A newsletter from ya gurl, B |
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About two months ago (what is time?) I was cooking dinner. I went to google “how to defrost ground meat” because sometimes I just wonder if I'm doing anything right. I paused at “how to” and finished with “be an adult.” How to be an adult? God damnit, what does the internet say to this?! I clicked on the top hit, 'cus who has time for depth? Turns out some basic pillars shook me (Psychology Today): - Don’t be a jerk
- Take full responsibility for where you’re at in your life
- Love hard and responsibly
- Stop lying (to yourself first, then to others)
- Check your ego
- Call people back
- Take care of your own problems
- Be grateful
I’d like to pluck one out that touched a real tender spot, and grows more poignant these recent weeks: Stop lying to yourself. |
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"Pledge Allegiance", 2020, oil on canvas |
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Hi you! Welcome (back) to The Color of Normal, where I share my ruminations, my career updates (spoiler alert, there are none right now), and my artwork centered around the perennial question, what is the color of normal? This question was planted in my brain in 2016 when I read the seminal essay by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She wrote, “Now is the time to counter lies with facts, repeatedly and unflaggingly, while also proclaiming the greater truths: of our equal humanity, of decency, of compassion. Every precious ideal must be reiterated, every obvious argument made, because an ugly idea left unchallenged begins to turn the color of normal. It does not have to be like this.” (The New Yorker) When you're done with this newsletter, come on back here and submit some anonymous thoughts and questions. This is for you if you need any processing, and helps me understand who I'm conversing with along the way. |
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"Jaela", 2020, Digital Drawing Experiment |
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Letting go of 'normal' // embracing a new structure of feeling In week 3 of COVID-19 I was speaking on a panel of live music event producers, curators and bookers, discussing the future of live music. Among the other panelists was a willful hope that if they were to work faster, strategize deeper, they could manage the tectonic shifts beneath their feet. Grind harder, and we can create events that will be the same and safe! But I had to concede: nah bro. None of us are going to be able to do work in our field in full for at least another year. Going faster won’t catch us up to anything we can plan for. By now, all of us in live music events have had to come to terms with the fact that gathering in close-knit, large crowds in a care-free way will be the last thing to come back. The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) is working to preserve and nurture the ecosystem of independent live music venues throughout the United States. Without support from Congress, 90% of NIVA’s independent venues, festivals & promoters across America say they will be forced to close their doors forever. Congress will be voting this month, so I urge you to go to www.SaveOurStages.com to send a letter to Congress. The form for the letter is already filled in, you just have to add your name! It takes less than 30 seconds. The panel was just the beginning of my letting go of the past. No longer am I looking to the normalcy of what was before as a blueprint for what we want in the future.
And what was previously normal for me may not be what was normal for you. Whichever version of normal, I’m certain we’re not going back to it. I’m finding a radical acceptance in the way things are falling apart, because once I can accept that there’s no going back to normal, I can join the coalition of people who want to build a better future for all (The Atlantic).
As we move through the waves of COVID-19, we will be gaslighted to think we want the old normal, to reinvest in old structures. Instead of using this disruption of reality to move forward in a new direction and leave behind what hurts us, the advertising industry will prey on your yearning for stability (Medium). I truly hope we can resist this damaging white noise and listen to the changing tides calling us into a hopeful future for more people. |
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"Discontent," 2020, Digital Painting Experiment |
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Stop Lying to Myself And so here’s the big one - the way I’m really trying to reckon with how I might be lying to myself. And It’s very awkward and vulnerable to be this brutally honest here, but I hope it encourages you to confront your own lies you may be telling yourself. Because if we all embrace our own shadows, we help the collective healing. I am a recipient of generational wealth. And I've spent my adult years lying to myself about the degree to which I am incredibly privileged. I am a proud to be a great grand-daughter of Yiddish immigrant, a grand-daughter of a self-made, first-generation Jew who built a successful ball-bearing business from scratch. His mindset was about growing wealth, both for the security of the immediate family and for broader altruism for the world. I have thus been cradled by the baseline reality that a financial net can catch me if I fall, and I have experienced zero barriers to my education, my ability to build credit, rent a home, or access educational