As the holiday time approaches, increased spending and gift giving takes over pretty much from Black Friday (yesterday) to Christmas Eve.
Yesterday was Black Friday and like many other American shoppers, I wanted the best deals. My mother is an avid fan and cultural follower of the luxury Coach handbags. I decided to postpone her trip to Paisley Park for her birthday in January (less than a month after Xmas) and gift her with a new leather handbag instead :)
However, I live in Chicago and call me high-class but I want a Coach purse from the Coach store. Luckily, I live in one of the greatest cities in the world so there are literally three Coach stores in our iconic Mag Mile to choose from. Long story short, I went in and of course it is SUPER crowded but to be expected. Im dressed in an oversized down coat, sweats, sneakers, and a wool hat (I look like a fat marshmallow)
Every single person (minus a few foreign tourists) were white in the store. Associates greeted and spoke to every single customer BUT me. I am literally browsing around the store for a good 15 minutes- during that time several associates and security personnel either see me or don't acknowledge me or avoid me. I got freaking frustrated.
I finally find a sale associate and she is very curt with me with a snippy attitude. Chanel from South side Chicago would snap back but I'm on Michigan Ave as the only Black woman in this store. I need to act appropriately. So I smile and ask for the manager. The GM was present and I voiced my experience and concern and how I felt singles out as the only person of color.
Needless to say I received a $600 handbag for $200 :)
The point is, I didn't LOOK like I had money and while I don't like playing "the race card", as the only African-American consumer there (the security were tall, burly Black men. Go figure ) I couldn't help but feel dismissed. The sales associate even dismissed me and have me a snippy attitude when I politely just asked if I could see a handbag from the top shelf. I own like eight Coach bags and shop frequently with the brand. However the actual storefronts of these high end designer labels are very judgemental and I sometimes hate going in because they immediately categorize me as either a theif, window shopper, or a low baller.
This experience is nothing new to me but it reinforces me to not allow my subconscious attitudes towards others dictate how I treat them; especially my students who are of a different background than me. There are many signals and messages about people of different communities that are both negative and positive. It is solely up to us to decipher what we internalize and how that ammends out behavior.
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Culture and Perspective
Happy Saturday!
This week is all about diversity, culture, and perspective while relating that to how we as individuals navigate through our environment.
It's interesting for this week's blog because this conversation came up naturally between me and the gentleman who is courting me. As a Black woman, I realize there are inherent stereotypes and misconceptiona about me that have been the general framework for how the world nviews me. I'm either the Black woman from the syrup bottle, a Nicki Minaj, or the "loud" "ghetto" baby mother with the fake long nails and nasty attitude. Unfortunately, none of those sound too appealing and don't fit me exactly individually.
If I am being candid, I am a mixture of all three in my own self-fufilling prophetic way. I'm a sassy, sultry, motherly Black woman if we look into that stereotypical context; but I am also much more than that and the very idea of me not fitting into one of more of those three categories baffles people of other backgrounds.
The gentleman courting me is a white guy, an older gentleman in his 30's and seems pretty well-rounded. We have previously spoken on culture and cultural differences but when we divulged deeper into discussing privledge, "deep culture", and dominant cultural oppression, he got offended and defensive. Of course I expected this but seriously :/
It baffles me how white people are conditioned to feel that eliminating racial bias and racist undertones in our social culture perpetuated by an oppressive dominant culture is to carry this bullshit " We are all one race:human race " concept.
When asked about how he feels diversity and culture affects him compared to people if color, he immediately refers tonhim growing up in a "diverse" neighborhood with no racisim. That made me laugh. He also felt that exaggerating our differences through cultural practices instead of just adopting "American" cultural practices is part of why there is so much of a toxic climate between race. When told that that is false and only further proves that be is privledge as a white male to force-feed cultural practices that make him comfortable, he was immediately offended and felt he was attacked for being white.
Needless to say, he and I have alternating viewpoints on culture, diversity, and perspective. If anything, this further proves that the discussion of individual differences and how they make America beautiful and iconic is useful and needed to alleviate ignorance. Burying our cultural variances under a defacto dominant culture creates internal and external strife that further deepens the divide of an individual, their identity, and their respective communities.
Having these tough conversations with our young ones about identiy, culture, and diversity early allows those attidues to be normalized and create an environment of total acceptance and understanding.
This week is all about diversity, culture, and perspective while relating that to how we as individuals navigate through our environment.
It's interesting for this week's blog because this conversation came up naturally between me and the gentleman who is courting me. As a Black woman, I realize there are inherent stereotypes and misconceptiona about me that have been the general framework for how the world nviews me. I'm either the Black woman from the syrup bottle, a Nicki Minaj, or the "loud" "ghetto" baby mother with the fake long nails and nasty attitude. Unfortunately, none of those sound too appealing and don't fit me exactly individually.
If I am being candid, I am a mixture of all three in my own self-fufilling prophetic way. I'm a sassy, sultry, motherly Black woman if we look into that stereotypical context; but I am also much more than that and the very idea of me not fitting into one of more of those three categories baffles people of other backgrounds.
