Winning.

In Which The Mayoress Encounters the Chair of the NYC Cultural Affairs Committee

On the rare occasion, my passionate career in promotion and persistent participation in politics (as well as absolute adoration of alliteration) intersects.

Last Wednesday, my client Fractured Atlas hosted a conversation with NYC 26th District Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer (Long Island City, Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside), also Chair of the NYC Cultural Affairs Committee.

If you have ever had the privilege of encountering Van Bramer, you undoubtedly share my full-blown political crush. Though it shall remain unrequited (Sorry ladies, he’s gay! Sorry boys, he’s engaged!), I am content, as I am fully in support of any politician who can make me laugh while making me think – and isn’t afraid to drop a few F-bombs and thinly veiled insults along the way.

The Mayoress with the hosts of the evening.

The event had a surprisingly fantastic turnout, and Van Bramer stayed an hour late just to answer every question from the overflowing audience of artists, whether from his district or not. He was candid, cohesive, informative, and passionate. He explained how things work and how any of us can influence that process.

I say “surprisingly” not because it was an FA event – as the nation's largest nonprofit arts services organization, their following is strong, and deservedly so. I was surprised because it is very difficult to get almost any audience – let alone artists who work long hours with full schedules – to take time out to find out about the political system and how it affects their life, work, and funding; and how they can improve the way it all happens. Huge kudos to those who showed up, asked questions, gave input. They were heard.

But if you’ve never been to an event like that, or otherwise been in contact with your elected official, whether City Council, Community Board, City Executives, State Senate, State Assembly, State Executives, U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, or U.S. Executives (whew!), or if you do not vote, not only in November elections but in primaries, you are not heard.

Your opinions, effectively, do not matter.

Here is where I begin my rant, and reason for writing this post. If you read this blog you’ve heard it before, but I’d rather be a broken record than not pound home the point.

You cannot complain about something happening – or not happening – if you are not willing to do something about it. This is America, you have many avenues toward trying to make a change. You can vote, you can participate, you can write your representatives.

Here’s what I don’t think a lot of the frustrated-while-uninvolved people understand: most people are also frustrated but uninvolved. So if you join the very small ranks of the involved, heard, and counted, you are heard.

Every elected official I have come into contact with beyond a handshake bases his or her decisions heavily on what his or her constituency thinks. How do they know what their constituency thinks? Well, all they can base it on is what their constituents tell them that they want and need. So the very small percentage who bother to do so are the ones who dictate what life will be like for everyone else in their district.

When I attended a city council campaign debate in ’05 while volunteering on a campaign, do you know what topics they covered? Whether bikes should be allowed to ride on the sidewalks and whether they would do something about it.

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.

But guess what? The people who showed up cared about that. And I won’t mention the neighborhood, but you better believe the Upper East Side had a lot more revenue that next year in the form of tickets to bicycle riders.

If you want things to be a certain way, you have to tell your elected official. Complaining to yourself or the closest person who will listen may be effective for letting off steam, but not for moving the world forward.

I'll be the first to admit: I’m not satisfied with how much I do to make my neighborhood, city, state, or country, the place I’d like it to be. But I do do something, even if it’s not yet at the level I hope. I write this blog so I can sway your opinion. I volunteer periodically. I donate to causes I care about. I write my elected officials when I’m really hot and bothered. (It takes both conditions, you see, because I try to be the former on the daily, what what.)

Van Bramer made allusions to a future run for mayor, but it seems his campaign will be about 15 years before mine, so I graciously nod to his Bramerness and offer my early support.

Why the 99% Should Demand More

Absolute must-read editorial from my favorite Paul Krugman.

For who are the 0.1 percent? Very few of them are Steve Jobs-type innovators; most of them are corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers. One recent analysis found that 43 percent of the super-elite are executives at nonfinancial companies, 18 percent are in finance and another 12 percent are lawyers or in real estate. And these are not, to put it mildly, professions in which there is a clear relationship between someone’s income and his economic contribution.

