Stay true to what you know and love. Let your passions forge your path.For as long as I’ve known I wanted to be a journalist, I have sized myself up against my peers: Does my resume stand out? Have I developed a strong voice? Do I have the technical skills to match the writing? Beyond the questions that any journalist could ask themselves, I always thought I fell short in one category: I didn’t have a clear beat. To clarify, in the journalism world, a ‘beat’ is a certain subject or genre that a journalist covers often and, hopefully, well. Some examples include sports, politics and my personal favorite, food. My problem with claiming food as my beat was that I love to write about it but I’ve rarely gotten the chance to do so for published work. There was also one more problem: if I were truly honest, my beats would be Dance Moms, Teen Mom (OG and 2) and Food Network (with an emphasis on Chopped). These are the “subjects” I know the most about. I can tell you all the times Nia cried on camera (which are few and far between because she’s amazing); I do a great impression of Maci saying her son Bentley’s name in that Tennessee drawl; and my siblings and I pretend to be Chopped judges whenever there’s food in front of us (yes, we are all 12 years old). Guilty pleasure TV is one of my favorite things, but I’m currently too loyal to specific shows to call myself a pure entertainment writer, and I didn’t have enough food writing experience to claim that as my beat, either. So what? Okay, okay I’m rambling. Here’s the deal: I always felt that I had something extra to prove with my drive or my writing ability or my networking skills because, unlike my peers, I hadn’t focused in a single traditional beat. Then something amazing happened. My freakish obsession with Food Network qualified as my beat. Or it at least got my foot in the heavy glass door that leads into the office of Maile Carpenter, founding editor-in-chief of Food Network Magazine – also known as my new boss. I’d spent so much time measuring my success with someone else’s ruler that I couldn’t see the height of my own potential. After months of thinking that I was just one of thousands of recently graduated magazine journalists, I finally saw that I had something unique to offer, and that it would lead me to the place where I was meant to be. Some people spend hours analyzing sports games. Others have their eyes glued to election coverage. Me? I just can’t get enough of Ted Allen lifting that silver cover off of the chopping block. If it seems like you’re moving in slow motion while everyone speeds ahead toward a clear destination, take a moment to look inward and consider what gives you an edge. Always remember that you can only see everyone else’s finished product as you continue working on your rough draft. Most importantly, don’t ever let yourself think that you are not qualified, not worthy, not capable – if you let your passion and talent lead, you’ll find that the path ahead has already formed, just for you. Yep, that’s right, I’m writing about Jesse twice in a row. I wish I didn’t have to. But as I sat in my bed, unable to sleep after reading about two particularly awful instances of police brutality and abuse of power, I needed some encouragement. I immediately thought about Jesse Williams and the BET Awards speech that now has some Grey’s Anatomy fans petitioning for his swift exit from the show. When Shonda Rhimes said, “nah” to that petition on Monday evening, I felt pride in my people: these talented Black folks who are standing unapologetically for equality. By Tuesday, just before midnight, I felt equally scared for my people. In a group message I have with three of my girlfriends, our resident Hampton University alumna gave us the few details she had about Kai Kitchen. Kai is also a member of Hampton’s class of 2016 and is in jail without bond after being stopped three times in 30 minutes by the same police officer while on her way home to California. Her paperwork lists "reckless driving" as her offense, and notes that there is "no bond permitted." She was detained for 15 hours before she could call anyone. There seems to be something missing here, and we know that Black women have been killed after questionable traffic stops before. While those sketchy details came spilling out in our thread, we simultaneously discussed the unbelievable death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old man man was shot and killed in Baton Rouge Tuesday morning. His crime? Selling CD’s in front of a store. It was all caught in a chilling video complete with screams and cries of those who witnessed officers open fire. I only watched the video with sound one time. That was enough. In fact, it was too much. As we head into the hump day slump, some of us feel heavy not with the weight of a post-holiday week, but with the burden of Blackness. #JusticeforKai could easily be #JusticeforDanielle. Any one of us could become the hashtag – rich, poor, college-educated, unarmed, asthmatic, prepubescent, hooded, record, no record, resisting or not. The common denominator is the extra bit of melanin that makes our skin glisten in the light even as they pin us to the ground. Even as they murder us in cold blood. Even as they go on paid administrative leave and never get indicted. If today feels extra heavy for you, hopefully some words from Jesse will help you to see how we might one day move beyond this dark, dark time.
This is also in particular for the Black women in particular who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you.
