by Issa Rae
Despite the positive affirmations, I still never appreciated fashion as an art form and means of expression until post-college, when I was influenced by three personal and cultural shifts that simultaneously prompted me to reexamine my own sad closet: my move to New York, the release of the movie The Devil Wears Prada, and “Umbrella,” which marked the beginning of Rihanna’s fashion reign. In New York, during my most secluded time period, I was surrounded by the fashionably inclined, and I did not fit in. When I’d be forced to go out at night, or even when I visited my friends Desiree and Kisha in D.C., I was forced to reevaluate my hoodies and jeans and take stock of who I was. At twenty-three, I was a woman, and I needed to start dressing like one. When you’re searching for a job or asking people to take you seriously in any capacity, clothes really do matter—and I had to learn that the hard way via failed job interviews and audition rejections.
So then came my discovery of H&M, which was the first shopping experience that didn’t exhaust or frustrate me. Since childhood, I’ve absolutely abhorred shopping. I’m the type to go shopping only when I have a same-day event or if I have a specific singular outfit in mind. Even now, with the convenience of online shopping, I grow overwhelmed by the number of choices available. H&M, filled with “womanly youthful” selections, helped my transition into general fashion appreciation, and the change was noticed by many of my friends and appreciated by my mother when I came home to visit. “Look at you, where did you find that?” she’d ask, with raised brows and a tone of approval.
“In New York,” I’d respond casually.
Now, I’ve regressed. My Awkward Black Girl persona has allowed me an excuse to not “fit in,” and I’ve taken that out and run with it. T-shirts, jeans, and Chuck Taylors are my uniform of choice, and only when necessary (public events, photo shoots, or social gatherings) will I put in the extra effort to “dress up.” I admire fashion from a distance and I really do have an appreciation, layered with envy, of those men and women who dress up every day of the week. It just seems so exhausting, but to each his own; if the shoe fits, flaunt it.
Only recently, in an intervention by my publicist and stylist, have I been forced to again take stock of my age and “grow up” where style is concerned. Part of it is my weight gain—skinny people always look great in everything, but when you have an apple-shaped body, loose blouses and tees are so much better for the self-esteem. And so I’ve resolved that the last year of my twenties will be spent getting to a size that makes me comfortable enough to take bold fashion risks. But be warned: should I attain my coveted six-pack, I will never feel obligated to wear any clothes. So there.
New York, NY
It was the second week of June and the summer was off to a promising start. I emerged from the C train on 155th and St. Nick, excited about tomorrow’s meeting with a successful television producer. I was going to pitch my college web series, Dorm Diaries, with the hopes of turning it into a television show on BET or MTV. I had been sharpening my pitch package all week (as opposed to doing the work I was being paid to do), ridiculously excited about what I thought to be a rare opportunity. Having been in New York for less than a year, fresh from college, I was determined to “make it there.” Since I had arrived, I was working two jobs and had founded a nonprofit organization called the Black Film Academy, a short-film collective comprised of filmmakers of color determined to reform the image of black film. I had, with the help of my reluctant father, invested in ten thousand dollars’ worth of film and editing equipment and, three months prior, we had hosted a successful fund-raising benefit with more than three hundred attendees. Things were moving. Finally, I was on the right track. As I continued on my path home, I had no idea that my life was about to derail.
The sun was shining, the rats were in hiding, and just as I neared my Washington Heights apartment building, I saw my roommate, Kiki, walking toward our building at the same time. “Roomieboo! Heyyyyyy!” (Roommate + Boo = Roomieboo.) In our near year of living together, we had never gotten home at the same time. She was working toward her Master’s in Public Health at Columbia and would generally leave early in the morning, while I was working toward figuring out my life at a small not-for-profit theater company in the late afternoon. We were happy as hell to see each other, as if we were old friends reuniting after years and not just a twenty-four-hour lapse. As we talked about our respective days, we were thankful to note that the elevator was working and that we didn’t have to walk up five flights of stairs.