Why The Mayoress Supports the 99%

Three words: changing the dialogue.

Hey, remember the Tea Party?  Though a fringe group and certainly not the majority, they swung the overall American debate on all issues extremely far right.  Candidates on the right and some on the left had to start answering the questions they were asking.  Some even ran on their platform.

The #Occupy movement stands to do the same for the left, bringing a balance back to the discussion in this all important year before a major election.  Their theatrics invite media attention, which means that pundits and candidates have to respond in order to be newsworthy.  Perfect.

Yes, it would be nice if there were clear leaders and a well-outlined platform.  But you know what?  It would probably be less effective at this point.  Because now, you and I and most everyone we know are the 99%, and we can see a glimmer of our dissatisfaction with The Way Things Are, the way things are working - and more importantly - not working, in their frustration.  And that sympathy makes the movement more widely accessible, and gives it more possibility, at least for now.

So, cheers to everyone who believes in America enough to try to fix it.  As always, I admire those who get up and say or do something, even when I don't fully agree, over those who sit on their couches and talk about it.

Ode to Lisa Bloom

I cannot recommend Lisa Bloom's book Think highly enough.  It's one of the most personally influential books I have read this year.  Every woman must read it, and men should pick it up too.

The jist of Lisa's book in two words is: read more.  The point is that women are still unequal because we give up our power in so many ways, ie caring more about celebrities than current events, giving away our time by allowing spouses/live-in partners to do less of the housework and child rearing, reality TV, errands and chores that just aren't worth our time.

"Women's accomplishments are rarely celebrated in our media unless the 'accomplishment' is in one of these five areas: appearance, romance, marriage, pregnancy, or babies."

This book allowed me to exhale.  As a single woman with Patti Stanger yelling in my ear that looking hot is all that matters, it was such a breath of fresh air to remember how wonderful it is to embrace being smart.  As you can see from the book cover, Lisa gets that this culture won't allow us to completely dial out of exterior-consciousness, but she candidly shares her own experiences being subject to attractiveness standards (and maintenance!) as a TV personality, and has struck an admirable balance.

I actually got rid of cable after reading Think.  I still watch TV online - but it's more likely that I'll also watch a documentary on Netflix than collapse into a Housewives marathon.  The amount and quality and frequency of my reading has vastly improved in the past couple months.  Not to mention doing more writing - and look! - blogging.  And just like when you eat more vegetables and less candy, I just feel better.

My only issue with the book is that it's definitely for people from the middle class or above -- hiring a housekeeper to create more time or buying pre-cut vegetables just isn't going to happen for a single mom struggling at minimum wage.  But for the women I know, both peers and those younger who are creating their paths, I truly hope they'll take the time to explore the issues Lisa so smartly explores and brings to light.

You go, girls.

--

Update!  The inspiration to finally write this post was that @LisaBloom tweeted she was on a local radio show - I called in and got on!  Thanked her for all she's doing and asked about her recommendations for female mentorship.  Too awesome.  Never would have happened if I was watching Bravo.  Just sayin'. ;)

The Herman Cain Thing.

I don't really care about Herman Cain; from where I stand today, Romney's taking it anyway (more on that later).

I'm really upset - in a throw up my hands and walk away way - that the American public and media is automatically suspicious instead of compassionate when a woman has the courage to come forward about alleged harassment.  Who the hell would want to go through all the mess of accusing a famous person of harassment or rape or anything in between, even for a big payday?

We have got to change this culture of victim blaming.  We need to take these accusations seriously.  We should run any man who treats women poorly out of town, much less elect him to office. We need to create a culture where women are respected - then these things won't happen in the first place.

Truth of the Day

"Among the echelons of the upper middle class, there is a smug pride often taken in the edgy address, as if poor people existed to lend the better off a veneer of adventurous chic."
- Ginia Bellafante

Full article.

This is a true state of emergency.

