Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of The Black Cat.

To read what you missed this week in Good Black News, click here. Otherwise, this week, we have a Q&A with Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah Onukagha, a professor of Black Maternal Health at Tufts University School of Medicine.

She has a long resume, but I will try to note some highlights: She founded and directs the Center of Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice, as well as the Maternal Outcomes of Translational Health Equity Research. She also created the nation’s largest conference regarding Black maternal health. In her spare time, of course, she is the inaugural Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Tufts’ Public Health and Professional Degree programs.

She’s award-winning, published, the definition of Black Excellence, and here to talk to us about the latest Black maternal health conference, which was last week, and why it decided to focus on the role of fatherhood this time.

Feel free to send around, email me your reflections, and follow me on Instagram at dominicmadori

This month, I’m reading: A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and The Kill by Emilé Zola

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: The Greatest Love of All by George Benson

The U.S. is medically one of the most dangerous countries for Black women. The endless discrimination from doctors and other health professionals is staggering, and everything from where Black children grow up to the type of food they have access to all stems back to the racist roots of the country.

Within all of this, much attention is now being paid to how unnecessarily risky it is for Black women to give birth in this country. As many already know, Black women are much more likely to die while giving birth than nearly any other racial group.

For these reasons, I was excited to chat with Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah Onukaghaa about her award-winning work around Black maternal health and other topics related to the Black medical experience. Below, we chat about what progress has been made for Black patients dealing with doctors, and how she anticipates the DEI pushback impacting her work.

The Black Cat: Thank you so much for chatting with me today. Let’s dive into the conversation. You throw an annual event about Black maternal health, and this year, you decided to focus on the role of fatherhood. Why?

Thanks so much for having me. Our focus on the role of fathers in addressing maternal health inequities is a perspective that hasn’t been highlighted in this way before, which made it especially compelling. This was a long-overdue conversation, acknowledging a critical yet often overlooked piece of the maternal health puzzle.

We know that when fathers are actively engaged, maternal and infant outcomes improve. This conference gave them, in many cases for the first time, a seat at the table, and their voices proved essential.

Our lineup included powerful speakers like Charles Johnson of 4Kira4Moms, who continues to advocate for policy change after the heartbreaking loss of his wife Kira, and Omari Maynard, an activist and artist featured in the Hulu film Aftershock, who honors the life and legacy of his partner, Shamony.

We also welcomed clinicians, researchers, legislators, and community partners who expanded the dialogue around pivotal data, fatherhood, grief, advocacy, and systemic change. Their collective insights created a rich conversation that challenged the narrative and redefined what inclusive maternal health work looks like.

Fathers are not just bystanders, they are advocates, protectors, and essential partners in the fight for birth equity.

TBC: For so long, there was always that stereotype that Black dads are never around, but I feel like I have seen an increase in pushback against that, with research showing that stereotype to not necessarily be true, especially when compared to white families, Black dads are actually more around than white fathers are for their kids. How have you seen the absent Black dad stereotype change over the past decades, and has that had any impact on the way Black mothers are treated?

I’m so glad you asked this question because the stereotype of the absent Black father is not only inaccurate, it’s harmful. While Black fathers are statistically more likely to live apart from their children compared to White and Hispanic fathers, research consistently shows they are often more involved in their children's lives than fathers of other races.

The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study found that Black nonresident fathers were significantly more likely to engage with their children, share parenting responsibilities, and co-parent more effectively than their peers.

Black fathers are active, present, and essential to their families. It’s time we rewrite that narrative. I’m inspired by the growing visibility of groups like The Dad Gang, Dads to Doulas, and The Library Dads, who are challenging these harmful myths and uplifting positive images of Black fatherhood.

At the conference, we were especially honored to have Dr. Brandon Frame, founder of The Black Man Can and host of the Men’s Den Podcast, moderate our “Bro Chat” session. Hearing Black fathers speak candidly about fatherhood, accountability, and their role in birth equity was powerful. I'm so proud we were able to hold space for that conversation; it’s long overdue.

TBC: Has there been much improvement in lowering Black maternal health, or has much of the advancement been in research?

That’s such an important question and honestly, it’s a bit of both. The U.S. is still one of the most dangerous places in the developed world to give birth. The most recent numbers from 2022 show about 22.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. That’s a drop from the peak during the pandemic, but let’s be clear, even one preventable death is too many, especially in a country with our resources.

Where we have seen movement is in tackling the structural barriers that fuel this crisis. There’s been a lot of focus on expanding access to community-based care, things like doulas, midwives, and birthing centers. We’re also finally starting to prioritize real-time data collection so we can understand what’s happening and respond faster.

One thing I’m proud of is the role our Center played in passing the Massachusetts Maternal Health Momnibus (H.4999) last year. It’s one of the most comprehensive maternal health laws in the country. It created pathways for midwife licensure, improved reimbursement models, expanded mental health support, and updated birth center regulations. It’s a big step and it could serve as a national model for how to do this right.

So yes, research has been key, but we’re also seeing real, policy-level changes that can save lives. And that’s the kind of impact we need more of.

TBC: We’ve all heard about the way doctors are trained, how some of them are told that Black people don’t feel pain, or how different we are from our white counterparts. In medical school, are these stereotypes still taught widely, or has there been some course correction?

It’s honestly shocking how deeply rooted and how casually passed down some of these harmful beliefs still are. We’re still seeing pervasive stereotypes show up in clinical training and practice every day. Things like “Black women don’t feel pain,” or “Black people have thicker skin,” or “all Black women have heart conditions or diabetes.” These myths are not only false, they’re dangerous. And they’re being repeated as if they’re medical facts.

We can’t have this conversation without acknowledging the historical foundation of obstetrics and gynecology in this country. Dr. J. Marion Sims, long hailed as the “father of gynecology”. He built his reputation by performing repeated, non-consensual surgeries on enslaved Black women without anesthesia. We know the names of three: Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey. That legacy of exploitation and disregard still reverberates in modern maternal care today, where Black women and birthing people are often neglected, dismissed, and criminalized for their reproductive decisions.