enrichment from an early age. Yes, I am talented and driven, but boy oh boy have I been provided opportunities too. The weight of my jewish-immigrant lineage remains ever-present. My own grandfather was close to his impoverished family in Russia, cousins and aunts who share memories of their parents fleeing Pogroms. My mom and her siblings know the wearied faces of their Old World grandparents like the creases in their own foreheads. With the means of family wealth came a deep familiarity with the grief of not having those very means. I'm grateful everyday for what my ancestors afforded me. And yet I carry a constant guilt - no, not the jewish one, the privilege one. In Josef Albers’ Color Theory, one color appears radically different once placed next to another color. When I hold my story adjacent to that of many Black Americans, it starts to look very white. |
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"Hear No, See No, Speak No Whiteness?" 2020, Digital painting mock up, |
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The Color of White “White privilege is swimming in a stream, and you’re swimming the direction that the stream is going. You’re swimming along with the current. It doesn’t mean you’re not working hard. It doesn’t mean you’re not struggling. But you’re swimming along in the current. And the black experience is working hard, and swimming against the current. We’re having to paddle harder, to work harder. It’s not that white people haven’t struggled. It’s that they are struggling in a system that is built to move them forward.” - Nikole Hannah-Jones on “Where Do We Go From Here” with Oprah. As white folks look inside themselves and process the racism that is packed into their own upbringing and country, my hope is that white folks consider how deep and wide the undergirding of racism is: "Racism shapes not only individual actions but, more dangerously, collective, civic, governmental, and official responses to everyday life, from traffic violations to college admission to which mothers are cared for during childbirth and which are left to die, to which children are disproportionately disciplined in schools, to which type of hairdo is considered appropriate, to who is perceived as too loud or too angry, to who can run, nap, read, and watch birds in peace" (NACLA). Have you met 'Chad Crow'? He’s “the super chill grandson of Jim Crow” (Medium), also known as the polite white supremacy we are living in today. I found this (hilariously accurate) term so helpful in understanding that the current guise of white supremacy is not as stark as history has painted it. But it's still as harmful. "As much as I’d like systemic racism to simply be a problem of different groups not seeing each other — I need you to see yourself, really see yourself, first. This is the top priority." says Ijeoma Oluo in her essay, "White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves" |
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"Ansisters," 2020, Digital Drawing Experiment |
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Inheritance For all the wealth that was passed down to me, I never really inherited much financial literacy. Somewhere along the generational nexus, it got presumed that I’m worthy of inheriting the money, but not the knowledge of how to best engage with it. Women especially, across all socioeconomic standings, are left out of money managing conversations. All my life I have felt intimidated by the financial sector, the stock market, or even just starting a conversation about my own financial literacy. Before I could even ask a question, I immediately felt shame for not having been born with this apparently innate knowledge, or for just bringing up this taboo topic. And honey, that’s intentional in these sectors! They want people on the margins to stay there. Eek, I used the vague term “they”. Ok, in this instance “they” means people that benefit from patriarchal, racial capitalism. Eek! those overused terms can turn some people off as well! Ok fiiiine, when I say "they" I mean👏 Chad 👏 Crow. Enter Ellevest! Owned and run by women, and speaking in plain English, Ellevest is a wealth management company seeking to empower all folks - but especially women - to understand the ins and outs of financial literacy, as well as wealth growth & management. I cannot emphasize enough how much their free platforms have cracked open my confidence to take the reins on my own financial life. Whoever you are, I hope through exploring their mission, magazine articles, newsletters, and social media, you see just how 'Chad Crow' every other financial sphere is in contrast. Or in other words, I hope you sense how much more we need to talk about money in a community-minded, compassionate, socially conscious, emotionally literate way! Check them out |
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"Does the Mirror World go on Forever?" 2018, Oil on Canvas |
