Interview with Nina Revoyr and Ryan Smith. Artwork by Shauna Dixon, public school student.
The summer before my senior year of high school, I discovered AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), which was all the rage in the late 90s. It was thrilling to easily connect with other teens from all over the country. I had been chatting for weeks with this teenager who one day casually joked about being Asian and I thought: “What on earth would I have in common with some Asian guy?!”
To My White Friends, Progressives, Liberals, and Reformists:
Like many Black children, I was raised with the parental refrain: You have to work twice as hard as any white person to get half as far. This refrain was said matter-of-factly in my home, an acknowledgment of the power of white supremacy and a tacit acceptance that the best we could hope for was to survive—not change—an unjust system. When I was in middle school and a white friend would get in a schoolyard fight or bring home a bad report card, my parents would remind me: “You cannot do that.” And when I turned 40 and thought about leaving my job to explore consulting and writing projects, I heard myself repeating the same refrain: “You cannot do that—leave a job without having a job!?”
When I left a job with colleagues, bosses and members that I admired and loved, I was determined to do two things: 1.) Write creatively, politically and unapologetically regularly. 2.) Take consulting work only from clients that I deeply admire and see as truly Good Influences on our community. Anthony Thigpenn of California Calls is one of those clients. He’s a mix of refreshingly candid and also intriguing and mysterious
I recently buried my 93-year old grandfather. Funerals are described as a “celebration of life,” yet are often fraught with regret, despair and blame. In the case of my grandpa Victor, however, his funeral was a celebration of a life and dream fully realized.
Victor was the victor of an American Dream. He immigrated from Kingston, Jamaica to Brooklyn in the late 60s. His wife was sponsored to enter this country to work as a live-in maid for a wealthy Jewish family. She left her own children to take care of other people’s children. But, thanks to a policy focused on helping families immigrate to this country together, my grandmother saved up and eventually brought her husband and four children to join her in America.
I collect mentors and I collect dresses. In fact, I have different mentors for different occasions in my life and career—mentors who help me sort out thorny political strategy, mentors who help me think through people management challenges, mentors who give me tough love and courage, mentors who help me integrate motherhood and careerhood. I am evangelical about the power of mentorship.