There has been progress, yes, but not nearly enough. True course correction means investing in culturally competent, community-informed care. It means integrating doulas, midwives, and non-clinical birth workers who are trusted and often better positioned to support birthing people. It means rethinking where and how people give birth and ensuring respectful, patient-centered care at every step.

For medical professionals, this also means taking real responsibility: actively unlearning bias, holding peers accountable, and being willing to name racism when they see it. Public reporting and regulatory oversight of clinicians and hospital systems are essential if we want real accountability. This work isn’t optional, it’s necessary if we want to see lasting, meaningful change.

TBC: I totally wanted to ask about what the vibe is like on campus. You hold a DEI position at a pretty prestigious university during a time when DEI is under legal and political attack, both from conservatives and the actual government. What is life like for you right now on campus and as an educator?

It’s a tense time, no doubt. I work on the medical school campus, which has a different energy from undergrad. I am very grateful for the continued support from the university and my colleagues.

TBC: How are you preparing yourself for this anti-DEI backlash, and where do you see this all going?

I’m preparing by staying focused and grounded in the work. The backlash is real, but it’s not new. As someone working at the intersection of Black maternal health, policy, and academic research, I’ve always known this work would face resistance. What’s happening now is just a more public version of what many of us have been navigating for years.

At our Center, we’re doubling down on strategy, building sustainability beyond federal dollars, strengthening our partnerships, and pushing for policy change at the local and state levels. We’re also investing in the next generation through pipeline programs that recruit and support a diverse maternal health workforce.

Where is it going? I believe this moment is forcing people and institutions who are truly committed to equity to find creative ways to push forward. The work won’t stop because we won’t stop.

TBC: There seem to be many changes happening at the federal level regarding funding to programs that presumably help so-called DEI. What impact will that — combined with the disregard the Trump administration is showing for long-standing medical institutions, like the CDC — have on Black maternal health research, and how have you thought about navigating these possible changes?

These shifts at the federal level have created a volatile environment for public health research, particularly for work rooted in equity.

For Black maternal health, the implications are profound. We rely on robust, real-time data, trusted infrastructure, and intentional investment to understand and address the drivers of disparities. When those foundations are weakened, it’s not just research that suffers, it’s lives.

Ultimately, this moment is forcing us to be bolder, more strategic, and more collaborative than ever before. The stakes are too high to do anything less.

TBC: Maybe should have started with this, but I would love to know about your background and what led you not only to medicine but to this focus area in particular.

Of course. My path to this work began with the heartbreaking loss of a childhood friend, more like a sister, who died from childbirth complications at just 16 years old. That moment changed everything for me and sparked my commitment to fighting for Black maternal health.

I’ve seen how racism, bias, and neglect show up in our healthcare system, how they block access to care and endanger lives.

Maternal health is a social justice issue, and I’ve dedicated my career to tackling it through research, advocacy, and action. That’s why I founded the Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice: to bring together research, workforce development, community engagement, and policy all in one place.

We train future leaders, uplift midwives and doulas, and work with policymakers to close the gap. And every year, we convene one of the largest Black maternal health conferences in the country because when we bring people together, we build the power to change systems.

Our work is in the data, it’s in the community, and it’s in the laws that shape people’s lives. And we’re just getting started.

TBC: You did a lot of work around COVID. The pandemic feels like the elephant in the room that nobody wants to address anymore, despite the fact that we are clearly still dealing with the experience's socio-economic and political impacts. Why has our society yet to face what happened?

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the deep inequalities in our healthcare system, and unfortunately, many of the systemic issues it exposed have not been fully addressed. While we’ve moved past the immediate crisis, the long-term socio-economic and political impacts are still very much present. What happened is that many of the most vulnerable communities, particularly Black and Brown people, bore the brunt of the health and economic toll, but the systems that caused these disparities were not fully reckoned with.

The truth is, as a society, we’ve been so focused on reopening and returning to "normal" that we’ve neglected the hard work of unpacking the trauma and inequities that COVID magnified. From the disproportionate loss of life to the economic collapse that affected Black families most severely, there hasn’t been a comprehensive effort to heal, reflect, and rebuild in an equitable way.

While we still have yet to face the full scope of the pandemic’s effects, it's an opportunity for us to build something better. A system that truly supports all people, not just a few. Until that reckoning happens, we will continue to live in the shadow of the pandemic’s legacy.

TBC: What are some medical things you have seen that are probably tied back to the pandemic? The first thing I think about is how people talk about how undersocialized so many Gen Zers seem, or how, a while ago, people were worried that babies were not developing sensory adaptation well enough since they couldn’t go outside.

Absolutely. One of the biggest medical concerns we've been seeing in the aftermath of the pandemic is what's often referred to as "Long COVID," a range of lingering health issues that can show up well after the initial infection has passed. I’ve heard of an increase in cardiovascular complications among women, including heart disease, blood clots, and even stroke, which raises serious concerns, especially in pregnancy and postpartum care.

We’re also seeing a noticeable spike in mental health challenges. More mood disorders, anxiety, and depression, not just in adults but across generations. Add to that the neurological symptoms some patients are experiencing, and it becomes clear that COVID's impact didn’t end when people tested negative.

There’s still so much we don’t know, and that’s exactly why we need more research and proactive screening, especially in communities that were hit hardest by the virus. These aren’t isolated issues; they’re long-term effects that demand long-term attention.

TBC: Women’s health is having a moment, both with investors pouring money into the space and just the overall spotlight it’s been under since the overturn of Dobbs. What concerns should we have about your ability to keep doing your job as women’s health comes under such fire, especially on a state level, and how can we support you and other doctors?

Thank you for that important question. I’m a PhD and researcher. I work closely with incredible healthcare providers every day, and I see firsthand how essential it is that we support them, especially now.

