"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: January 25, 2023
Weekly newsletter 17: 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. When black employees are accused of theft ~ If the customer is black and the employee is black, that doesn't mean they're in cahoots.
The next day when I was counting down my drawer, the manager who was in charge during both night shifts mentioned those two guys. Paraphrasing the conversation, he rambled on about how store employees should be held just as responsible for store theft as customers and told a “fictional” story about when it happened. I stopped counting my drawer long enough to ask him why were we talking about this particular topic, and he mentioned that a condom box was empty after those two left. I paused, wondering how this related to me or even how he knew that these two black basketball players must have been the ones who stole the condoms. So I asked did he (white and male) get the act on camera. He admitted he did not.
2. The loudly quiet success of Verzuz ~ IDSC 'BlackTechLogy': How Verzuz saved 2020 from an entertainment drought
The worldwide health outbreak of coronavirus led people to become involuntary teachers to their kids, upgrade their own home offices (if they were lucky enough to work from home), brainstorm on the best background for virtual video calls, and download smartphone apps to stay informed and entertained. While doomscrolling became commonplace and COVID-19 is still problematic in 2021, there were some wins last year—one of which was Verzuz, the iconic music battles on Instagram between the who’s who in hip hop and R&B.
On March 24, 2021, the brainchild of super producers Swizz Beatz and Timbaland celebrated its one-year anniversary. Verzuz also agreed to a yearlong partnership with Peloton during Women’s History Month.
3. What it’s really like being your one black friend ~ Lessons learned from a Lupe Fiasco concert
I had two friends I met via social media (in my late 20s) who were obsessed with Lupe Fiasco. They gushed over this man daily. I thought he was kinda cute, but I was nowhere near in the fandom arena that they were. One was a black woman, who was an essential part of promoting my first book and who I met in person at a social justice protest about a year or so later — super woke, relentlessly vegan and lived on the East Coast. The other was a white woman who lived in Tennessee and would randomly tweet out pro-Obama messages. One of them clearly showed her dedication to Lupe Fiasco on a much larger scale.
4. To ‘Russian Oprah,’ I will not stop talking about race ~ Black in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: How racism is too easily dismissed
From numerous conversations with black pen pals outside of the United States and world travelers, I’ve never been convinced that the rest of the world is this extravagant and peaceful, race-free world. Too many times, I was left thinking it was the cover version of the original song.
I thought about this while listening to a WBEZ interview between Emanuele Berry, the Executive Editor of “This American Life,” and Russian American author Yelena Khanga. The woman, who was nicknamed “Russian Oprah” because of her talk show, proved my point once again. Her grandparents (a Polish-Jewish woman and an African-American man) met in jail.
READER REMINDER ~ “BlackTechLogy”: Are you checking out IDSC’s tech archive?
Keep calm, Calm app paid Naomi Asaka's fines ~ IDSC ‘BlackTechLogy’: Four-time Grand Slam singles championship player prioritizes mental health, drops out of French Open
Should YouTube do away with marijuana ban in masthead? ~ IDSC 'BlackTechLogy': Google’s YouTube bans election, alcohol and prescription drug ads from prominent ad space
When NFTs work against artists ~ IDSC ‘BlackTechLogy’: How WIPO PROOF can help to confirm the original artist
Pharrell Williams is ‘happy’ to help HBCUs and middle-schoolers in STEM competitions ~ IDSC ‘BlackTechLogy’: STEM competition gives black and Latinx students business opportunity
5. Kyle Rittenhouse moved to find safer home, Elijah McClain killed near home ~ How many more examples of racism in the criminal justice system do you need?
While I’ve been quietly monitoring the details of Kyle Rittenhouse’s address update, all I keep thinking is, “I wish Elijah McClain could’ve made it to a ‘safe house’ too, preferably his own.” This 23-year-old black man was slammed against the wall, tackled to the ground, tortured while in full restraint and left vomiting on the ground — all while the police who did it threatened to get their dog to bite him if McClain kept “messing around.”
6. Making the most of being meme-famous ~ ‘Disaster Girl’ sells her meme for $500K
NFTs and technology are going down a fascinating trail. From the cryptocurrency side, The Weeknd sold exclusive art and music this year with the help of Nifty Gateway. On the tech end, will.i.am is making the most of COVID-19 by creating his own face mask, XUPERMASK, which has fans, noise-canceling audio, Bluetooth capability and seven hours of battery life. (It was not approved by the FDA as personal protective equipment, or PPE, but then again, neither are most cloth masks.) But with well-known artists like these, it was a given that they’d make a reasonable amount of money.
What intrigues me more is how everyday people have become Internet famous for just being themselves. Now does everyone end up with an NFT deal? Maybe not.
Did Elijah Connor become the billionaire he wanted to be for staring back at Diddy? No. But do we immediately know him when we see him? Absolutely.
7. MTV’s ‘Ghosted’: Find Rachel and Whitney the world’s smallest violin ~ Why I’m not interested in Rachel Lindsay’s views on Chris Harrison of ‘The Bachelor’
While there have been episodes of “Ghosted” that make me cringe (the episode with “Kayla & Shawn” made me hide my eyes like it was a horror film), Season 1 with Whitney and Tahira has been the only one that left me irate. In Episode 7, I fully agree with one college friend ghosting another. And I understand why Tahiry’s two best friends in the dog park looked completely unimpressed when Whitney was so sad that Tahira didn’t want to talk to her. Not only would my response be the same, but I’d make sure Whitney didn’t touch my damn dog either!
8. Amazon permanently blocks police from using Rekognition ~ IDSC 'BlackTechlogy': Facial recognition software’s problematic results are both helpful and harmful
The problems with facial recognition are well-known, problematic and taking far too long to resolve. But law enforcement still continues to use it, knowing full well that it may match people of color with mugshots of strangers. While Facebook’s Casual Conversation works to diversify facial recognition software by using more paid users of varying skin tones—broken down into six categories—that platform is still a ways away from completion. Meanwhile, Amazon stopped providing its facial recognition software Rekognition to police. Amazon initially confirmed it was for a year’s time (in 2020); CNN reports that it is now indefinite.
“Deuces” ~ “I Do See Color” newsletter’s bonus interviews:
1. Q&A interview with Karen Siplin
Avid readers of fiction author Karen Siplin know her signature style and proclivity for featuring multicultural characters in her books. Siplin, an author of four books, talked to the Defender about her work—including “His Insignificant Other.”
2. E. Lynn Harris "Author E. Lynn Harris talks character, the DL," Chicago Defender, January 28-February 3, 2009
Flint, Michigan native E. Lynn Harris is one of the many authors who proved that self-publishing can lead to success. In 1991, he pulished his first book "Invisible Life," and has gone on to release 11 New York Times best-sellers, including his memoir "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted."
Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out my Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “Homegrown Tales,” “I Do See Color,” “One Black Woman’s Vote,” “Tickled,” “We Need To Talk” and “Window Shopping” too. Subscribe to this newsletter for the weekly posts every Wednesday.
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