The Fever Dream that is America

A good flu can be cathartic.

Of course, the first day is always traumatic: The scratchy throat, slight cough, itchy eyes. You know something’s coming on but you don’t yet know how bad it’s gonna get so you’re in this unsettling unwellness limbo. It’s probably too late for zinc, so you pop an ibuprofen, do two jumping jacks, and hope for the best.

Next thing you know, it’s two nights later, you’re laying crossways on your bed, a blanket covers only half your body, wadded up toilet tissue bundles lay in every corner, a half-empty bottle of DayQuil Severe Honey Cold & Flu sits next to a half-empty mug of long-cold ginger root tea, and you’re in the throes of a full-on fever dream starring every person and situation from your past you’ve worked so hard to forget. 

That’s been my life the last several days — sicker than I’ve been in a long time. Omicron? Stratus? Common old unnamed flu bug? Who knows? Covid test was negative, but some manner of hellish virus positively knocked me back into the dark, cold recesses of my mind.

About 12 hours into this thing, when I realized I was truly down for the count, I canceled all my appointments and settled in for a series binge and landed on Sex And The City. About 24 hours later, I was drenched in sick-sweat, drifting somewhere around the third season of the show. There I lay in a fog, comparing my own personal escapades to those of the women on my laptop screen. As ill as I was, I was actually feeling less judgy about the choices (mistakes) I’d made in my own past.

Somewhere deep in the crevices of that fever dream, I recalled how decades ago, from a different life perspective, I watched all those SATC characters cheating, lying, drinking, shopping, living the most silly, surface, superficial lives in a state of suspense. But now, as I watched from today, I somewhere in all that sloppy circus found some...serenity.

This latest bout with the flu had me thinking about the past. Here was this television series from circa 2000 — before 9/11, before the latest racial reckoning and real talk about things like gender...before so much. We know now that the show handled so many cultural issues very poorly. Of course back then, we didn’t know what we know now. And I’m sure the writers of the show were mainly White people who were writing from their White people perspective about some things they knew or cared little about and so a lot of short cuts were taken (all the way to the bank. That show was a hit!)

It was after my fever dream when I watched one episode where Samantha was fighting with three Black transgender women in bad wigs written in stereotypical loud, crass, butch fashion, and more than once Samantha called them (rhymes with grannies) and I thought to myself, The worst of my sickness is over. Do I really care to keep going? 

The thing about the past is, it’s always there. It can never be changed, no matter what anyone says or does, the past is fixed, baby. The things that were done were done. And I have to believe the past is not there for nothing. It serves a purpose.

From my perspective, so much of America’s past reads like a royally messed up fever dream. But, it all happened. I don’t care who’s in office or who has power or who’s pulling strings and banning books and taking down exhibits and re-instituting hurtful names — the past happened! And, this isn’t the 1800s. Or even 2000. We now have the ever expanding internet and informational video reels and, like, the real power of collective and cultural memory, man! We have witnessed how knowing the past has the awesome power to actually put us on a course that informs a higher behavior that — clutch your golf club, dude — sets us free!

That part — the free part — trumps the fever dream all day, and gives us that heady feeling we really want.

The plan was to work my way up to the sequel of this now canceled show, And Just Like That. I don’t know, I may keep going, if only to be reminded of the progress that’s been made. But, I would bet my bottom dollar that Samantha isn’t calling transgender people — oh wait...I remember reading she wasn’t even in most of the new stuff. Huh. 

What a flu that was. A good flu can be cathartic.

Dear Columbia University: Don’t Ditch Diversity!

My daughter and I have a standing appointment each weeknight.

We meet up in our living room at 9 p.m. CST and fire up the big screen to watch NewsNight with Abby Phillip on CNN.

Call it the shared guilty pleasure of two political news junkies.

We’re rarely disappointed; for a lightning-fast 60 minutes, a glowing Abby mediates the oftentimes bombastic conversation between five pundits who, like most Americans today, have wildly differing views on polarizing issues. Between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., our neighbors get an earful of us either cheering or lambasting the guests for their takes on the topic at hand.

(We particularly love to hate when commentator Scott Jennings brings his smug, conservative views to the table. Don’t even get us started on multimillionaire Kevin O’Leary. “Mr. Wonderful” our asses!)

But, I digress.

In 2002, I was featured in a magazine that focused on the business of diversity in the newspaper industry.

Last night, one of the segments was about the Trump administration’s threat to pull federal funding from Columbia University unless it meets a list of demands that were outlined in a letter sent to the university’s interim president. (You can Google what led up to the federal government strong-arming Columbia, but understand that this is arguably part of a broader Trump strategy to gain control of academia at all levels. Because … the more you know doesn’t jibe with authoritarian sentimentality…but, again, I digress.)

One of the Trump administration demands reads that Columbia must “Begin the process of placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies departments under academic receivership for a minimum of five years.”

What even is “academic receivership?”

According to the Associated Press, “Academic receivership is a rarely used practice that puts an academic department under the oversight of a professor or administrator outside the department. It’s sometimes used to reset a department in financial or political turmoil.”

Whatever it means, it struck me that the administration specifically called out these particular three ethnic or regional areas of study. (Of course, the letter doesn’t give an explanation as to why, but those of us with even a little bit of under-attack education can offer up a guess.)