To truly protect and promote women’s health, we need public investment, policy protections, and community accountability. And we need to support the researchers doing this work through funding, legal protections, and mental health resources so they can continue to show up for their patients.

Women’s health is certainly having a moment, and it deserves sustained attention, not just reactionary support. That’s why our 9th Annual Black Maternal Health Conference in April 2026 will be centered on the full spectrum of women’s health and its role in addressing maternal health inequities. Because maternal health justice isn’t just about birth, it’s about the lifelong health and well-being of Black and Brown women.

TBC: We’ve hit some heavy topics, so perhaps I can ask something lighthearted. Let’s do a rapid-fire.

• Krispy Kreme or Dunkin’? Dunkin’, for sure!

• Afrobeats or Hip Hop? I’m Nigerian…Afrobeats, of course

• Stew or Jollof? Jollof

• New York or Chicago? New York!

To read what you missed this week in Good Black News, click here. Otherwise, this week, we are talking about The New Year.

Feel free to send it around, email me your reflections, and follow me on Instagram at dominicmadori.

This month I’m reading: The Secret History by Donna Tart and Weep Not Child, by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: NEVER WANNA LET YOU GO by Bren Joy

💢From the Chatterbox💢

A year ago, all I had in my kitchen was lemon pepper seasoning. I had no clue how to cook and I was just lazy.

It wasn’t until I spent a holiday in France that I was introduced to the creative arts of cooking, and it wasn’t until I splurged on a fancy schmancy cooking ingredient subscription that I became obsessed with finding new ways to make food fun. I had to take random ingredients like rose honey and mushroom salt and turn them into something intriguing. Something that made me look forward to getting up the next day. Something that made my mornings, afternoons, and nights more interesting.

A lot has changed in a year. Now, I host dinner parties and cook crazy dishes like harissa eggplant, lemon-smothered pork chop, and basil salmon. I make up recipes, don’t follow measurements, and walk to the beat of my own drum in the kitchen. It’s become a new solace, and every day, a new adventure. It’s just another thing that makes me wonder what this year will bring as I enter the final few years of my 20s. I remember almost seven years ago when the decade for me first broke, how anxious and confused I was. Clarity has come over the years, but the anxiety has not quite gone away. Each day, it seems as if nothing passes but then when you look back, everything has changed. Almost ten years ago, Donald Trump was first elected into office. I was a college student at the time, and I anonymously wrote a now award-winning play about how as artists, we must put to use our pens and paintbrushes to fight back against oppression and tell the story of our time. I wrote the play as a way to help me cope at first with the election and even started reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, though I never finished the book.

Now, I’m older, and a bit calmer, I must say. I read the headline of a New York Times piece about how Black women are resting after the election results. I didn’t feel like finishing the story. I imagine subconsciously there is a reason why I’m writing again, why I’m devoted to becoming delusionally consumed with the arts this year. Suddenly I’m back where I was in college, believing that the arts play this grand role in our society, to both tell and shield us from the reality out the window. That’s why I’ve fallen into cooking I guess, as a way to spend hours for no reason in the kitchen crafting elaborate dishes — the art of mixing spices, of new olive oil, of mushroom salt.

In some ways, this is a form of escapism. A trauma response to when events are too much for the mind to process. At the same time, it’s a form of protection. It truly is a shield from the constant stress of processing and reacting to this world, which has always been in such a state of chaos. Social media has made all these events seem as one, but even before such times, the world, though more fragmented, went through states of disarray that only later we put together as events of the epoch. That brings me some solace, always going back to that one James Baldwin quote along the lines of You think your pain and heartbreak is unprecedented in the history of the world, and then you read. It goes back to what I wrote in my college play. About the importance of not what happens but how one responds that is what makes or breaks the man. For me then, that was writing and for me now, that is writing. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive, Baldwin said in the rest of his quote.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve felt more at peace than I’ve ever felt going into this year, ramping up my reading. I would encourage everyone to put down the nonfiction books for a while (and you can tell when someone only reads nonfiction, too), and pick up some fiction. Reading fiction has made me a better storyteller, a better thinker, and a better person, really. I think the arts are safe spaces for what has always been a violent world out there. Last year, I tried to escape to physical places, and place value on physical things, but nothing felt complete. This perhaps truly is my year of rest and relaxation, as it was not my body that needed rest but my mind from the constant barrage of madness around me. So I look forward to the pottery classes, the pasta classes, the sip and painting classes. I’m going to the opera for the first time, and I’m seated back in the theatre.

I’m excited for this year and what it brings, which might sound odd to say given the uncertainty and anxiety the next years will bring. But perhaps it is because I have found a guaranteed path to solace. We spend so much time online, so much time in this virtual world where soon AI will take over and nothing will be real. I want to be less online. I often think of that Toni Morrison quote that said Your real life is with us, your family. I change it to fit my liking, Your real life is with us, out here in the real world, with your friends and family. Online has made us mean, unloving, and isolated. I reject this and the misery that has come from being surrounded by so much hate.

So I’ve decided I’m going to write again, I’m going to explore my own mind again. And therein lies the excitement (for me, at least) of awaiting what this year will bring.

💫Kitty Talk💫

Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• The Financial Times, “The coming battle between social media and the state”

• Washington Post, “‘No one has a home’: What fire took from one California neighborhood”

• The Wall Street Journal, “We Grew Up Hating Cottage Cheese. Now We’re All Eating It.”

Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of The Black Cat.

To read what you missed this week in Good Black News, click here. Otherwise, this week, we have a Q&A with Jerelyn Rodriguez, the co-founder and CEO of the nonprofit The Knowledge House, a Bronx-based nonprofit that provides STEM opportunities to underrepresented communities.