The antique elevator doors opened and we hit a left down our dimly lit hallway as I reached for the keys to unlock our apartment. Meanwhile, Kiki continued to discuss our potential plans for the weekend. I inserted the keys, pushed open the door, and was briefly confused to find that the chain on our door was locked from the inside. “What the . . . ?”
Then it clicked. “OH MY GOD!!!” I banged my shoulder into the door in a panic as Kiki looked at me, alarmed and confused. “What? What’s happening?”
“The chain! It’s locked from the inside! Someone was inside our apartment!” I said, with shrill panic as I banged my body again to try to snap the lock. Successful at last, I dashed inside with Kiki trailing behind me, still registering what I’d just told her. I ran to my room and immediately collapsed internally at what I saw. “No, no, no, no, no, NO!” My room had been ransacked. My new Mac laptop, my college PC, all chargers, my brand-new Canon digital film camera and the tripod it sat on, original tapes from a feature film I had been hired to edit—all were gone. “Why the FUCK did they take the tapes?! Those weren’t even mine!” That hurt the most, that I was going to have to explain to the filmmaker that the master footage of the film that had taken two years to shoot in Jamaica had been stolen. Who steals mini DV tapes? Days later, when I would tell the story to a friend, she speculated, “Maybe the robbers thought they were sex tapes. You had a camera and tripod set up next to your bed . . .” But I didn’t have time to think about all that. Instead, I collapsed on my bed crying. Feeling violated, I reflected on all the memories I’d lost, all the work I had on my computer. My films, my years of pictures, my pitch! All was lost. My life.
Kiki and I sat in the living room, waiting for the police to come, distraught. She, too, had two computers, a digital camera, and a ring. By the time the police arrived, they were pretty useless, and it became very clear to me that they wouldn’t be much help. We would have to be our own detectives. First, we started snooping around the building, asking our resident-thug neighbors if they knew anything. They tried to be as helpful as they could, without snitching. Then, we caught a break. One of our neighbors found a bag of clothes and odds and ends and asked if it belonged to us. As we rummaged through the items, Kiki found her digital camera. She scrolled through the pictures and to our surprise, the dumb-fuck robbers had taken pictures of themselves! A set of teenage girls and guys had been squatting in the empty apartment next door and had been watching us. They snuck through my back window via the fire escape and did what they did.
We immediately called the police and showed them the evidence, relieved that we could finally capture these idiotic amateurs and possibly get our stuff back. But their response was almost as bad as the crime itself: “Since they’re minors, we can’t really do anything about it.”
So began a gloomy period. I sent the television producer a somber email asking if we could reschedule the meeting, as all my scripts were on my computers. Of course, I hadn’t backed it up. Of course, I didn’t have production insurance. These were all hindsight thoughts and I hated hearing, “Well why didn’t you just . . .” or “You should’ve . . .” Why don’t people understand that nobody wants to hear what they should have done when something has already happened? Don’t they know the only question repeating in your head, nonstop, is what you could have done differently?
We moved to South Harlem a month later. I put the Black Film Academy on hold indefinitely and continued to work my two jobs. I had alrea
dy asked my dad for help in buying the film equipment in the first place; I couldn’t now ask him to help me to buy a whole new computer. Up until that point, I had only two credit cards activated. Both were maxed out. The third credit card, an American Express with a Stanford Athletics logo, sat in my drawer with the sticker intact. I’d received it in the mail my junior year after a Stanford vs. Berkeley game. There was a sign offering a free Stanford football shirt at a booth, and upon arrival we found out that all we had to do was sign up for a credit card to get the free shirt. “You totally don’t even have to use the credit card,” the woman said as she dangled a medium-sized shirt before me. I took the credit card out of the drawer, resolving that I was in a state of emergency.