There is a horrific famine happening right now in the horn of Africa. If you have time to read this post, you have time to do something tangible about it: write your rep and/or skip a meal out this week and make even a modest donation - every single one of us can afford it. 

mercycorps.org
unicef.org,
writerep.house.gov 

Thanks to Nicholas D. Kristof for alerting me to the severity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/opinion/sunday/kristof-glimpses-of-the-next-great-famine.htm

Ten Years Later

I'm still processing.  I don't have a lot to say right now.  I'm having a hard time getting through this article.  My Facebook status is about all the thought I can form:

Try as I did, I never could donate the skirt I wore ten years ago today. On the downtown R, to work on Broadway & Spring, in the silent procession uptown, on the L back to Brooklyn, to drink red wine with Tina at Milo's (now, The Metropolitan). I'm glad I kept it. Often, my sentiment is commemorated in the sartorial.

Kind of avoiding the TV documentaries, although I'll probably give in in a bit.

Here's my 9/11 story.

In the past few years I've hoped all the ceremony would die down after so many years, but today, I'm glad that there's something in our society that lends gravitas.  I'm so over everything frivolous right now.

Just found this in my journal from September 14, 2001:

My priorities have changed a lot... There's nothing I feel like doing with my time, except to occasionally have a glass of wine and be around a lot of people. I certainly don't want to travel. I don't want to laugh. I want to mourn. But I don't want to feel like this forever. I want to always remember this... this vulnerability, this patriotism, this need for God, this care for people I've never met, this pride in my city and elected officials. But thing can never feel normal again, can they? This is just so strange....

Jobs Part 2: Perseverance, Hope, Second Chances

Now this is the kind of story that provokes sympathy from me.  Frederick Deare was laid off from his factory job and it took months of searching to secure a new - lower-paying - job.  Deare experiences the entire jobless range of emotions from fear to hope, and though he definitely had his down days, he seems to have been extremely proactive in his search.  He eventually finds a job, but still:

There was only one downside: The work paid $10 an hour, 40 percent less than he had made at Old London. After taxes, his paycheck was even less than the unemployment benefits he had been collecting. But he tried not to dwell on this. “I don’t let it bother me that I’m getting less, because of the simple fact I have something, and a lot of people have nothing,” he said. “You have to crawl before you can walk.” Four and a half months later, he is still on the job.

Some letters in today's Times criticize him, saying that he doesn't deserve a job as an ex-con, or how dare he have a smartphone with bills so tight (I didn't gather from his phone's description that it was a smartphone, but I see the point).  As much as I like to get all hard-hearted about job searches and especially sense of entitlement (see previous post), I did not get that from this article at all.  And I really, really can't see how a reformed, now hard-working man is a problem in our society.

Jobs Part 1: Apparently Ms. Morales Missed the Memo

You know, the one about how everyone in the arts waits tables at the beginning of their career?

“We did everything we were supposed to,” said Stephanie Morales, 23, who graduated from Dartmouth College in 2009 with hopes of working in the arts. Instead she ended up waiting tables at a Chart House restaurant in Weehawken, N.J., earning $2.17 an hour plus tips, to pay off her student loans. “What was the point of working so hard for 22 years if there was nothing out there?” said Ms. Morales, who is now a paralegal and plans on attending law school.

It's really not about Morales* specifically - (I suspect she'll be getting plenty of criticism in the comments & other blogs - keep your head up my dear!) - this whole article reeks of entitlement.  Kind of like the whole Millennial generation - I count myself on the cusp, so this is self-critical as well.

Bubble Disclaimer**, but these days, isn't having a job at 22/23 a win in itself?  Forget four years, what about those out of grad school or with work experience that don't have prospects?  And if the job applications I've reviewed this year are any indication, most four-year degrees don't even include basics on how to write a cover letter or construct a resume, so it's difficult to be enthusiastic about getting these people into the workforce.