Feel free to send around, email me your reflections, and follow me on Instagram at dominicmadori

This month I’m reading: Slaves to Fashion by Monica Miller

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: Rebel Soul by Michael Kiwanuka

💢From the Chatterbox💢

I was excited to receive an invitation to The Knowledge House (TKH) gala a few weeks ago. The event celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the Bronx-based nonprofit of the same name, which provides STEM opportunities for underserved communities. As someone working in tech, I love hearing about the efforts done to democratize access to technology and to help make the space more inclusive on a race, ethnic, and class level.

I chatted with Jerelyn Rodriguez, the co-founder and CEO of TKH about the 10-year anniversary of the nonprofit, what skill she thinks young people should focus on learning these days, and what impact tech will have on society in the next few years.

*This conversation has been edited slightly for clarity.

The Black Cat: What are some of the setbacks you’ve had these past ten years and how have you overcome them? 

Jerelyn Rodriguez: A major challenge I experienced in building my career was Covid. Operating during a pandemic presented a new challenge for The Knowledge House (TKH). As a leader, I had to make a lot of difficult choices. TKH had a hiring freeze and let go of many consultants, which affected our capacity and program operations. This was overwhelming, especially by the end of 2020, as we prepared for a year of growth. Despite this, it was also a moment that I was extremely proud of. I quickly pivoted the organization from operating in-person to 100% remote and without a Director of Programs. We recruited students virtually, held pre-recorded info sessions, and promoted via social media. Applications for our programs doubled. The transition to virtual created the unique opportunity to expand our proven education and job placement to new students and partners in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Newark. To sustain operations after the pandemic reduced the organizational budget, I led an annual campaign without the support of a Development Director. While Black female founders typically receive the least philanthropy, 2020 was a banner year for TKH. We secured $1M in new funding – the most in our history at the time. We received a $450,000 grant from the Robin Hood Power Fund and a grant from the NBA Foundation. There was also an increase in online giving, and we secured over ten corporate sponsorships. Our organizational budget doubled to $2.9M for 2021.

TBC: What are some essential skills right now that young people should look at learning?

JR: Young people should upskill in Data Analytics, with a focus on understanding how to clean, collect, manipulate, and analyze data, as well as create visualizations and graphs. With AI tools being run by data, a strong understanding of Data Analytics will help learners understand how AI works. Data tech jobs and skills will be less impacted by AI and learners that possess knowledge of data analytics will have an easier time building AI tools. Another skill that is essential right now is learning the best practices for how to leverage AI tools efficiently, and how to ask the right questions to yield the best results. 

TBC: What are young people most concerned about right now when it comes to new technologies and social media, and how is it taking over their lives? 

JR: Young people are concerned about privacy when it comes to social media and technology in their lives today.  There has been an increase in access for hackers and scammers to manipulate intellectual property and use online images for harm. The rise in spam, phishing, and scamming has resulted in concerns that private data isn’t secure. Cyber Security and skills for average users to stay educated on the latest scams are so important to help young people identify the risks and how to avoid them so that they are able to protect themselves.

TBC: How much has AI impacted STEM jobs and training and how are you preparing students for a future where these STEM jobs might be taken by AI? 

JR: This year we launched a working group to create an AI strategy focused on how best to utilize AI within our organization and across our programs. We believe that the current state of AI, especially GenAI, will enable us to enhance, optimize, or even transform our programming. This not only brings efficiency to our processes but ultimately elevates our ability to position young, underrepresented talent in the marketplace and uplift communities in NYC and beyond. Next year we will focus on upskilling staff to use AI to optimize learning and deliver programs more efficiently, by using AI Bots across online platforms for delivering class instruction and supporting job placement. In addition to upskilling staff, students also need to be ready for AI. In our digital literacy workshops, we are providing AI fundamentals to learners in our local communities, and in our Innovation Fellowship, we are teaching technologists how to build products using AI tools that are used in the industry. While we are still not sure exactly how AI will impact the jobs that we train for, we do know that our job seekers will be more competitive if they are using AI tools and know how AI works. 

TBC: Do you think the broken talent pipeline is a myth or a real situation companies are struggling with? 

JR: I do believe that the broken talent pipeline is somewhat of a myth. There are large numbers of computer science students who come from diverse backgrounds, but companies aren't hiring from colleges that aren’t elite. There is a lot of non-traditional talent coming from non-profits, bootcamps, and non-traditional programs that are not being hired by tech companies. Companies need to look beyond MIT, Stamford, and Ivy League schools for tech talent. Additionally, students need support building their social networks to put themselves in front of companies who are hiring. 

TBC: How can they fix their pipelines, especially during a time when it seems companies are no longer as focused on increasing diversity within their workforce? 

JR: Companies should engage in community engagement, corporate giving, and sponsorship to work closely with nonprofits that provide job training. Engaging in volunteering and mentoring for non-traditional job seekers will give companies a part in making sure that these learners are job ready, and will expose them to company-specific practices and values. All of this will support companies in having strong talent pipelines. Unfortunately, many companies have cut budgets and aren't currently supporting these activities and initiatives, and if that continues we won't see non-traditional talent hired. I hope that changes. If we don't see more investments in DEI and community engagement we won't be able to diversify tech talent. 

TBC: How has the Great Rollback impacted you and what advice do you have for other organizations that are trying to stay afloat as dollars to DEI dry up? 

JR: In 2021 and 2022 we received new funding because we were an org led by a Black leader and served Black communities, but much of that funding was one-time gifts. We had to diversify our funding so as not  to rely on these resources. My advice to other organizations is to engage with the local community and the volunteers who support you so that they can give directly. Organizations can set up online fundraisers or plan in-person events so that people who support the organization every day can continue to support financially or through their time. My advice is to diversify revenue because philanthropy can be very fickle.

TBC: How did you pick which locations to expand to and where would you love to go next? 

JR: Each of our cities has robust tech economies, has seen yearly growth in tech jobs requiring the skills instilled by TKH, and more than 40% of the population are Black and Latinx. TKH is expanding to Washington, D.C./DMV this year.