As my debt started to rise and my motivation started to plummet, I found myself writing in my journal one afternoon, sitting on my bed, wondering what I was doing in New York. I loved the city; I loved what it represented. But what was I doing here? Too shy to meet people, I barely went out. I worked all the time, at a job that didn’t offer any opportunities to move up. Who was I and what did I want to do with my life? I started studying for the LSAT, because maybe my dad was right about going to grad school and having a backup plan. Maybe I got robbed of all my equipment because it was a sign that I wasn’t supposed to be pursuing this right now. If I wasn’t built for this, not-for-profit work, what was I built for? And suddenly, it hit me: “I’m awkward. And black.” One of them I already knew, but the other I had just discovered. It was like a frustrated student discovering she had dyslexia. “I’m not stupid. I just have a learning difference!”
It all made sense: my shyness, all the times I was dismissed for not being “black enough,” my desire to reframe the images of black film and television, which I started to do when I created a series in college called Dorm Diaries, my inability to dance—these were all symptoms of my Awkward Blackness. This is an identity, I thought. I could make T-shirts. I could make sketches/commercials for the T-shirts. Ooh, and what if they were animated? Without knowing it, I started penning an outline of what would be my first and second episodes of Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. I grew excited. This was my purpose. This particular moment of despair had sparked my creativity.
But then my heart sank. I was still broke as hell. So I sat on the idea, making a promise to myself to make it happen one day.
The following summer, I flew to Los Angeles for my cousin’s graduation. While I was there, I visited two friends from college. One was in film school and the other had just landed a job in the mail room at Creative Artists Agency. We sat on the beach, updating one another on our lives. Then one of my friends turned to me and asked, “Jo-Issa, why are you still in New York?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You got robbed. You’re broke. It’s like you’re willingly struggling for no reason,” she continued. “Everybody you know is in Los Angeles. You should just come here. We could do so much together.”
I thought about it for a minute. “I can’t just get up and leave.”
They laughed. “Why not?”
The question haunted me. What was really keeping me there? It wasn’t like I had a husband and kids I was tied to, or an amazing, high-paying job. Why was I still there? I was young; I didn’t have to be tied to any one place.
I told them I’d think about it, and I did. On the plane ride back to New York, I had pretty much made up my mind. My roommate, Kiki, had graduated and gotten a job offer in Los Angeles, so she was happy to hear the news.
That July, I moved back to L.A. with plans to take the reins on my life once more. I didn’t make it in New York, but hopefully the assets that were stolen from me will help someone else to make it.
ABG GUIDE: When Co-workers Attack
The co-worker is a necessary evil of the workplace. Even if you’re an entrepreneur, or the Chief in Charge, collaborating in some fashion with your colleagues is mandatory and in many situations, it can be unbearably dire. I’ve had some amazing, generous co-workers and I’ve had some inconsiderate, hope-they-die-before-five-o’clock co-workers. At least one co-worker in a group of many will be an asshole, an idiot, a suck-up, a know-it-all, a lazy mother%$#@&, or all of the above. To distinguish between them, I’ve provided yet another handy guide for your benefit and social sanity:
The Asshole:
Pretty self-explanatory; this person either loves or hates his job—you really can’t tell which because you can’t stand to be around his negativity long enough to find out. The asshole co-worker typically makes insensitive jokes (and gets upset when you don’t laugh along), constantly looks out for himself, and finds a way to make every task/experience/part of the job negative.
THE APPROACH: Awkwards tend to be passive-aggressive, especially when faced with Asshole co-workers. Avoid doing so, as the Asshole will use that against you. The most foolproof way to deal with an Asshole is to kill him . . . with kindness at every turn. If your co-worker brings up something negative, then find the positive. He will get annoyed with you and avoid you at all costs.