Suck it up.  Usually, on the path to your perfect career, you take many detours.  And what you envision yourself doing at 22 is likely not what you'll be doing - or want to be doing - 10 years later.  If you have to take an unpaid internship to learn your industry's skill set and build a network, or bartend/barista to make cash while you land an entry-level job, this is not the Universe shitting on you or even a sign that you did the wrong thing.  Building a career, like all noble pursuits in life, requires patience, realism, perseverance, and a sense of humor.  And above all, awesome friends for the in-between time.

*Side note to Morales and others considering similar options: law school is not a panacea.  There is a major problem lately with a glut of talent in law, lack of jobs, etc... sound like any other industry?  Be sure you're going for the right reasons and that the price tag is worth it - and not just the financial one.

**My environment is not indicative of mainstream America - like Irene, NYC avoided a lot of the economic turmoil of the last few years, and my circle in particular has been overwhelmingly gainfully employed, and even moving up in their careers.  Luck of the draw?  Right place right time?  We shall see...

Is Howard Schultz Gearing Up for a Run?

Dear Starbucks Friend and Fellow Citizen:


I love our country. And I am a beneficiary of the promise of America. But today, I am very concerned that at times I do not recognize the America that I love.


Like so many of you, I am deeply disappointed by the pervasive failure of leadership in Washington. And also like you, I am frustrated by our political leaders' steadfast refusal to recognize that, for every day they perpetuate partisan conflict and put ideology over country, America and Americans suffer from the combined effects of paralysis and uncertainty. Americans can't find jobs. Small businesses can't get credit. And the fracturing of consumer confidence continues.


We are better than this.

Battery Stroll

Pacific Northwest Whitewash

"Trying to describe white privilege to white people is like trying to explain water to a fish."


Bonita Appleblog crafted an excellent, thoughtful response to an article in Seattle's alt-weekly, The Stranger, on racism, Seattle-style.


Fact!  I used to live in Seattle.  I went to college there, and I cannot recall interacting with a single black person outside of the Supersonics, Monday night Seahawks hangout at the jazz club, the 3 guys on our school's basketball team, and the neighborhoods where I volunteered.  OUCH.


These days, the first reason I give when asked if I would ever move back to Portland and I say no and they ask why, is that it's not diverse enough.  People like to debate this, or act like this is an unreasonable dealbreaker, but when you grow up as a mixed-race kid in a superwhite area, you're not in a big hurry to return to a place where you didn't stand a chance of blending in, being beautiful, encountering others like you.


This explanation is inevitably met with a blank stare, which brings us back to the quote at the top of this post. Rinse, repeat.


"Your life story produces a racial filter," [explains Tali Hairston.] "It might be a lens so thick that everything gets drawn into looking like it's about race, or so thin that when someone says something is racial, you go, oh hell no, it's not. As a white person, you have to own the development of your own racial lens. Because whether you're aware of it or not, you have one."

The Politics of Black Pregnancy

Hide your kids, hide your wife - Beyonce is pregnant!  OMG who cares that she's one of the most talented and accomplished pop performers in American history -- drooooollllllllbbaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbyyyyyyy!!!!  Let the tabloids rejoice!

Awesome discussion happening in the comments over at my favorite Jezebel about the ridiculousness of this being a "statement" or example for The Black Community, a lesson for black single mothers on how to do things The Right Way.*

Sigh.

Loved this comment in particular:

Honestly, me and my sister were more surprised that Jay-Z was "doing it the right way". When we read about it, the article said it would be the first child for Jay-Z at 41 years old, and we were amazed that a 41 year old rapper had yet to father children. Sure we knew before that he wasn't toting kids, but to have it laid out like that made it clear to us how unusual it seemed for a black man his age (and income bracket) not to have kids all over the place. We even expected it. Sometimes it can seem that for a black man to have multiple "baby mamas" is a status symbol in itself- it either means that he's got enough cash to support them all, or he's got enough game to get them all in the first place. If I recall correctly, Clutch even wrote an article on the whole "I wanna get you pregnant" phenomenon. So yeah, I'm more surprised that all the hoopla is about Beyonce "doing it the right way" when Jay-Z "doing it the right way" seems like a far better example to be pushing in the black community. 


