"I Do See Color" weekly newsletter: Merry Christmas!
Weekly newsletter 12: Combination of race- and culture-related posts from "We Need to Talk," "I Do See Color," "BlackTechLogy" and "Window Shopping"
Happy Holidays! Welcome to the “I Do See Color” newsletter (with a bonus section of two first-person interviews called “Deuces”).
Welcome to the “I Do See Color” newsletter (with a bonus section of two first-person interviews called “Deuces”).
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Now let’s get into the weekly newsletter!
Each week, eight* carefully selected posts will be chosen, which focus on culture, politics, health and race from a black (wo)man’s perspective.
NEW! 1. The older you are, the weirder Christmas gets ~ But it’s also an opportunity to celebrate new relationships
I love holidays — especially considering my birthday is one: Veteran’s Day. The only holiday I like as much is Christmas. But this was the first year that I was absolutely stumped when my mother asked me, “What do you want for your birthday? What do you want for Christmas?” I have officially reached that “I have everything” age. Christmas week always had three major priorities for me: 1) spend the night over my parents’ house and open gifts at midnight; 2) go to my grandfather’s house the next day and hang out with him; 3) visit my former Girl Scout leader, cracking jokes and filling each other in on what’s been going on in our lives.
2. PSA: Black women are allowed to go on dates ~ The Lori Harvey hate unleashes men’s own insecurities
Outside of Beyonce, there is probably no black woman who rattles hoteps’ cages quite like Lori Harvey. From the breakup with Michael B. Jordan to the rumored nondisclosure dating agreement, everybody has an opinion on how this one woman should behave.
“Good men” everywhere have unleashed a flurry of insults at Lori Harvey — calling her everything from a whore to the “problem” in the relationship to someone who will be “lonely” in her 40s. A few are even going into outbursts about how women only want men with a lot of money, a criminal record and several baby mommas, which makes even less sense considering none of the men she was rumored to have dated have a criminal record — or at least were declared innocent in court. (And she removed herself from the guy with eight baby mommas fairly early on.)
3. Thanks to a nail technician, I support John Legend’s “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” ~ How a trip to the spa made me reevaluate this Christmas song rewrite
There’s about a 95% chance that I’m “on go” at all times to have a discussion regarding politics, race, culture and womanhood. But yesterday was my holiday birthday weekend, and that wasn’t on my radar at all. I was invited to go to my favorite spa and catch up with my favorite nail technician. I snuggled up for my mani-pedi, and got ready to enjoy those glorious hand and foot rubs. What I did not expect was the second nail technician to make me feel the need to defend the #MeTooMovement or Christmas songs.
4. Before you have that holiday party, prep your dog ~ How not preparing your dog for strangers can ruin the Christmas and New Year’s festivities
Your family is all vaccinated, and you’re looking forward to inviting them over for the holidays. Halloween was too chaotic, what with trying to figure out how to safely give candy to trick-or-treaters while fumbling with a costume. So Thanksgiving or Christmas probably make more sense. You’ve planned the guest list, the food, arranged the holiday decor and even started your Christmas shopping. But you have another problem. You’ve been in social isolation for so long, and some of your family members or friends don’t know your dog. And your dog isn’t always the friendliest around strangers. So how do you arrange this four-legged to two-legged holiday meetup?
Here are nine tips to keep in mind before the festivities start.
5. This Christmas, just fix something around the house ~ Charles Schultz was ahead of his time when it came to feminism
I watched my favorite Christmas movie tonight in my bedroom, and I kept looking up at my bedroom light switch. Why? I’m still amazed that I replaced it. I have zero electrical experience. But when my bathroom light stopped working out of nowhere, I put the electrical repairs off for three weeks. I just didn’t want to shell out the $200+ for an electrician to come out to fix it. Instead, I bought a bunch of cheap motion-detector lights and strategically placed them all over my bathroom. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they lit my bathroom as much as electricity. The only problem: The lights kept going out while I was in the shower or sitting on the toilet.