Anyway, back to the Abby hour … During the next commercial break, I sort of nonchalantly, without any braggadocious intent at all, said to my daughter —

“I won an award from Columbia University one time.”

It was as if I said I’d collab-ed with Kendrick Lamar as a co-writer of “Not Like Us.”

“What?!” my daughter exclaimed. “What award?!?”

Well, it just so happened (I mean, honestly…this was really not planned at all) that on the floor next to me, half propped against our little bookcase, half underneath our couch, was my notebook full of circa 1990 charcoal sketches mixed in with a bundle of newspaper clippings of articles I’d penned, along with the September 2002 edition of the Newspaper Association of America’s “People & Product” magazine which focused on the Business of Diversity in the Newspaper Industry.

I prominently graced the cover of that issue along with other “New Faces of Leadership” journalists.

You see, a story I’d written had gotten some traction.

The award-winning story that addressed a glaring racial disparity

In 2001, photographer Peter Yang and I produced a six-page spread for the Austin American-Statesman on makeup for Black women in Austin, Texas.

In 2001, I was a features reporter on the staff of the Austin American-Statesman. Staff photographer Peter Yang and I produced a hard-hitting, in-depth investigative report on…well…(ahem)...yeah, um…makeup.

Yes, makeup.

Now, wait…hear me out. When you are a dark-skinned Black woman in Austin, Texas — a city that is only about eight percent Black — you are going to go through it trying to find a foundation that matches the color of your skin! In 2001 (before 9/11 happened) this was real talk!

What had happened was, without appointments, Peter and I popped into local salons and asked the beauty consultants to beat my face (again, it was 2001, so I probably said something more like “Mrs. DeMille, get me ready for my close up.”)

Long story less long, only a couple of the salons we spontaneously visited that day had any foundation makeup even close to matching the skin on my face. A couple of the makeup artists, obviously embarrassed, dabbed and daubed away on my forehead, cheeks, and chin, using as minimal amounts as possible of the darkest creams or powders they could find in their storerooms. But, even their brownest products were way above my skin grade.

It was scandalous! Our findings made for a scathing (okay, slightly remonstrative and generally light-hearted) report.

I interviewed international supermodel Iman for my investigative report on the lack of makeup for Black Women.

With my writing and Peter’s photography, our investigative work, headlined “I’m Ebony, Not Ivory,” ended up being a whole six-page spread (albeit) in Section E of the newspaper! (Even international supermodel Iman told me that “women of color, whether they are celebrities or the girl next door, share one common denominator: They have limited options and choices in terms of makeup.”)

Here’s why the piece was a “spread” and not just a blurb: Because the makeup was a metaphor for a much larger and more broadly lived experience for Black people in Austin. I may have written the piece with lightness and humor, comparing Kermit the Frog’s gripes around being green with my experiences in the beauty industry around being dark brown. But, I was also able to elevate some sober truths. Like, when I quoted a Black, Los Angeles-based makeup artist.

“If you really date back and think about it,” she said, “you’ll note that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers were busy fighting for things like freedom from slavery and the privilege to vote. It wasn’t about makeup.”

And, I was able to make the point that because my skin is dark and I live in a city where few people look like me, I likely have to search longer, travel farther, and pay more for certain products: The explication being “Racism is always racism-ing, y’all.”

For a young, Black journalist just starting out in the field, this was a heady moment! I could not have been more proud of my hometown newspaper for giving me the space to address an issue that likely directly impacted just a few of their readers. Because even then, representation matters.

In my early days of journalism, I felt so proud of the institution and its mission to cover issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Not so much today.

Here’s why institutions must not abandon diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts

Our work that year landed Peter and me the Columbia University School of Journalism’s “Let’s Do It Better!” award which honored print and broadcast coverage of race and ethnicity. We each won $1,000 and were flown out to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York to present at the Columbia Workshop on Journalism, Race, and Ethnicity. (This is how I ended up being prominently featured on the cover of that aforementioned magazine — a copy of which, until last night, lay dormant in a notebook between old charcoal sketches and newspaper clippings.)

I won that award early on in my journalism career. That whole experience fueled my resolve to write as much and as often as I could about issues of Blackness, diversity, equity, and inclusion. I would go on to write much more on the topics of race and racism. Back then, my adoration for the institution of journalism, and how it aimed to fulfill its mission as a watchdog for the people, was palpable. Today, not so much.

The Trump administration’s push to erase whole histories is nuts! Every day, every journalist in America should be shouting this from the tops of press rooms and studios.

And, while I’m sure Columbia University wants to continue receiving its federal funding, I hope it does not easily capitulate to the demands of a self-described wannabe king who wants us to believe that his overwhelmingly White cabinet is about merit, and who implies that White history is the prevailing history.

I want academic, journalistic, and other institutions to embrace the fact that America is diverse, and that people of so many different ethnicities, cultures, and backgrounds have contributed to whatever successes this nation can claim.

Thank you Abby Phillip for setting me off on a nostalgic journey down memory lane, where my daughter and I made a stop on the corner of makeup for Black women and my Columbia “Let’s Do It Better” award.

If only the powers that be would actually and consistently do it better.