*Be born to  ambitious stage parents, have ridiculous talent, achieve fame in teen years, have long career, marry billionaire, become pregnant.

Republicans Raising Taxes?! Oh, Wait.

In a decade of frenzied tax-cutting for the rich, the Republican Party just happened to lower tax rates for the poor, as well. Now several of the party’s most prominent presidential candidates and lawmakers want to correct that oversight and raise taxes on the poor and the working class, while protecting the rich, of course.


Full article.

New York Needs to Bring It Down a Notch

I'm glad to have been out of NYC during Irene if only to realize how awfully self-absorbed we/NYC can be.

Instead of snarking that the storm didn't hit the city hard or complaining about lack of transit, everyone should take a minute to reflect on those who weren't so lucky and be humbly grateful.

Start with this slideshow
Or this article

Just because it doesn't happen to New York doesn't mean it doesn't happen.  And matter.

Everyone Stop Telling Me To See "The Help"

I don't want to see that movie.  I don't want to read the book.  I haven't been articulating why very well, I just get an icky feeling from the commercial with the worn-out types: Sassy Black Maid, Hoity-Toity White Upper Class Lady, Sympathetic White Woman Who Will Turn Out Okay.  The white-person-as-hero feel-good flick that glosses over a host of problems that one person ain't solving is not my genre, which is also why I will not waste two hours on The Blind Side, not that I need a reason beyond Sandra Bullock (though Crash was awesome, and imho her only watchable moment).

This op-ed makes a related point:

To suggest that bad people were racist implies that good people were not.

Jim Crow segregation survived long into the 20th century because it was kept alive by white Southerners with value systems and personalities we would applaud. It’s the fallacy of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a movie that never fails to move me but that advances a troubling falsehood: the notion that well-educated Christian whites were somehow victimized by white trash and forced to live within a social system that exploited and denigrated its black citizens, and that the privileged white upper class was somehow held hostage to these struggling individuals.

But that wasn’t the case...

...Cultures function and persist by consensus. In Jackson and other bastions of the Jim Crow South, the pervasive notion, among poor whites and rich, that blacks were unworthy of full citizenship was as unquestioned as the sanctity of church on Sunday. “The Help” tells a compelling and gripping story, but it fails to tell that one.

Stuck

So, yes, I blog less when I have more work to do.

But lately, I've also been hesitant to post because I have been reducing my news consumption, which makes me feel less capable of posting a remotely intelligent commentary on anything going on. [insert joke in the vein of "well that never stopped you before!" har har.]

In other words, there have been lots of things I want to bring up but haven't felt like I can form a succinct post/argument/narrative/story.  But my thoughts and feelings on the things - political, cultural, etc - that I am pondering are strong, and worth pointing out.

Then I realized: maybe the point is just to raise some questions.

Let's give it a try...

In Which The New York Times Prints That Printable Matter is Unprintable... Again.

[part where I apologize for being scarce by validate it by explaining once again that this just means I'm busy with work, so it's good thing]

Not once but twice in last Sunday's Arts & Leisure section, the NYTimes repeated my favorite of its ridiculous policies - instead of printing perfectly printable words, ie the title of the marvelous Broadway play The Motherfucker with the Hat (see it!), it censors itself/its interviewee by glazing over whatever was obviously said by saying it's unprintable.  Once toward the end of an article about Andrew Lloyd Webber (which should be unprintable since his recent work is unlistenable), and then by calling Cee-Lo's marvelous song "Forget You," which has become the acceptable title, which is stupid.

As I've explained before, this drives me batshit fucking crazy.  Because it's untrue.  These words can be printed - look!  I just did it myself with a free blogging platform! So really it's just their (understandable) policy not to print them.  So that's how they should phrase it.  Or!  Have a New York People Who Can Handle Language version of the paper, and another Ultra Conservative And Worried About Superficial Societal Problems Like "Bad" Words version for whoever is writing in a blog that's the polar opposite of this one.