TBC: What have been some of your favorite success stories? 

JR: TKH has impacted entire families through our work readiness programs, including two brothers: Souleymane in the KKCF program, and Lamine in the Data Science Innovation Fellowship. Both came to the Bronx as immigrants from West Africa. After TKH, Souleymane successfully enrolled at CUNY City Tech, and referred his older brother, Lamine, to the Innovation Fellowship. After TKH, Lamine was hired as a software engineer at Doran Jones. Souleymane is now in his last year of college and with Lamine’s new employment, they now have the income potential to uplift their family out of poverty. 

Another program alumni who can illustrate TKH’s ability to improve the lives of young people is Clariza. She moved to the US from Mexico when she was 12 and had not participated in formal education as a child. As a hard-working young adult, she joined The Knowledge House and gained strong digital and professional skills. Now working as a data engineer, she says “The Knowledge House is like my home. They have helped me unlock a talent that I didn’t even know I had.” It is our joy to work with young people like Clariza, empowering them to secure economic prosperity for themselves and their families and live up to their full potential. Clariza went from Associate Software Engineer to Software Engineer after a year at Energy Hub.

TBC: What do you have coming up that everyone should know about and how can people help get involved?

JR: The Knowledge House has hosted a series of Tech Empowerment Days (TEDs) this fall that have provided hands-on tech skill development, opportunities to learn about careers in the tech industry, guest talks from industry professionals, and opportunities to network and build community. Our last TED will take place in Atlanta on November 15th and 16th. Additionally, the application for our next cohort of The Innovation Fellowship is now open. Participants in our upcoming Atlanta TED will also have the opportunity to complete the Innovation Fellowship application in person while attending the workshop. 

💫Kitty Talk💫

• New York Magazine, “My Monster Tenant”

• The Atlantic, “What the Men of the Internet Are Trying to Prove”

• New York Times, “The Priest, the Power Broker and the Pop Star”

Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of The Black Cat.

To read what you missed this week in Good Black News, click here. Otherwise, this week, we’re talking about Harper Stern — my favorite character on TV.

Now note: I’ve been with “Industry” since the very beginning so I’m not new to the hive, and I love the success the show is now getting in its third season. I’ve seen the whole season already since I covered the show for TechCrunch, but don’t worry — I don’t include any spoilers below.

Feel free to send around, email me your reflections, and follow me on Instagram at dominicmadori

This month I’m reading: Slaves to Fashion by Monica Miller

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: Witchy by Kaytranada (featuring Childish Gambino).

💢From the Chatterbox💢

I’ve always really liked Harper from “Industry.”

I watched the first season of that show, which premiered in 2020, more times than I can count. I still see the ending of the first episode in my head, where she checks herself into a fancy London hotel to celebrate her success at work that day; she puts on a robe and stares out the window at the city lights in front of her. She’s a young Black girl fighting for even a chance to find footing in that cold-cut, white-boy world of finance.

And I related to that, as a young, Black girl, who was fighting to find her footing in the cold, cut white-boy world of journalism, mounted with the extra pressure of having to write about finance, tech, and business. I related to the pressures Harper went through, the fast thinking one has to make when they are trying to stay up and alive. I figured one day, I would check myself into a hotel room like that, put on a robe, and just gaze out into the city lights before me, just because I can.

There are many unspoken elements about race and class in this show that I loved. I liked that, whether “Industry” knew it or not, for once we saw the world of finance through the eyes of a Black American girl from nowhere, who had to claw her way out of her middle-class origins — at whatever cost — to stand on the trading floor at one of the most prestigious banks in the “Industry” world. We don’t have stories like this. And I felt that there was someone speaking in a language that I could understand, that most audiences wouldn’t be privy to.

Wall Street stories always focus on young, white boys trying to move their way up. Or recently, about white women also trying to find their voice in the system; it’s about evil tech barons against rich white families, or an outside working-class kid trying to move against the odds and rise to the top. Black people are never in this world, and we are never given psychological character assessments that flesh us out as people, as three-dimensional creatures navigating a tense, tedious, high-pressure environment.

That’s always shocked me because our storylines are practically pre-written. Me and my friends talk about this all the time. A day in our lives as business journalists gives all the stakes, backstabbing, ups and downs that would make for TV gold. But it’s a story that’s never told — whether because the pen writers don’t know how or because they just don’t care. So I was happy to see someone notice us in the character of Harper. Calculated Black girls were having their moment. And it was normalized, too.

It was also nice in the early seasons that her ally was another minority and we were able to see how two people of color interacted with each other without the gaze of white characters around. There needs to be a form of the Bechdel test for people of color, where we can see at least two minorities having a conversation, with each other, about something other than white characters or in the presence of white people. “Industry” doing this early made it clear that these were not stock minority characters — we were in for a showdown.

“Industry” has become famous for pushing its characters to the brink and I hate to say that I was rooting for Harper to collapse at times. Only because it wouldn’t be realistic if she weren’t on the edge each moment of the day. I liked seeing the show mentally push Harper to the brink of sociopathic insanity because that’s what it feels like trying to keep pace in an industry like finance, business, and tech, where nearly everyone around you clearly has some form of personality imbalance. For Harper to win and rise at the bank, she must become like them and then some, as she must also outpower each systemic structure designed against her as well as each person standing in her way.

She’s reckless, insecure, and naive; she thinks fast, smiles, waves, backstabs, and does everything she’s supposed to do. Yet she still doesn’t land on her feet. At the end of season 2, it seems she fails against the system, in a moment that felt like watching an opponent overpower a star tennis player, who can’t run fast enough to return the ball, losing what was already the longest rally in the match. There are many days like that, where you leave the court just exhausted. I knew, come this latest season, that Harper would be better. She already seems calmer, her skin is clearer, she dresses better, and her hair looks healthier.

