Take a look at your life. In my country, we say, see your life. This is a Nigerian saying, which I think translates to what shame you've brought upon your parents, your ancestors, your kindergarten teachers, your Sunday school pastor, your soccer coach, the career counsellor, the gate man, your uncle that no one in the family talks to.
All by the life you are living, the life you have chosen to live. This is a very, very loose translation. According to Nina, if you have a Nigerian friend, I'm sure you do. There are 220 million of us. Feel free to verify. Have you ever met someone who just by virtue of living their own life, doing their own thing, literally made you say to yourself, see my life?
Look at me, Mommy. I'm strong. I am beautiful. I'm black,
I'm strong,
I'm beautiful. I'm black.
Hey, y'all. Welcome back to the Every Shade Podcast Meno Na Mani Nina. That's “my name is Nina” in Finnish. Why Finnish, you might ask. Someone keeps gifting me fancy Finnish licorice, and I don't like licorice, so I'm hoping they hear this and stop. Everything I do, there's a reason for it. However random and cluttered it may appear. Today, I am fully in question mode. Some people were extremely productive during the Covid lockdowns. 1, 2, 3, 4, COVID Saga, COVID moonlight, the return of the lockdown Covid, the final frontier. Some people less so. For the people who were out there shaming folk for not getting two degrees during the lockdown, you need to repent.
I spent the summer of last year in Geneva surrounded by some very amazing people who genuinely humbled me in the nicest of ways. There I was, fully in my corporate job and mostly loving myself. Sat across from me was a woman who had just come from the Ukrainian border, a chap who was working on vaccine rollout in Argentina and another lady who was doing fieldwork in Yemen. With no intention whatsoever, these interactions just had me thinking about my life, like that deep questioning where you put your chin in the palm of your hand and you really think. Between all the thinking and all the self-reflection that Covid gave us and these amazing people, I was really thinking about my purpose, my drive, my why am I here again?
Is this it? And if it is, is that okay? Am I okay with that? Is this enough? Ist es genug? That's German for, “is it enough?” And by extension from that question I was asking myself, I guess, am I enough? Not for anyone else, not for a company or a partner, but for me, for the 14-year-old version of me who dared to dream dreams, real big dreams with very little limitation, am I enough for her?
Am I doing right by her? I think at 14, my dreams were that beautiful mix of reality and fantasy. They were within the realms of possibility but not yet caged in by bills, and taxes, National insurance, wasted money on lottery tickets, and cautionary tales of aunties, uncles, and cousins who dared to spit in the wind only to have this silky mixture whack them back in the face.
The life you're living now, is it yours? Did you choose it, or was it a thrust upon you? For example, let's take Nina. For years, even when common sense said to tap out, throw in the perfume, sweat-drenched towel, I have advocated for equality. Why do I care so much about equity in race and ethnicity relations?
Why do I care about access to financial services for minorities? Is it only because I is Black? Is the reason I'm shouting from the rooftops and street corners like a bargain mall, Santa all day, every day about discrimination because I have endured it, and I don't like it all that much. If I had generally never been overtly discriminated against, if I wasn't Black, would I still give a damn?
If I was Indian, would I care, or would it depend on if I was from the north or the south? If I was a white-Finnish person who gave out licorice way too liberally, would I care, and specifically, would I care the same to the same degree? Can you be as driven to fight domestic violence if you yourself have never even seen it, let alone endured the horrors of emotional, mental, or physical abuse?
Whether as a child or as an adult, are your passions already chosen for you by virtue of the life that you have had to endure? And if there wasn't that much to endure in your life? What the heck are you passionate about, then? Someone once told me to pass on the baton. I had to find somebody as passionate as I was about equity so they could do the work it is that I do. Talk about it like I do. But if our passions are driven by experiences, how do I find this person? I thought obviously we're gonna put an ad out on LinkedIn. I gotta use that premium membership with something cuz sister; these monthly fees be strangling a growing business lordt. The draft job ad reads like this and I genuinely want feedback so, find me on LinkedIn.
Okay, here we go. Seriously. Job requirements: The ideal candidate will have been randomly selected in airports in the last five years. Experience with police profiling, either directly or indirectly, is required. Candidate will have been speaking three or four languages from the age of seven, but will have been repeatedly congratulated for mastering English, the simplest of the four languages. Experience getting overlooked for promotions is nice to have. Any experience teaching your adults and children about discrimination and how to avoid getting singled out or in trouble is highly desirable. The top candidate will have been asked about their hair, their skin, or their penis size in the last year.