Also in the Arts section, Justin Timberlake.  Love.  And I don't even want to make out with him, I just want to go see dance movies together.  I mean, it's about time You Got Served had a sequel, amIright???

Apparently, the World is Ending Tomorrow...

... at 6pm, by the way.

What, you didn't hear?!  Oh, it's all over the place, even in the New York Times!  Like, see, this guy Harold Camping? He taught himself the Bible? And decided the world would obv start ending Saturday May 21 at 6pm with the rapture of all the Christians and then the rest of us/you would be left to, like, endure five months of plagues and stuff.  Gross!

This whole world-ending-tomorrow thing is throwing me for a loop.  I mean, I have so many questions that no one is answering!

• Am I going to be raptured if I was "saved" or "born again" as a child, but no longer practice Christianity in the traditional sense?
• Should I cancel my date for tomorrow night, or at least inform my poor suitor that I may not show up for our 9pm reservation because I'll have floated up to heaven 3 hours prior?
• Do I get points for acts of goodness, like the cat I saved from a raccoon trap yesterday?  (And by "save" I mean found and told someone else about who did the actual releasing from said trap?)
• Do I get extra points for acts of goodness that would probably be considered more Christian by Camping & Co, like when I handed out flyers condemning abortion in 4th grade?  Thanks for letting me do that, parents!
• What about acts of goodness that hearken back to what the Bible actually talks about Jesus doing and telling people to do, like when I volunteer or donate to those in need, or you know, show love and kindness to people whether I want to or not?  Doesn't count because I don't go to church though right?
• I'm registered as a Democrat, is that going to hold me up at heaven's security gate?
• Should I write a quick will and some goodbye emails or will it just be total chaos anyway, nullifying legal contracts and Google accounts?
• If all my dreams come true in heaven, can all my pagan friends join me?

I need answers, people, and for some reason, none of the doomsayers are bothering to tell me!

Because let's be honest: these people do not a) believe the world is ending and that they are really being raptured tomorrow, or, more to my point, b) give a shit about anyone else (the Bible refers to this as loving others as you love yourself; the American Christians often translate this to trying to save non-believers).

Because if a) were the case, they would be going way more crazy and being way less or way more responsible in these final days.  If you really, truly thought you had 24 hours left on this earth, what would you be doing with your time?  Surely not reading this blog, for starters.

And if b) were the case, they wouldn't be walking past me on the street with just a tee shirt and a smug look.  They would be begging, pleading, crying, not sleeping, to save everyone they love and probably everyone else they could possibly talk to from the horrible alternate, permanent fate.

Because, let's be honest: this is all a marketing campaign for FamilyRadio.com.  So, as a fellow marketer, I will hand it to Harold Camping for his brilliant strategy to get tons of free advertising and publicity and new audiences.  But as far as marketing ethics are concerned, I hope that as of 6pm tomorrow, he's indeed not heard from again.

I Have Read Some Obituaries With Joy...

Mixed Race on the Brian Lehrer Show

My favorite radio show is having a call-in right now on being mixed race - I can't get through so I will blog about it instead.  Apologies in advance for the stream of consciousness.

Click on multiracial on the tag cloud at right or search "mixed" to see my previous musings on being more than one race.

While I appreciate the guests - an interracial couple, I'd like to hear from a mixed race "expert" instead - but that would defeat the purpose of understanding since any one person's experience can't possibly capture it for us all.

You know where being mixes sucks these days?  Dating.  White guys are like "I don't date black women."  I don't know how someone can say this and not feel they're being racist and vastly generalizing (ahem, John Mayer, whose songs I have deleted from my iTunes after his extremely racist and insensitive comments about interracial dating).  And black men do not know what to do with me.

