Category: Women

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Goal, Purpose, Plan

I must admit, I don’t read all my emails but occasionally I get a supposed junk email that catches my eye.

YouTube Creator sent me one that made me say “Hmm”. It was an interview: Building Community on YouTube | Amplify Voices featuring Tiffany Rothe (TiffanyRotheWorkouts). That it was focused on a Black female YouTube Creator was important as we don’t get to see Black women as entrepreneurs as I would like. And we particularly don’t get to see Black women getting instruction on the media tools that are out there (of course, we could learn from Black Creators who are taking TikTok to task.)

Fitness instructor Tiffany Rothe has a clear approach to success: having a goal, a purpose and a plan. You all know my current goal to be a Career Development Practitioner/Consultant. I purpose is to provide career direction to those who are feeling lost in this Covid era. In truth, I was feeling lost myself which is why I took to this path.

My plan? Well there is the completion of my CDP program at George Brown College. After that? I have some ideas – who knows?

#YouTube #Blackwomen #media #careerdevelopment

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Squiggly careers

While my course at George Brown College does not start until September, I am taking charge of my learning now.

Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper are career development consultants who founded Amazing If. Their take is that careers should not go up a ladder – that is too limiting. Instead they opt for what they call a “squiggly” approach.

TEDx Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis

I would argue that my career so far has been neither up a ladder or “squiggly”. Instead it has been flatlined – my day jobs have long been administrative and safe, working for libraries, government and schools. They never reflected my real life, be they consulting, public speaking, media presenting, and facilitating workshops – all opportunities to teach and reach people.

Who knows? Eventually Tupper and Ellis may have a place for me. Or better yet, I will create a place for myself.

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Ariel: the same ol’ story

Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Halle Bailey (TLM revisioned?), Naomie Harris (Calypso from Pirates of the Caribbean)

Let me take a crack at this, shall we?

Forgive the expletive but this sh*t is not new. I watched the same racist furor with James Bond and Doctor Who.

What gets me, though, is how short everybody’s memory is. Halle Bailey (not Berry – though she has her own “she’s playing a white woman’s part” water association a la Ursula Andress) is NOT the first black woman to play a female sea creature.

Have we forgotten Naomie Harris’ role as Calypso in Pirates of the Caribbean? When you think about it the two characters have similarities, if you compare PotC with the original Hans Christian Anderson story. Both fall in love with a white (hu)man, both get screwed over by a white guy.

Which leads me to this question – do we really want to continue this Strange Days legacy? WHICH fantasy/scifi roles will Black women get going forward and how problematic are those roles going to be? Or can we follow the Black Panther banner, problems and all, and move on.

Meanwhile, unlike the fantasy genre both of these characters inhabit, trolls are very much a reality today. My take?

The trolls can stick it.

And the bottom line is the bottom line – there is no way in heck Disney would take a risk like this if they did not think a black mermaid  would sell. 

In the end, it is all about buying and selling, isn’t it? The irony is not lost on me.

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Black Women in Alabama – 2017 in review

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#bwia with Doug Jones

2017 was a hard year for everyone:  ailing elderly parents, issues with our children and/or partners, problems in work or finding it, or coming down with sometimes  illness as serious as cancer (shoutout to B).

As I have repeated time and time again: #bwia #BlackwomeninAlabama. If they could move forward in adversity, anyone can.

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Monica Bodirsky, Kristine Maitland, Rev. Terrie Brookins, Rosemary Stehlik

But the only way we can get through it is to turn to our communities (often we have more than one).  I want to take this time, perhaps again, to thank friends, old (Bridge, SCA, BiWoT, WCC, et. al.) and new, for all the help they gave me during the crisis with my mother last May, among other things.

Also, thanks to my new friends, from Women’s Drumming Circle to the #broomwomen, for introducing me to a new way of looking at my life, from the participating in the arts to the moontimes.

2017 has been a time for me make decisions as to how I will move forward as I look up closer to fifty.  Things are looking good.

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Women’s Drumming Circle lead by Veronica Johnny.