Hiring is all year round. Apply as soon as possible for early consideration. No limit on places. Visa sponsorship is subject to the readability of your name.
Before you say it, wait, wait. Before, you say it. Let me. Nina. Why do you have to take things so far? People. How else will we learn? I do this for you. In corporate speak, I believe this is called self-sacrificial leadership, leading from the front with the back while thinking about the middle, sometimes, new normal, resilience, forward slash, agile. Seriously though, if you or someone you love have never endured a sizable injustice, can you be as passionate an advocate if you have at best, only seen it on tv, saw a 30 second video, swiped through several posts?
Are male allies as passionate about gender parity and pay as the females in that space?
Should they be? Or is it enough that they showed up to the meeting? Are LGBT allies just as driven, or is it enough to wear pink once a year and keep it moving? If you are white, can you feel the soul crushing hurt of what is probably the global Black population when the police murder another Black person?
Is it possible to be as passionate for change if you think, scratch that, if you know that something like that will never happen to you or your kids. If you're the groom whose family is looking for a bride that is very fair or very, very fair and dismissing potential brides as too dark, can you come close to first understanding what sort of psychological damage is being done in that situation? and two, taking a stand against it. I don't know. Like I said, today is full question mode. I've got thoughts, not answers. So if you came here for revelation, baby, you took a wrong turn. As you sashay into or away from your midlife crises, quarter life questioning, or whatever cliched life checkpoint you're at, as you think about why you're here, you and all you've got, ask yourself if you've been pigeonholed by circumstance.
Could be that by virtue of nature or nurture, most definitely both, the only things you are now passionate about are a decent tee-off time, the right temperature gingerbread, latte, and pictures you're tagged in without having vetted them. Then again, it could be you're passionate about getting people to love the skin that they're in because, for far too long, the industry has told them that they are not the standard of beauty.
Or maybe I'm just projecting. Who knows?
When you go for a job interview, you're told to appear passionate and appear to really want this job. Smile, ask questions, be enthusiastic. Is this a scam? Yes, you're passionate about having a job, paying the mortgage, having healthcare, getting more money, dropping the kids off somewhere nice every day for what you hope is a fully-rounded education. Of course, you are, but let me ask you this. Are you as passionate about the job, the role, the day-to-day activities that have been described to you as wide ranging with no real ownership, involving some difficult senior stakeholders with the pulll to have you fired in a heartbeat, a behind-the-scenes role, a thankless task sometimes? Should you feign passion for this? Yes, yes, yes, please. Obviously, because every person who wields the magic wand of approved hiring expects you, has been trained to expect you to. They pretend, you pretend. We all pretend. So while you're out there feigning passions, perhaps I could also entice you with an opportunity too good to miss.
Finnish Licorice Good. While you're there pretending to be gaga for this job, do you think you could also pretend to be gaga for some form of social justice? Some equity for people to get the same pay for the same job, regardless of their skin color, their gender, and their faith. To have access to the same opportunities regardless of how many consonants they have in their name?
Could I convince you to stretch yourself and you're acting just a little bit further? Think about how much better the world would be if we all just pretended to like each other all the time, except for when we were asleep, obviously. Is this the strategy? Have I stumbled onto something genius here?
Wait, wait. I think I have. Instead of getting people to genuinely address their biases, let's just all agree to pretend to like each other actively. If only, maybe that's the assignment for this week. Go out there this week and pretend to like people, to like your neighbour who looks nothing like you.
Pretend you actually want the qualified candidate for the job, go through all the resumes and interview those whose skills actually stand out. Pretend you don't care that your son is dating someone whose physical attributes you don't like. Invite them over to dinner. Get to know them, even. My God, ask what their middle name is. Pretend you like all the people in your team and want to be a good manager to all of them. Buy them a coffee, have a chat, and maybe even pronounce their actual name. God help you. Who knows? You're on a roll, right? And I know most of you will not do this homework, and even if you do, you'll give up by tea time.
And so my encouragement to myself today is, after years of trying to figure out purpose, passion, and life, I think the fog is lifting until the next time it's Every Shade.
I’m beautiful, I’m black
www.voueeskin.com