The Idiot:
How did this fool get a damn job in the first place?! Idiots don’t know how to do anything, they’re constantly wasting time asking questions that have already been answered, and they’re slowing up the process for everyone involved. This person is dead weight, and you want nothing more than to sink her at the bottom of the ocean. You might be in a position where the Idiot asks you for your help, over and over again. You’ve been kind enough to oblige in the past, but now you’re carrying the load for two, and nobody has time for that.
THE APPROACH: Soft-spoken snide jabs may momentarily alleviate your frustration, but they’re falling on dumb and stupid ears. You have to play dumber than dumb. Think of the Idiot as the dumb high school bully (no matter how nice your idiotic co-worker may be) that always cheats off your homework. You have to show her the wrong answers so that she can feel the sting of her own idiocy . . . and then move on to the next co-worker for help.
The Suck-Up:
He will literally kiss the ground his superior has tread. You can look down and see the wet lip imprints on your boss’s footsteps; it’s that bad. This co-worker will throw you under and in front of the bus at any opportunity, if it means that the boss will show him an ounce of attention. It’s embarrassing to witness, and you wish you could roofie his drink with a dignity pill.
THE APPROACH: Don’t try to one-up him; you will lose. Instead, attempt to turn your co-worker’s suck-ups into a bonding experience with kinder, more rational colleagues. Literally no one likes a Suck-Up, and if he has been promoted at your expense, then chances are, he has treated other co-workers the same way. Turn the Suck-Up’s antics into a drinking game at happy hour with your fellow co-workers and laugh it off.
The Know-It-All:
She can come off as a Suck-Up, but the Know-It-All is her own breed. Should you have a question or a concern, the Know-It-All will find a way to make you feel stupid about it. The Know-It-All prides herself on knowing everything there is to know about the job at hand, which is great because she’s never been promoted and will stay at the same position as long as she’s on the job. Knowledge for her means immobility. Know-It-Alls are frequently in the IT department and they hate you.
THE APPROACH: Don’t take it personally. Don’t ever act impressed with the information that a Know-It-All graces you with. Keep your responses/questions/concerns curt and to the point. Don’t give this person any excuse to give you more information, because it exhausts her. Your very existence is a burden, so try to minimize your breathing in her presence.
The Lazy M%$#@cka:
Not even worth writing complete sentences about. This co-worker rests on his laurels and lets you do the work. If you have a group presentation or anything that requires collaboration, you can always count on him to contribute jack. At least he’s consistent.
THE APPROACH: You’r
e only going to get out of not working with this person so many times, and if you continue to do all the work in silence, you will explode, which nobody wants. So, you have to address the problem head on. Tell your fucking boss. Snitches get stitches, but if your job has that good insurance, then it may be worthwhile.
* * *
One of the worst co-workers I’ve ever had in the history of all the jobs I’ve held was all of the above and then some. Her name was Rex, she was in her mid-fifties, and she resembled a dreadlocked Sammy Davis Jr. in face and shape (though she was probably even more petite than I recall, topped off by a large bobble-head). She smelled like menthol cigarettes (and had the smoky breath and stained yellowish-gray teeth to confirm), laughed loud and obnoxiously (especially when she thought you were wrong), and loved to know what I was doing at every single moment.
Our desks were positioned so that mine faced the wall, which was a blessing because I would much rather have been faced with cold, empty nothingness than to have had a default view of her. But on the other hand, while her desk also faced the wall perpendicular to mine, all she had to do was simply turn her head to her left to see all the business I was conducting on my computer. Which she did. Frequently.
On my first day of work, she cozied up to me, exhibiting her friendly side.
“What sign are you?” she asked in a nasally Jersey accent.
“I’m a Capricorn.”
She squealed, “So am I! We’re both Capricorns.” She witch-laughed, gleefully. She started off nice enough, but listening to the way she talked to my boss was aggravating. She would frequently talk to him as though he were stupid and she didn’t have the time for his inquiries. I would sit at my desk waiting for the day when he’d snap and fire her, leaving her hopelessly jobless, with no references.