Last week I went to my friend Santana's play reading - she wrote a one-woman show about her experience growing up mixed called "The Other Box."  It was brilliant.  I didn't expect it to be that good this early in development.  But we have some uncommon parallels in our childhood & experience, so it was very hard for me to absorb at points.  The show is going up this month, happy to share info, it is so worth seeing -- you'll laugh and cry and get it.

Woman on radio now is talking about how it's more of an issue in New York.  This is so true.  Of course I was a kid on the West Coast so I may not have been as aware, but I will tell you that in NYC everyone needs to fit everyone else into a box, and it can really suck.  Of course, this is true way beyond race: your job, your neighborhood, your money, your family, your alma mater, your marital status, your hobbies, etc etc.

And.... segment over!  Seriously, I could explore this all the time.  Maybe I will start my own radio show just about being mixed and America from a mixed perspective.  Why not, every other racial group has their own media microcosm.  Take that, Brian Lehrer!

Liveblogging the Oscars!

Let's get a few things out of the way:

1. We all know the Awards are under pressure for the lack of nominees of color, so I anticipate completely inappropriate insertions of black people presenting.

2. Let us all pray that Gwyneth Paltrow does use yet another award show as yet another opportunity to sing. #overexposure

3. I've realized it's much more satisfying to watch awards season unfold as a marketer vs as an artist.  Everything makes much more sense, highly recommend.

Actually, if I'm going to muse in short, perfunctory sentences, that's more fitting for the Tweeting, don't you think?

#takingthischattertoTwitter

Liveblogging the Oscars: Red Carpet

(hit refresh to get the latest...)

It's time for everyone's favorite industry-wide public masturbation session, The Academy Awards!  Let's get some foreplay going with some fashion & celeb snark, shall we?  (We shall, and we shall be referring to the E! Red Carpet for you viewers at home.)

HBHM: The Undercover Black Person

I was overjoyed to find my favorite essay on mixed-ness published in its entirety online - Danzy Senna's The Mulatto Millennium brilliantly captures what it's like, especially for those of us who "look white" and are therefore privy (though I use that term loosely) to all sorts of shades of grey in the chasm between black and white.

White folks were the most uncomfortable with the dissonance between the face they saw and the race they didn't. Upon learning who I was, they grew paralyzed with fear that they might have "slipped up" in my presence, that is, said something racist, not knowing there was a Negro in their midst. Often, they had.

Full article.

On a related note, being the only black and white (and red) person in most of my groups and a big avoider of conflict, I never know what to do when a friend says something I deem racist, whether about one of my races or someone else's.  This happens every so often. Yes, I am probably more sensitive than others due to my racial makeup.  And yes, classification of racism is hugely subjective.  Still, I feel complicit if I don't call it out.  So where's the line?

In Which the Mayoress is on the (kind of) News!

You GUYS!  Last week my friend Sarena called and asked if I might like to go on a Washington DC TV show called Let's Talk Live and give some marketing tips.  Oh, sigh, I don't know, I'm pretty busy... uh, obvs I hopped the first Bolt south, and yesterday I got to go to a real live news studio in our nation's capital (well, kind of - across the river, but greater metropolitan area, right?).

Hold onto your morning joe, stay-at-home parents and unemployed college grads, and get ready for some marketing tips from The Mayoress!



Obviously this has major implications: I am now kind of a pundit, and kind of an expert, and kind of have the kind of TV experience one would need to run for NYC Mayoress in 18 years.  Take that and run with it, exploratory committee*!

Excuse me while I go viral this.

*Or whenever you're done with that cocktail, Babs.

HBHM: President's Day Edition!

On this fine bank holiday, Meet the Pressler honors multicultural American leadership by listing all of our multiracial or biracial or multicultural or otherwise racially diverse presidents!

Barack Obama

Wasn't that fun?  Happy President's Day everyone!

HBHM: On Half-Blackness and Halle Berry

Half-Black History Month Continues...

I was over the (half) moon to see a well-rounded feature in the Times recently about the decision by many young bi- and multi-racial Americans to define themselves as such.