The gentleman courting me is a white guy, an older gentleman in his 30's and seems pretty well-rounded. We have previously spoken on culture and cultural differences but when we divulged deeper into discussing privledge, "deep culture", and dominant cultural oppression, he got offended and defensive. Of course I expected this but seriously :/
It baffles me how white people are conditioned to feel that eliminating racial bias and racist undertones in our social culture perpetuated by an oppressive dominant culture is to carry this bullshit " We are all one race:human race " concept.
When asked about how he feels diversity and culture affects him compared to people if color, he immediately refers tonhim growing up in a "diverse" neighborhood with no racisim. That made me laugh. He also felt that exaggerating our differences through cultural practices instead of just adopting "American" cultural practices is part of why there is so much of a toxic climate between race. When told that that is false and only further proves that be is privledge as a white male to force-feed cultural practices that make him comfortable, he was immediately offended and felt he was attacked for being white.
Needless to say, he and I have alternating viewpoints on culture, diversity, and perspective. If anything, this further proves that the discussion of individual differences and how they make America beautiful and iconic is useful and needed to alleviate ignorance. Burying our cultural variances under a defacto dominant culture creates internal and external strife that further deepens the divide of an individual, their identity, and their respective communities.
Having these tough conversations with our young ones about identiy, culture, and diversity early allows those attidues to be normalized and create an environment of total acceptance and understanding.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
Retaining my Culture
Happy Friday everyone!
This blog post is quite the interesting one because it is relevant to real life culture and events for myself. As an African-American, I have considered (seriously) leaving The United States because of the more overt forms of racisim, systematic oppression, and our our federal government is being represented and ran by our current administrators. I'm not the most liberal of liberals but I have a moral compass and everything from normalizing acts of sexual harassment to defending budgets that assisitng brown people of color to live decent lives is something I do not feel safe in.
What is interesting is that African-American culture is a concoction of internalised, normalized American culture and standards mixed with the history, traditions, and cultural practices of our enslaved ancestors that were able to pass down survival and traditional African practices down generations. I really don't have anything concrete that accurately represents the African-American culture unless it refers back to slavery tonthe discussion mentions slavery as a catalyst tonwhy the memento is important and valuable.
If I had to pick three items that represented me and my culture to show the world in my new country, I would choose the urn of my son, a copy of the Willie Lynch letter, and a photo of Barack Obama. These items are not.only significant to me but to my identity as an African-American woman. The most feared person in America is the Black male, let's just be honest. Stereotype and prejudice continue to perpetuate the stigma of danger, aggression, and hypermasculinity onto our Black males.
As the mother of a black son, regardless of him being here in flesh or spirit, I felt the fear of knowing how the workd would view him moments after he was born. His very existence was and remains a threat in this country. I was nervous not to name him anything too "ethnic", I had already mapped out what programs to put him in after school when he barely was a day old. I even had lectures ready for when he came home and asked why he couldn't hang around certain people- even though they looked like us. I was mentally preparing myself to not only raise my son but keep him alive when every target points at his back.
My son was and remains a strong embodiment of a Black male, a true king. Having him, a photo of another Black male with commanding presence (and the first Black president of The United States) alongside a nasty piece of American history that helped draft the some of the worst laws in our history would be powerful as a chain of progression.
Even as an African-American woman, I find myself wanting to uplift the imagery and perception of our men. Our men are the driving forces and then protectors. With those few items, I am able to show the dark history of American racisim and yet how we have overcome and will continue to prosper.
This blog post is quite the interesting one because it is relevant to real life culture and events for myself. As an African-American, I have considered (seriously) leaving The United States because of the more overt forms of racisim, systematic oppression, and our our federal government is being represented and ran by our current administrators. I'm not the most liberal of liberals but I have a moral compass and everything from normalizing acts of sexual harassment to defending budgets that assisitng brown people of color to live decent lives is something I do not feel safe in.
What is interesting is that African-American culture is a concoction of internalised, normalized American culture and standards mixed with the history, traditions, and cultural practices of our enslaved ancestors that were able to pass down survival and traditional African practices down generations. I really don't have anything concrete that accurately represents the African-American culture unless it refers back to slavery tonthe discussion mentions slavery as a catalyst tonwhy the memento is important and valuable.
If I had to pick three items that represented me and my culture to show the world in my new country, I would choose the urn of my son, a copy of the Willie Lynch letter, and a photo of Barack Obama. These items are not.only significant to me but to my identity as an African-American woman. The most feared person in America is the Black male, let's just be honest. Stereotype and prejudice continue to perpetuate the stigma of danger, aggression, and hypermasculinity onto our Black males.
As the mother of a black son, regardless of him being here in flesh or spirit, I felt the fear of knowing how the workd would view him moments after he was born. His very existence was and remains a threat in this country. I was nervous not to name him anything too "ethnic", I had already mapped out what programs to put him in after school when he barely was a day old. I even had lectures ready for when he came home and asked why he couldn't hang around certain people- even though they looked like us. I was mentally preparing myself to not only raise my son but keep him alive when every target points at his back.
My son was and remains a strong embodiment of a Black male, a true king. Having him, a photo of another Black male with commanding presence (and the first Black president of The United States) alongside a nasty piece of American history that helped draft the some of the worst laws in our history would be powerful as a chain of progression.
Even as an African-American woman, I find myself wanting to uplift the imagery and perception of our men. Our men are the driving forces and then protectors. With those few items, I am able to show the dark history of American racisim and yet how we have overcome and will continue to prosper.
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