Disrupt or adapt
Being the second daughter of a Nigerian immigrant, I have been exposed to the intersection of culture all my life. With a grandmother who spoke several Nigerian languages, only understood basic English and did not know how to read or write any language, I learnt very quickly that where you come from does not dictate where you end up.
For me, there are only two options. Disrupt or adapt.
To disrupt means never to be silenced, to speak up in times of adversity, to explain and help others understand experiences beyond their own. It is the beckoning sound of my voice refusing to be quietened. It is strength. Adapting, on the other hand is weakness. It’s settling and being forced to accept an apology you’ll never receive. It’s making excuses for people’s ignorance and not feeling free to be yourself. It’s changing who you are to make others feel comfortable. I choose to disrupt one hundred times over, because choosing to adapt means giving in. It means my experience isn’t valid enough to teach others about it. It means I’ll constantly be perpetuating the feelings of inadequacy and inferiority that many minorities have. It means I’ll always work with or for people who have no idea what it feels like to be a black woman in the workplace. It means my culture and any culture that doesn’t meet British and Eurocentric standards don’t matter. And they do, my God, do they matter.
I didn’t know the impact of my blackness until I started working. Imagine, I’d lived 23 years doing my thing, knowing I had to work twice as hard as my non-ethnic counterparts, but it still didn’t really click. When I noticed I was being ignored in communal areas of the office, or people would wait for another lift so they wouldn’t have to get in one with me, or had to listen to micro-aggressive racial comments, I knew I had to say something or I’d be spinning in their wheels of ignorance forever.
Working in media was an extension of consuming it. The first time I truly saw myself in mainstream media was in MTV’s show Daria, in the character Jodie Landon. Her character explored the intersectionality of feminism, social class and race. “I’m tired of being the extreme minority and I don’t want to go to a place where people might think I just got in because I’m African-American” and “Why play into this stupid charade anymore than we have to?” are sentiments she expressed that sentiments I have battled with too. Jodie’s question “Why play into this stupid charade anymore than we have to?” was answered by Landon herself as she sat on the homecoming float and saw a young black girl cheering her on in the crowd. She had become a role model for this young girl, and that fact mattered more than playing into a charade.
The advertising industry is on the edge of a possible revolution. Right now, most agencies are guilty of employing the same type of person. This means that many of the adverts at bus stops, on TV, before a video on YouTube, only speak to certain type of person. To speak to audiences the right way, the industry needs to know them properly. It needs to reflect culture from within to be able to impact it outside. If they don’t, savvy clients will go elsewhere. There are brands, who despite having worked with award-winning agencies, are choosing to work with black-owned businesses because traditional agencies are no longer a reflection of their audiences. It is a critical moment in time for the industry, because now more than ever it is realising that more difference can actually equate to more creative value.
The lack of difference in the creative industry means it’s at risk of having a limited, even out-of-date, perspective on creativity. So for a second, imagine all the things about you that make you feel like you can’t fit in. Imagine your most extreme differences. The type of music you listen to, the TV shows you watch, where you went to school. Those things could mean you are this industry’s most valuable asset. How you think, where you go to for inspiration, what you do in your spare time, trusting you’re sharp to a constant cultural shift, knowing what’s lit and what’s a little bit leave it. These differences are what make you a more attractive candidate. Your point of difference IS your appeal.
In the moments I feel like I may be ‘playing into the charade’, I remind myself that I’m not doing this just for me. I’m a writer to open doors for other ethnic writers. I’m a different person to open doors for other different people. To open doors for LGBTQ strategists, to pop off for disabled creatives. This journey is more than me. I’m constantly commended and congratulated on how far I’ve come, and I know it’s on me to take the chances that come my way. When opportunity knocks, you invite her in for a three course meal with unlimited bubbles and petit fours. You don’t pretend you didn’t hear the door because it wasn’t loud enough for you to acknowledge or in a knock pattern you’re familiar with. You open the door wide and beg her to come in.
I’ll leave you with this, “You don’t need access to a multitude of people to impact culture. Jesus poured into twelve men and they turned the world upside down”.