To me, her hair has always been an indicator of her mental state. She started out with braids, a protective hairstyle, a young little girl who needed protection. She moved on in season 2 to the corporate slicked-back bun as she became more comfortable in the job. There were moments of the messy afro, the outgrown braids, a polished blow-out, and in this new season, a pixie cut that seems to symbolize her rebirth as a Phoenix. She was fired from her last job but has now found a new one. She’s dressing more quiet luxury, and attending big-named conferences. Her calculations have become much more savvy, but she’s still just as witty and ruthless. She’s learned, in other words, how to better play the game, even when her insecurities are still just as present.

You know, it’s always quite interesting how Harper’s race is hardly spoken about in the show. There are just some aspects of her life and the way that others treat her that I imagine seem quite familiar to Black audiences, even though it’s not explicitly described. Something I caught early on was how little we know about Harper. What brings this little American girl to London for a shot at the big leagues? Sometimes, and this could be a total projection, but being Black and working up those white corporate ladders feels like an out-of-body experience, one in which you must always explain exactly how and why you are there. You are supposed to have a story, a clear one too, that helps people make sense of you.

Harper doesn’t make sense to me. She has the wits to get around but doesn’t have the story to back her up. Why is she here? She didn’t graduate from college and lied about it to get a job. She doesn’t have much of a family and her class origins seem murky at best. She’s a floater, someone existing outside the context of the norm but is still here anyway. The show hasn’t really told us who she is or how she’s made it there — you just know she has a past she’s running from a future she’s working hard to refine.

Her story seems almost like a reinvention, which, when I first started in the industry, I felt somewhat inspired by. There is a mystery that surrounds Black people whom others can’t pinpoint properly. It’s a power to wield in a society that likes to keep tabs on us; that likes us invisible yet overexposed. You never quite know what a character like Harper has up her sleeve.

Anyway, I thought I would write about Harper because I was somewhat sad this season that she wasn’t in it as much. I know this was overall good for the show for character development, and I do think it sets Harper up for much more success in the future seasons, but this season right now is the show’s most-watched season, after its bump to a Sunday primetime slot. Does the new audience know how brilliant Harper is since they haven’t got to see her much this season? Did they go back in watch? Did they, did you!?! Let me throw a tantrum just for a moment.

I liked Harper as a center character much more than Yasmin. She’s so much more interesting to me, and even Yasmin’s best moments to me, were when she stood in contrast to the others around her. It’s probably because her life follows an already over-told and over-analyzed path. She’s a poor, little rich girl, falling for a sad noble boy, who is lost, looking for love in his life. The country estate in London is nice to look at, and the jocking of power is always fun to watch. I liked Harper because she came across like nails on a chalkboard. I found it tantalizing to follow this thriller showcasing us in an industry that has never centered us before. Yasmin, in comparison, is kinda boring — it’s nothing I haven’t seen before (but granted, I spend a lot of time watching insane movies and TV shows — anyone a fan of “Titane?”).

My favorite episode this season was the one with Rishi, obviously. And I loved any time Eric graced our screens. I loved the moments when race and class collided in a way that it felt like the audience was suffocating alongside the character on screen.

But, like I said, all of this needed to happen. The show is brilliant, the writing the brilliant, and the characters in the show, in their own special ways, are all brilliant. Harper, objectively, is just the best one. And she needed a break this season. She needed to breathe, regroup, and astutely re-grasp her life.

I wanted to say that it felt like her character was overlooked; that I got nervous this season because I know how disposable Black people, nonetheless Black characters can be; that perhaps her overlooking is simply symbolic in some way. But I don’t think that is true. For some reason, deep down, I think that the show is one of the rare cases in today’s TV age of a series that is simply pacing itself.

We are going to see Harper again. And when we do, we better duck.

💫Kitty Talk💫

• Financial Times, “Schizophrenia: the new drug set to tackle the ‘cancer of psychiatry’”

• Financial Times, “Musk, Thiel and the shadow of apartheid South Africa”

• New Yorker, “The War Crimes That the Military Buried.”

Hello, and welcome back to another edition of The Black Cat.

To read what you missed this week in Good Black News, click here. Otherwise, this week we will be talking about HBO’s latest documentary, Movie Pass.

This month, I’m reading: Private Equity by Carrie Sun

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: Genesis by Raye

💢From the Chatterbox💢

Let’s talk Movie Pass. I’m sick this week so I will try to write what I can with my limited capacity.

First, I want to say — and this perhaps could be my fault — that I never realized Movie Pass was a Black-founded company. I would often see stories about it, nod my head, and then move on with my day.

After watching the Movie Pass documentary, though, I went back to the original investigation done by Business Insider and I couldn’t find the word “Black” anywhere. My first thought was how this oversight speaks to the diversity within business and tech journalism because after watching the documentary, I was left wondering how the reporters at Insider were able to tell the story of this company and its co-founders Stacy Spikes and Hamet Watt without mentioning race. The racial elements of this story have since changed my perception of what happened. Suddenly, everything started to make much more sense.

I will not spoil anything for those who haven’t seen Movie Pass. But a high-level overview is that it tells the story of two Black founders, Spikes and Watt, who are pushed out of their company by greedy white men. Spikes created Movie Pass and then later brought Watt in to help him build out the business. It took Spikes ten years to build Movie Pass and only one year for those white men to destroy it.

This happens often to Black founders. Money is so hard to come by that when Black founders find investors willing to back them, they often must make sacrifices to accept the money — this includes even committing to predatory terms. I’ve read a lot of stories about Black founders who gave up so much equity in their companies — or agreed to terms that adjusted the board so dramatically that they lost power, gaining only the ability to be ousted at any moment. Giving up power is another way Black founders are set up to fail, and many of them do not realize they’ve given it up until it is too late. But often, giving up that much power is the only way to get the little bit of money that comes their way. I think often of the fact that Mark Zuckerberg has his company structured in a way that he can never be ousted. The power always remains his.

