” finger pointing, head nods and smiles. No one followed me in the aisles (although I did have to leave extra bags behind the counter). Other than that, I roamed around shopping in my happy black girl world.
8. “Master of None”: The buddy comedy I never expected ~ Why “New York, I Love You” and “Thanksgiving” are so important to television
I wasn’t sure I would be able to get through Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None.” Around Season 2, my TV was on the fritz. The sound wouldn’t play, and I grew melancholy. The TV set and paintings were a few things my grandfather left for me before he passed away. I remember when he bought it and thought the sound on this fairly expensive TV shouldn’t have failed this quickly. I messed with the remote. I looked at the wires. I stared at the screen, continuing to read subtitles. Then it hit me — I’d never turned on the subtitles, so why were they on now?
Gasp. Just like that, I understood what was happening on Season 2’s “New York, I Love You” episode.” One of the main characters was hearing impaired, and I was now watching this episode through her “ears.” I leaned back on the couch and stared at the screen, fascinated, observing this interracial couple arguing in a retail store about their sex lives.
“Deuces” ~ “I Do See Color” newsletter’s bonus interviews:
1. "Steve Harvey: Act Like a Lady," Chicago Defender, Volume CIII, No. 42, February 18-24, 2009
Millions of listeners nationwide tune in to “The Steve Harvey Morning Show” and hear the comedian's opinions during his relationship commentary as he responds to listeners' issues in what the show calls "Strawberry Letters." And now the King of Comedy has put his advice in print with his raw-talk book "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment." Harvey talked with the Defender about topics in his book.
2. "Skaters go 'Ga Ga' for Keezo Kane," Chicago Defender Online, June 3, 2009
To this day, Keith "Keezo Kane" Moore is still baffled by how widely his songs have been received.
"I didn't think 'Ga Ga Ga' would travel to the radio or be this big," he said, after creating the song in 2003 from his mixtape "Keezo Kane's J.B. Remixes, Volume 1." "People hit me up at weddings for this track. I just thought it was a cool brack, but I didn't expect this reaction at all."
But Keezo Kane was met with another surprise when he received a phone call in July 2004 to jot down a New York number. This number led him to an invitation to the record label G.O.O.D. Music by another Chicago native — Grammy-award winning rapper/producer Kanye West.
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