'as I think Emma Goldman said,
“If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution.” - Audre Lorde
So, I may have been a little hasty last newsletter with my sign off of ‘I hope it won’t be a full month before my next newsletter!’ because here we are - a month and a half later. But, sometimes, I guess that’s just how it goes. One thing I’m trying to personally get better at is not holding myself to arbitrary and self-imposed standards, and so this newsletter coming out now is…a success? Maybe. It’s all in the branding.
Image is from @theebouffants, you can find more of their work here.
Hot Takes
Why can’t businesses get it right when it comes to race and gender?
Speaking of it being all in the branding - yesterday was International Women’s Day 2021 - a day which follows quick on the heals of America and Canada’s Black History Month, which is recognised every February. I don’t know if it’s because of the collective awakening that we saw in 2020 to the injustices all around us, but businesses seem to really be going hard with both dates this year. And, a lot of the time, they seem to be getting it pretty wrong.
To me, the time that it seems to go the most wrong, the most often, is when brands try to subvert the message. There seems to have been a memo that people are tired of ‘worthy’ campaigns, and we’re all ready to have a little fun with it - to turn the message on its head a little - and so we end up with campaigns like this Burger King misstep. (click and scroll through)
Burger King are far from alone in missing the tone (and the point) in their comms, as we can see from the resignation of Beattie Communications chairman after his misguided ‘we don’t hire Blacks, gays or Catholics’ Linkedin post.
I feel like brand’s willingness to poke fun at outdated attitudes would be much less jarring if those attitudes were as outdated as they seem believe. But, in a world where we can see people are still actively discriminated against, and many still hold the views that the posts are trying to subvert, the result is…uninspiring, and often outright damaging and offensive.
One thing I find confusing about this is…just how it happens. Time and time again. IWD is on the same day each year. Black History Month is the same month. So how is it catching brands by surprise, and leading to these messy, thrown-together and embarrassing missteps every year? Once again, I think we’re seeing just what happens when brands don’t have enough, or at least the right, mix of people with diverse views in decision making capacities.
They are cursed to repeat the same, tone-deaf, expensive, mistakes.
The Bumble IPO
Bumble recently went through a successful IPO- making their founder into the youngest ‘self-made female billionaire’. But, what’s been most interesting to me has been noticing the conspicuous lack of conversation around Badoo/Magic Lab (the previous branding of the group of companies, which still make up a large part of the BMBL market offering) and their deep-rooted problems with ‘sexism and misogyny, and even alleged sexual misconduct.
Whilst the companies’ public image is all around female empowerment, it doesn’t take the deepest dive to peer behind the curtain and see that that is far from the reality that the business was founded on.
I’m interested to see if a public rebrand and stockmarket offering is enough - or if in time we’re going to see the business have to grapple with not only where it started, but where it has lingered. Maybe it’s all in the branding?
Businesses in Glass Houses
I had thought that I was going to share Reply All’s deep dive series into the implosion at the Test Kitchen in 2020 which turned all of our favourite lockdown comfort viewing into, is it too strong to say a trash fire? I was going to say that the two episodes I’ve heard so far have been an interesting look at a brand and business coming to terms with the long-running, deep-seated, consequences that comes from not having a foundational commitment to equity, equality, and respect.
But, it turns out that Gimlet and the team at Reply All may well have been looking outwards when they should have been paying more attention to what was going on at home, as news has since broken that a lot of the issues they’re pointing out at Bon Appetite are very familiar to the teams who have worked at Gimlet (bought by Spotify in 2019).
You can see the story unfold here, here, and here.
Slow burns
I’ve been reading
How Covid has changed generational media consumption. For me personally - in the last 12m my media consumption has been turned on its head. I used to listen to podcasts non stop, day and night - but now, they’re not quite doing what I need them to - so I’ve swapped them out for music radio (basically unknown to me until now) and a lot of short-form online content, which I just didn’t engage with at all a year ago.
About The Disability Manifesto - “Nothing about us without us”. Although this is far from new, it’s new to me. I think “Nothing about us without us” is the perfect lens through which to view all conversations and decision making about equity and equality. We’re not here to make decisions on behalf of marginalised groups, but to follow their leads, and amplify their voices, and take their words into spaces they’ve been kept from.
About people’s deep desire to hold onto artifacts from their past (TW - This contains racist language), without reckoning with what that means for the present, and our future.
How COVID has lead to a terrifying rise in violence against Asian people.
I’m late to the party here - but I’ve only just learned the term Black and Global Majority. I’ve always pushed back against using BAME, POC and BIPOC, but have never had a better alternative, other than ‘Racially Marginalised’. I feel like Black and Global Majority is exactly the term I’ve needed for so long.
I’ve been talking about
How we all see the world differently. I know it sounds trite, but it’s true, in very literal ways. I honestly didn’t realise that other people have a real ‘mind’s eye’ and could picture things in their heads - I thought that was just…a phrase people used. Imagining something and manipulating it in my mind is just not something I can do, at all - and it turns out, quite a lot of other people can’t either. So, now that I know this, I need to think about how I communicate with people, and what that means for how we, as a society, share stories and information together.
I’ve been talking a lot about the Glass Cliff - because I did a TED Talk about it! The Glass Cliff is the situation that underrepresented leaders (women or Black and Global Majority people) find themselves in when they manage to break through the Glass Ceiling, and if we’re going to stop it from happening, first we need to know it exists.
My mixed feelings about both Black History Month and IWD. They both feel slightly out of steps with the things I want to uplift and celebrate, and when. At the moment, I’m trying to be more mindful of how I think not just about Black History, but also, Black Futures.
Colourism. The benefits the people with a higher proximity to whiteness (like me) get in a society that uplifts and values fairer skin. It’s not a new conversation, but it’s one that I try to be mindful of - every time I’m invited into a space I need to ask myself ‘Who can I bring with me? Who am I taking an opportunity from? How can I work harder to share this platform with people who continue to be overlooked and underrepresented?’ Meghan and Harry being asked about their child’s skin colour by a member of the Royal household was an eye-opening moment for many viewers of the Oprah interview, but, sadly, it wasn’t a surprise to many Black people who have always lived with this reality. (The asset below is very worth a scroll)
My Projects
Since my last newsletter I’ve released Anti-Racist Ally in the US and Canada, done a TED Talk, and started a new job - it’s been a whirlwind few months. Here are a few of the things I’ve been working on recently.
You can hear me talking about The Glass Cliff in my recent TEDx Talk.
You can pre-order my book Millennial Black, it’s coming out in April 2021. I first started working on the proposal for this back in 2017, so it’s been a real labour of love.
You can check out this book I contributed to - This is How We Come Back Stronger, knowing that 20% of the price of every book sold goes direct to Women’s Aid and Imkaan, as did my contributor’s fee.
You can buy my book Anti-Racist Ally, which is now also out in the US and Canada!
You can interact with me over on my Instagram, OfficialMillennialBlack.
It’s goodbye, for now
As I’m about to press send the sun has come out and I’m feeling…cautiously optimistic. So, I’m going to leave you with this absolute bop from 70’s Nigerian funk musician William Onyeabor. Once you hear it you’re going to want to go on a deep dive and figure out how this has been missing from your life up to now. This short documentary is a good place to start, like I said, I’m all about the short form content these days. You’re welcome. (Here’s an extra, bonus, song. For the road.)
Finally, as always, I’ll leave you with Alex the parrot’s last words
‘You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you’
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