The idea was that Movie Pass needed something — or someone — who could signal to investors that the product was viable. This meant bringing in a white man, who would attract other white men. Spikes brought in one investor (whose name I think was Chris), who then brought in another white man, Mitch, who then brought in another white man, Ted. Ted soon became the largest shareholder in Movie Pass and everything spirals from there. It’s a very sad realization that a signal of success defaults to white men — that even with Ted and Mitch’s spotty pass as leaders, they would be seen as still more viable and safe to back than two Black founders with decades of experience in the industry. That is this permanent second-class citizenry I always talk about, a racial caste system that Black Americans never truly leave.

Soon, nearly the entire board of Movie Pass was filled with white men. When Mitch first came in, he put Spikes on a sort of probation, telling him that he would see how he performed and if his work was good enough only then would the company keep him. He treated Spikes like he was some Boy. It became clear that Spikes was set up to fail after Mitch came in as CEO. Mitch never believed Spikes was worthy or capable of standing on equal ground.

After some questionable business decisions made by Mitch, Spikes, no longer in charge, began to worry about the company’s reputation. Mitch ultimately fired him and, as expected, Mitch and Ted became the faces of Movie Pass. One of the most harrowing parts about Spikes’ ousting was that he and Watt had shares in the company with a 12-month lock-up, meaning they couldn’t sell shares in the company until 12 months after they had left Movie Pass. They had to watch the hijacked train speed aimlessly along the tracks.

It came to a point where Spikes said during his time at the company, Movie Pass was losing $200,000 a month. When Mitch was in charge, that number skyrocketed to $30 million a month. It was almost offensive, the carelessness with which Mitch and Ted moved, knowing and taking for granted that there would always be a light at the end of the tunnel. Losing $30 million a month is a lot of money. When white founders lose that much money, it’s seen as part of the game (hello, Adam Neumann). These instances are seen as learning moments to help build a track record because, well, startups are a risky business. But this ideology is never shared — and this understanding is never felt — beyond the white men it seeks to suit. Nobody makes excuses for non-white, non-male founders. Everyone else gets one shot at success, and if that swing doesn’t produce a home run, it’s back to the dugout where you are forced to sit and watch the white men play the game. By the time Mitch and Ted were done with Movie Pass, Spikes and Watt’s $80 million stock in the company was worth pennies and they had no chance to sell because Mitch and Ted destroyed the company within the 12-month lock-up period. Ted was still able to raise millions for his next venture, even after collapsing Movie Pass. I don’t need to analyze much here, because the facts speak for themselves.

There is an insidiousness to this story seen when looked at through a racial lens. Two white men just taking this Black company and putting it on for show, only to send it crashing toward flames. Then you hear that Spikes just wanted to get more people into movies, that he had spent his career just trying, especially, to give more opportunities to Black and brown film lovers. I truly believe that Mitch and Ted were just careless, but if someone also told me they were also hateful I think I would believe that too.

I also thought about the media’s role in this — how Mitch and Ted were interviewed by so many big outlets and no one knew they had ousted the two Black founders. No one asked enough questions. No one probably thought to. Perhaps they didn’t know how. I’m glad, though, that Mitch and Ted were able to be the face of Movie Pass’ fall, and that the buck was not passed back to Spikes to reap what those two men sowed.

Today, Movie Pass is home with Spikes. He bought it back and said last year was a profitable one for the company. He also wrote a book called “Black Founder: The Hidden Power of Being an Outsider,” and has now been making the media rounds.

Mitch and Ted meanwhile, well, if you know you know, right? I encourage everyone to watch the documentary. There is a lot to take away and observe, and many details that are worth noting. One moment I think about often is when Watt said that when you enter a board room, you never truly know if someone is being passive-aggressive toward you because they don’t like the fact that you are trying to disrupt an industry, or they don’t like it that you are Black, or they don’t like the fact that you are Black trying to disrupt an industry. There is a constant paranoia that comes with being Black in America that permeates every level and every move we make. Most times, we never know the answer, we can only hear the dog whistles. And sometimes even then we have to stay in place. No matter how loud the sounds get.

💫Kitty Talk💫

Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• New York Magazine, “The Last Inappropriate Man on Television How Andy Cohen survived the ‘Reality Reckoning’ (at least for now).”

• New York Times, “Some of Silicon Valley’s Most Prominent Investors Are Turning Against Biden”

• New York Times, “OpenAI Insiders Warn of a ‘Reckless’ Race for Dominance”

Hello, and welcome to the latest edition of The Black Cat.

As always, here is some Good Black News.

The applications for Glossier’s Black Business grant program are now open. It will award four businesses $50,000, and one grantee alum will receive $100,000. Apply by June 1st. The Biden-Harris admin announced more than $16 billion in support for HBCUs, and Terri Burns, known for being the youngest and first Black woman partner at GV, has launched her own firm, Type Capital. She plans to invest in early-stage companies.

This month, I’m reading: Chinatown by Thuân

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: Feeling Good by Nina Simone, covered by Raye

💢From the Chatterbox💢

There is understandable discourse around Beyoncé’s use of the American flag in her latest album, Cowboy Carter. The loudest conversations have been about the displeasure of seeing it — or rather, seeing her embrace it so boldly — especially given African Americans' fraught relationship with America, its empire, and so forth.

The back-and-forth reveals the absolutely complicated, perhaps awkward, and unfortunate situation in which African Americans find themselves. After 400 years of being in America, the truth is we don’t really have another flag to call our own.

I chat to my non-Black friends about this sometimes, and sometimes they are like, ‘Just pick a flag in Africa; can’t you just find where you are from and take that flag.’ No. The whole point of being African American is that we don’t know where we were sold from. If I were to claim any flag today and move to a country in Africa, I would still find myself in a foreign land. James Baldwin wrote that after so long in America, we leave and find others within the Black diaspora only to realize we have more in common with those who enslaved us than from those in whom we were taken.