The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job, stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for Black people, then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down. The thing is, though, just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real. “A system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do.”In his passionate acceptance speech last night, BET Humanitarian Award recipient Jesse Williams got real about the Black Lives Matter era – in under five minutes. Grey’s Anatomy fans know him as the gorgeous head of plastic surgery, Jackson Avery, but he is also a former teacher who shows up at rallies and on the news, pushing for awareness and change. There were lots of beautifully worded nuggets of truth in his speech Sunday night – a quick favorite on social media was “just because we’re not magic doesn’t mean we’re not real” – but something struck me about this one. It speaks to the diversity of the movement – though our focus is on Black lives, the end goal is to improve life and create both equity and equality for everyone. These systems of oppression cannot hold us down if we stand up against them. I started my Monday motivation posts because I needed an extra push to get back to work after the leisure of the weekend, and I thought my readers would to. This edition of Monday motivation is different, though – hopefully it sparks something that has been too inactive for too long within many of us. If Williams’ speech taught me anything it was this: there is always more work to be done. We might not all have the means to fly in to Ferguson or bail out protestors, but we all have a voice and we each have our own platforms. If every small voice whispers for change, it will sound like a mighty roar. We can dismantle the institutions of oppression, brick by brick. Jesse Williams to me so. Watch the full video here. Sometimes to be Black in America means weeping for lives lost and violence inflicted. But mostly, to be Black in America means always finding a way to fearlessly press on, not over, and not under, but through the obstacles that surely lie ahead. I wrote those words a year ago, with tears in my eyes and my head achy from sobbing. In my tiny lower East side apartment, as my four roommates were settling into REM sleep, I snuck to the bathroom and burst into tears I’d been holding in all day. The thought of someone taking the lives of those who wanted nothing more than to pray and fellowship was almost too much to bear. But like the many other burdens of Blackness, I kept it draped over my shoulders until I could snatch a moment alone to deal with the weight of it. having harmless fun with friends. In an attack that has since been called an act of terrorism, those partygoers were murdered, and even more survivors ended up in the hospital. As I reflect on the year since the tragedy in Charleston, I can’t help but see these two instances as deeply connected. Two marginalized groups. Two disturbed men murdering senselessly with weapons they bought legally. One man being called a terrorist. Two terrorists. These unfortunate circumstances make me think of Melissa Harris Perry’s discussion of ‘ontological blackness’ or, as she puts it, making oneself “the least of these.” In her talk at Elon this winter, she explained, “Blackness is not having a problem, it is being perceived as a problem. When we say, ‘Black lives matter,’ we really mean problematic or marginalized lives matter.” By that definition, most if not all of the people in the Orlando LGBT club that night were ontologically Black – and 102 of them paid a steep price for that, having been injured or killed for their sexual orientation or gender identity. For being who they are. "A piece of my heart is with you at the dinner table as your family watches the news coverage and adds commentary that stings the core...and you sit quiet. Again.In the wake of that tragedy, I wonder how many LGBTQIA people, out or not, had to sneak off to a corner or a bathroom or their car to let the tears fall. I wonder how many people have taken a few extra showers this week so that the water would drown out their sobs. On Sunday, after news media spent the day interviewing family members, airing press conferences and retelling the same sickening details over and over, I scrolled my Facebook feed to find that many of my friends had done what mainstream news media would not and could not – they focused more on solidarity than spewing facts. One friend in particular quietly came out as queer-identifying (though she’s not a fan of that word). It was deftly hidden in a post that kept the focus on those who she seemed to think were struggling with this more than she was – and those who could not struggle openly at all. “A piece of my heart sits with all the QPOC,” she wrote, “who sit around tables with families today with pits in their stomach, lumps in their throat and endless tears anxiously waiting to burst through the flood gates of your eyelids when you're finally alone in your bed tonight. A year ago I pieced together a partial meaning of Blackness: the tears we cry to ourselves, the way mistreatment of strangers feels like mistreatment of family, all the times we wonder how we’ve gotten this far without becoming a hashtag or ending up on a t-shirt. Today I see how this extends to ontological Blackness as well; a theory that I once questioned is starting to make sense. We live in a world that seems to be regressing, but in reality, we just have more access to information about the everyday instances of racism, sexism and profiling that has always existed in this country. There have always been people standing at podiums and in courtrooms, encouraging that bigotry in front of live audiences and stenographers. Now, there are others who tweet and text and blog about it.
The fear, for many, is constant and the solidarity doesn’t last long enough. In between tragedies and outpourings of support, we live our lives normally: outwardly and collectively celebrating what makes us unique, but still navigating a society that turns our difference into a burden. We work twice as hard for half as much, fake phone conversations so potential rapists don’t try anything, hide pieces of ourselves from those who love us and watch what we say because we know we’re representatives of our marginalized identities in ways that others are not.
I guess that’s the thing about ontological Blackness: it lives in two places. In public, surrounded by those who identify the same way we do, it can be a source of pride. But in the quiet moments, the times when we are alone in our difference, it can be a suffocating, heavy thing that makes us vulnerable to assault and mistreatment and even death. As we #PrayforOrlando, almost a year after prayer warriors became prey in Charleston, the only thing that encourages me is our strength in numbers. Right now, just like after any heartbreaking national event, we are together. Ontologically Black people (at least those who understand intersectionality) are rallying around one another. This is when we are strongest. This is when the bigotry and the hatred are silenced. If only this could last always. |
AuthorDanielle Deavens is a CT transplant to New York City working at Food Network Magazine. Archives
July 2016
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