6. Yes, I’m black. No, I don’t eat chicken. ~ Frustrating food complexities of African-Americans
On “chicken” day at work, my editing team was about to order food for a few co-workers’ birthdays. I requested a black bean version of whatever was ordered, and the sista stopped me. She wanted to know why I ordered that particular item. I told her, “I don’t eat meat.” That’s when she hit me with the accusatory chicken comment. I paused, thinking how problematic it was for a black woman to assume another black woman must eat chicken, and dropped my shoulders.
“Have you ever seen me eat chicken the entire time I’ve worked here?” I asked her.
She paused. “You don’t eat chicken?”
If she was white, I would’ve been pretty pissed off by now.
7. ‘Gift’ your junk mail ~ Don’t ‘Return to Sender’: Mail carriers are saving you money
You open your mailbox and hope you get something good. Instead, it’s a pile of junk mail. Why companies keep adding you to their mailing lists and ignoring “Return to Sender” requests is anybody’s guess. But there’s a better way to utilize all that extra paper from unsolicited junk mail and even solicited packages that went way overboard on the packaging needs. Both options are the gift that keeps on giving — literally.
8. If you’re not a minority, why are you so sure of your anti-racism tourism? ~ White people, please stop telling me to leave America to escape racism
I woke up, climbed to the edge of my bed and grabbed my smartphone — a routine I’ve had for a couple of years now to start my day. When I saw a new message from my official website, I sighed. It’s usually one of two things: 1) a new fee-dodging client on Upwork who wants to hire me for a job that’s not been created yet and cannot afford to pay; 2) someone trying to convince me to plug their company and/or product in my next Medium post. It happens at least once a week. But what I did not expect to find was a two-page message about why I needed to move to Germany to escape racism. Pardon me?!
9. Before you buy a Christmas puppy ~ Shopping pet tips to keep in mind for the holidays and beyond
There was one particular puppy who I wish I would’ve laid eyes on a few weeks after Christmas. The puppy was beautiful and comfortably sat in my lap, but I kept hearing him whimper. Even after being bottle fed, he seemed sad in a way that I just did not remember my other two dogs being. Although I was initially terrified of the puppy that became a statue on our basement step for 13 years and ecstatic to see another one who hogged our hallway for 9 years, neither one of them seemed miserable to be around me upon first introduction. No matter what I did with this one, nothing helped.
“Deuces” ~ “I Do See Color” newsletter’s bonus interviews:
1. ‘Dogfather of Harlem’ is grooming pets for free ~ Harlem Doggie Day Spa takes its grooming on a 12-day tour
Writer’s note: While this 12-day tour is complete, the Dogfather of Harlem is heading to Nigeria in February 2023 to offer free dog grooming training in Lagos.
Rules have never really stopped Brian Taylor from pursuing his own dreams — even if it got him into a little trouble with his mom. As a West African kid who was instructed to never allow dogs inside the house, this only intrigued him to enjoy the company of dogs more. At the age of 15, a few years after moving to America, he snuck a pit bull in his basement. When his mother found out three weeks later, he had to find a place for the dog to go. He waved goodbye to the pit bull, but that dog only increased his interest in being around man’s best friend.
2. African history through the eyes of a child ~ How Ekiuwa Aire and ‘The 1619 Project’ educate all from childhood to adulthood
Three years. That’s how long it took me to read the New York Times “1619 Project.” It’s not that I wouldn’t find it interesting; I genuinely thought I was going to know most of the information inside of it. Still, an annual promo for NYT crossed my desk. Curiosity made me scroll around to look for something new in the report that has had anti-Critical Race Theory activists falling all over each other to get this research project to disappear. A smile lit across my face when I got to Mary Elliott and Jazmine Hughes’ article on “the history you didn’t learn in school.” In the middle of the page was a hand-colored lithograph of Queen Njinga. She is a woman I got to know quite well, courtesy of a book editing project with the author of “Queen Njinga”: Ekiuwa Aire.
Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out my Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “BlackTechLogy,” “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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