Morning Musings: The Role of History in my Life & Work

Please pardon my ramblings

 It is such a spectacular experience to exist within a culture within a larger context that does not share that same culture. That does not acknowledge that culture. That does not understand that culture. That refuses to see that culture. That relegates that culture to the bottom of the totem pole of societal hierarchies. To be a part of that culture is simultaneously maddening for some but undisputably magical for most. The lengths one will go to preserve that culture, to pass on that culture, to ensure that culture is safe, is seen, is protected and never forgotten are endless.

That is what it is like to be Black in America. Connected by invisible weaves of unforgotten ancestors that instill sameness in values while allowing difference of expression. The scale is vast and wide, and the versions of who we are, while not always acknowledged by the masses, are growing in differentiation, size, shape and context. The world could never truly tame the way our identities expand, choosing instead to erect structures to cage us, to keep us restrained, undreaming, perpetually burdened, always reaching, and busy with survival. But nevertheless we rise.

To know our culture, and to be a part of it is to know our history, our scars, our war stories, our traumas, our joys, our achievements, and the barriers we’ve continued to push through and overcome. Being Black means seeing things through the lens of history, willingly or unwillingly. It means silently knowing that the traits and mannerisms that cloak us and hang loosely from our shoulders are a part of a collective, passed down to us from centuries ago. History sits alongside everything we do. It rides our on our backs and it never allows us forget it, no matter how many aggravated outside voices plea with us to let it go.

Ironically, it is their history and the actions it shapes in the present that doesn’t allow us to do so, of which they are often unaware or in denial about.

This morning, while sipping my coffee I realized why I face such resistance with the work I do. The work that is inherently tied to numbers, money and bottom lines. The work that is, at its foundation, a soulless proponent of capitalism, pushing narratives and insights for sales and economic growth that can never actually be realized by people who look like me. But that’s just it. The people. It is the people who are attached to the outputs of this corporate machine called America that intrigues me and keeps me fascinated by this place.

Deep diving into their behaviors and mindsets, building things and crafting messages that will touch them in their centers feels like a different kind of power. Putting pieces together to offer them something that they never knew they needed, but we knew they needed all along, reflects the way I love the people in my own life. I am a stringent observer, and for me, the best kind of love is one that silently watches and provides what is needed before words can be formed to describe them. How lovely does it feel to be so well known and cared for? In the end, don’t we all want a love as soft and intuitive as this? To be truly seen and heard can feel like a privilege in this crowded place, and I feel one of my biggest gifts to world is my ability to do so for others.

But I digress.

Clearly, we are talking about consumerism here, and not the love of my life. One might say my love is misplaced and is searching for a home in cratered corners, to which I’d reply: well yes.  Regardless, I can’t help but highlight how much of me is in the work that I do.

Getting back to the point. When clients come to me, they are almost always looking down: down at the numbers. Down at their performance. Down at the data. Down at what’s right in front of them, but rarely are they ever looking up or out. This is where my magic comes in, because to exist within a culture within a larger context that does not share that same culture is truly a spectacular experience.

The nature of who I am means that I am always seeing the world through the lens of the past. The nature of what I do means that I am always seeing the present and future as relics and repercussions of the past. Everything we eat, drink, buy or think is connected to a larger invisible machine, quietly orchestrating the direction of our life choices. It is a living, breathing collection of societal thoughts, values and beliefs that shape shift across time and become the standard from which we measure ourselves against. An evolving mainstream, as it were.

While my clients are looking down at their desks trying to find solutions for problems at the product level, they’re almost always missing the bigger events causing their problems in the first place. But when you are part of a people who were never taught to see yourself as a member of a collective fabric of society, the ability to see those connections may not come as intuitively as it does for others; as it does for me. When you are a people disconnected from your own heritage, and assume self-determination exists at the crux of your identity, the world you see will be smaller, connected to nothing, and always seeking answers at the frontline, while the past sits there, violently pregnant with answers you refuse to see. Because for these groups, the past feels irrelevant to the problem at hand, a disjointed inconvenience at most that existed before them, and has little to no bearing on the themes in their lives today.

Ironically, it is their history that makes them think this way, of which they are often unaware or in denial about.

 In my work, and with my clients, I always propose comprehensive solutions that consider the bigger picture but there is, somehow always, never enough money for it. Never enough time. Never enough resources to solve increasingly large, complex, human problems. But there is always an appetite for easy, streamlined, simple answers, stripped of historicity, time and relevance. It should be no surprise then why clients constantly crave “digestible” outputs; it’s because they refuse to be served full course meals and can never actually be satiated.

So my love letter to the world exists in the work that I do. As I attempt to serve more than just appetizers, I find ways to slip in history to pay homage to the people whose stories I’m telling, and as a debt to the misplaced love I don’t know how else to give.