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Generational Wealth // Generational Debt “Conditions that have been so dire, now combined with revolts in the street, might lead one to believe that not only is the society unraveling, but it might cause you to question what foundation it was built upon in the first place." (NY Times Magazine) ~OK 'MERIKA!~ If I’m going to do some growing up, stop lying to myself and be honest about where my wealth came from, what would it look like if you did the same? In her essay “What is Owed,” Nikole Hannah-Jones writes “Wealth, not income, is the means to security in America. Wealth — assets and investments minus debt — is what enables you to buy homes in safer neighborhoods with better amenities and better-funded schools. It is what enables you to send your children to college without saddling them with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and what provides you money to put a down payment on a house. It is what prevents family emergencies or unexpected job losses from turning into catastrophes that leave you homeless and destitute. It is what ensures what every parent wants — that your children will have fewer struggles than you did. Wealth is security and peace of mind. It’s not incidental that wealthier people are healthier and live longer. Wealth is, as a recent Yale study states, “the most consequential index of economic well-being” for most Americans. But wealth is not something people create solely by themselves; it is accumulated across generations.” Speaking in generations, my great-grandfather arrived to the United States seeking opportunity at the same time someone else’s great-grandfather was living under Jim Crow laws. Morally, white people cannot afford to act like the history of our country isn't still robbing Black people of the "American Dream," nonetheless their equal humanity. “The difference between the lived experience of black Americans and white Americans when it comes to wealth — along the entire spectrum of income from the poorest to the richest — can be described as nothing other than a chasm…racial wealth gap is about the same as it was in the 1950s as well. The typical black household today is poorer than 80 percent of white households.” (NY Times Magazine) Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA) is calling for Formation of Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Commission, saying that "hate left unchecked only repeats and escalates…That cycle is never broken without reckoning with the truth” Once we all reckon with the truth about our foundation, I believe we will have to reconcile with the fact that this country has a deep moral and financial debt. What is owed and how to pay it back is a conversation I hope to continue. |
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Photo experiment w/ Nathan Mansakahn |
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I'M DOING TOO MUCH // I'M NOT DOING ENOUGH! I am interested in everyone’s healing. But I simply can’t recommend anything to you if I haven’t healed myself. I try to remember that guilt and shame are just feelings, they are not actions. And if I start to feel guilty about my means, I redirect my energy to be inconsolable about the fact that other people I love don’t have those means. Then I get to action. Some small, sustainable anti-racism practices: - Purchase is power! I’m breaking up with Amazon, and making every effort to instead purchase local and especially Black owned whenever possible. Here are some compiled lists:
NY MAG black owned business Black Nation Ellevest Black women owned businesses - I need a brick by brick, day by day approach too! I appreciate Antiracism Daily, a newsletter taking small bites of huge issues everyday. Digestible and nourishing.
- Listen to a level-headed, honest conversation about what it means when people say “Abolish the police” or “defund the police." Elegantly handled conversations that include both sides on these topics are:
- The Daily, Michael Barbaro speaks with a Police Union Officer - PBS news hour with Charlene Carruthers who SLAYS! (my bias shows) - Consider your body. On the podcast OnBeing, Resmaa Menakem works with old wisdom and very new science about our bodies and nervous systems, and all that is condensed into the word “race.”
See previous newsletter for more in depth book recommendations, and personal/interpersonal questions to ask yourself. |
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"When I Cling to Your Skin" 2019, Oil on Canvas |
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Thank you for still being here. I really do appreciate you. I'M SELLING PRINTS AND POSTCARDS OF MY ARTWORK! Here is my online store! 50% of all proceeds from the store will be donated to Assata's Daughters, a Black woman-led, young person-directed organization rooted in the Black Radical Tradition. |
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SOUL-FEEDING THINGS! - A Spotify playlist of the local musicians who make the Music Renaissance in Chicago! Curated by musician and friend Kenny Leftridge of LeftJones! Listen, enjoy, support!
- Oooooooh the beef between Noname and J Cole is a very specific and fleeting, but a tension that speaks to me! Her response song "33" is fire!
- Dave Chapelle comes back to the stage to purge his feelings and thoughts in his very own hometown.
- Oh my gaaahhhhh, this Black dominatrix requires that her clients read Black Feminist Thoughts! 🤓 Education is hot hot hot.
- Director Jenn Nkiru authors a personal and powerful visual exploration of blackness through piecing together dreamlike portraits with stunning archival footage. A Masterpiece.
- A lil mini doc about one of my favorite artists and sculptors, Barbara Chase-Riboud!
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Pastel drawing from childhood |
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That's it! Bless your heart if you read all this. Don't forget to breath and tell someone you love them. If you loved this, will you consider forwarding it to one other person in your life? 'Til next time 😚 |
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