Many young adults of mixed backgrounds are rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity... “It depends on the day, and it depends on the options.” They are also using the strength in their growing numbers to affirm roots that were once portrayed as tragic or pitiable. “I think it’s really important to acknowledge who you are and everything that makes you that. If someone tries to call me black I say, ‘yes — and white.’ People have the right not to acknowledge everything, but don’t do it because society tells you that you can’t.”

I feel incredibly strongly about this -- unlike Halle Berry (I know, you thought we were exactly the same, but it's really just exterior), I do not buy into the one-drop rule that one black ancestor means I must define myself and my experience as African-American.  That's about as genuine as Michelle Obama identifying as white since she has white ancestors; her life experience has probably been lived as a black woman regardless of her genetic history.

One of my clients right now is a transman who has written a rock memoir (yes, that's my term, go marketing!) about his life and transition from female to male.  It's been a huge eye-opener for me.  I can't imagine being born into the wrong body, an identity that I couldn't embrace... and yet, I identify heavily with his story, as throughout my life I have been, and always will be, confronted by people and situations that want to tell me how I "should" identify, which box I should check.  Identity, ideally, should be something that is self-determined, and the rest of the world should accept it and carry on.  It feels insincere for me to say I'm black because that ignores a huge part of what has shaped me, but on the other side of the oreo, saying I'm white certainly doesn't tell the whole story either. So it is fine with me if Halle identifies as black, but I hope as time goes on, she lets her (quarter-black) daughter define herself.

The Mayoress Decrees: Half-Black History Month!

It's February, you know what that means?  Tacky Valentine's Day gifts, daydreaming about Spring Break, and feeling guilty you don't know more about black people!

Well, the guilt end now because the Mayoress is decreeing the second half (get it?) of February...

Half-Black History Month!!!

Yesiree racial voyeurs, for the next two weeks I will focus my meandering rants on the issues of multi-race.  Because mixed is the new black!

Look forward to contributions from such mixed luminaries as Mariah Carey, Halle Berry, Tiger Woods, and the POTUS himself!*

Questions & suggestions welcome... more to come.

*Subject to change without notice.

You Can't Explain a Revolution in 140 Characters

I'm just as guilty as every American described in this editorial by Frank Rich -- I have little knowledge of the background and context of what's going on in the Middle East, and I too have lazily made my revolution talking point about the use of social media to organize.  But:

“Let’s get a reality check here,” said Jim Clancy, a CNN International anchor, who broke through the bloviation on Jan. 29 by noting that the biggest demonstrations to date occurred on a day when the Internet was down. “There wasn’t any Twitter. There wasn’t any Facebook,” he said. No less exasperated was another knowledgeable on-the-scene journalist, Richard Engel, who set the record straight on MSNBC in a satellite hook-up with Rachel Maddow. “This didn’t have anything to do with Twitter and Facebook,” he said. “This had to do with people’s dignity, people’s pride. People are not able to feed their families.”


And further, on our collective lack of attention to or tolerance of Middle East issues, lately exemplified by what Rich identifies as the American corporate-level blackout of Al Jazeera English:


The consequence of a decade’s worth of indiscriminate demonization of Arabs in America — and of the low quotient of comprehensive adult news coverage that might have helped counter it — is the steady rise in Islamophobia.

OMG Are U Going to the Rally!?!

Egypt rally today in Times Square at 3:30pm!!  What you guys wearing???

But for serious, I think it's fantastic that the people are standing up (and shouting, and marching, and even kicking    a few asses*) for their freedom and what they want.  How many of us would be willing to put our lives at risk for what we believed to be our country's greater good?

The photos are just amazing.  Imagine if this was your city, your street... the thing I've found most striking about the protests in Tunis, Jordan, Egypt, is that it's all men, mostly young men.  What would it all look like, how would it all progress, if the women were out there too?

*Except for Anderson Cooper's, that's not cool.  But I'm pretty sure the Mubarak side was behind that, so, see?  They totes need to be ousted.

Bloomberg on Bloomberg