Even if I were to find my ancestral flag today, it would not change the fact that I, for the past 400 years, came from an American bloodline. The music, the religion, the folklore, the memories, and the history have all come to me from this land. Nina Simone sang of Mississippi, goddamn. The ties to the Africa we grasp for, like a baby longing for its mother, have long been severed. America is an imprint from which we will never be able to truly run, even if one day we make it back to the place we think of as home. If we are not allowed to have or find at least a little pride in the story of how far we’ve come, then what else are we supposed to feel? Shame? Humiliation? Nothing at all?

Given the conversation around Cowboy Carter, I started thinking about this more. I would ask people who said she shouldn’t have used the flag what flag she should have used instead. I saw responses about using the pan-African flag or something similar. That flag is fine but would not cut to the root of the matter here — that she’s American. I read an essay in The Guardian about how none of our ancestors truly wanted to build this country. How they tried to escape and destroy it. That the flag represents slavery. That we should stay true to Africa. That, of course, America owes us reparations, and that “hopefully, we are not so desperately flagless that we are willing to cling to an empire that is killing us, and many others around the world, for aesthetic pride.” The essay was interesting, and I think people should read it.

This is a messy topic, but I will try to hit on what I can. I’m African American, and my ancestors have been here for a loooonng time. I don’t think I am clinging to the Empire. I think after everything that has happened and everything this nation did to us, we have a claim to do what we please with that flag, including putting it on an album.

The question is, what are we embracing? There is yet a word to describe the web of contradicting, painful, and joyous threads that weave the American identity. Maybe it is just that, then, acceptance and recognition of whatever this is. I think it’s true that for every Black person who wants to leave, there is a Black person who wants to stay here, who just wants the best for the country, who just wants equality and a fair sense of self so they can move on with their day. The flag did represent slavery. We have protested against — and for the right to be loved by — it for decades with boycotts, marches, and bloodshed. I didn’t see Beyoncé embracing the flag as her co-signing the darkness of the past, but rather a nod to the survival of it. Something that said I’m still here, bitch.

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I have always seen the past 400 years as part of American history, as stories that have become part of the flag. What would the flag be without the stories of the people whose nation it flies over? The flag, to me, is an all-and-then-some. It means what we want, when we want, how we want. This is the same flag that my ancestors fought against and the same flag they say they fought for when they went overseas as soldiers. The same flag we burn at every protest is the same flag I feel relief to see when I’m spending prolonged time abroad and the only thing I want is something familiar. Like pancakes or coffee. Its something that reminds me I am far from home. When you leave America, you realize you are indeed very American. Our ideas about one day joining a unified diaspora and sailing into one giant Africa are naive. I threaten to leave America all the time, and one day, I probably will. But ask me if I would ever give up my passport, and the answer would be hell no. I’m an American.

And I wouldn’t even describe myself as a prideful person, really. The writer of The Guardian piece rightfully pointed out that there is never really a good time to fully embrace American identity. It doesn’t change the fact that we have it, though. What else would we be? When I started thinking about what it means to be a part of the Black diaspora, I started feeling like, as an African American, I was like a little unsettled spirit in a home, searching for meaning and reasoning in this purgatory of a nation, and the chance to cross over into an afterlife of peace. I started coming to terms with the fact that there will never be ease. That if I found a new homeland in Africa along with new societal issues to call my own, there would always be a hole in my woven being that neither this homeland nor the next would ever be able to stitch. What will always be missing is the sense of true belonging.

So I kept thinking about the flag and what else we would fly on an album cover. This is the closest thing we have to home. I don’t see how anyone could look at what this nation has done these past few decades and separate African Americans from that narrative simply because the country has wronged us, too. The writer brought up a good point: can we separate Black pride from what this nation is doing? I don’t know. On an imperialist front, I don’t think you can shroud Black Americans from accountability — we fight in American wars and invade shores for the flag, too. During the Jim Crow era, our ancestors still signed up to go to war in the Pacific.

On a political and socioeconomic front, maybe we can skirt some accountability. We didn’t create these systems that oppress us, but in the modern era, we are also not completely uninvolved with them. I started to ponder, then, if the flag is only a symbol of our oppression, then indeed, why would we want to embrace it? But maybe the flag is more than an emblem of our oppression and one of our survival as African Americans, too. Maybe it’s all of those things with love and fear mixed into one. Every piece of us can be ripped into parts — on a racial, ethnic, cultural, and national level — but no matter what those detached components of us hold, all together, our story is still that of the flag and then some.

Culturally, we are intertwined. African American culture is one of the biggest American exports. Our contributions to music—jazz, blues, rock, and country—have completely changed the world. So did our fight for civil rights, which inspired other movements across the world. All of this is the story of America. What other flag would we attach these stories to, and why should it be anything other than the one we live under? Our beginning may have started in a different nation, but after 400 years, our blood has built a new one. Even the Black racial groups in America are American — the most basic of which is the mixture of Native American, African, and European, a blend, for better or worse, created here under that flag. I started thinking that no matter what reality we write for ourselves or what history we choose to retell, nothing at the heart of it could erase the relationship we have with that flag. It’s a tragic duet.

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So what do we do with this thing that represents the dark and the light of our existence? This stressful, painful, peculiar existence that has kept us captive for so long, leaving us with an aching so heavy it could sink ships. If we were to all flee America, where would we go? Where in Africa? To which country, to which tribe, and speak what language? If people want to be silly, joke around, and claim the flag to find joy in a Beyoncé album, then they should. I don’t want to give the credit of this nation solely to the enslaver. Everything they did to us is tied up in that flag, which is why it means something when we burn it. But everything we are is also in that flag, which is why it means something when we fly it.

As a Southern, I actually liked seeing Beyoncé have the flag in her hands. Note that the whole flag doesn’t even show on the cover, only a part of it, just enough of it, really. I know the Confederate flying racists I went to school with now fly the American flag in place of the Confederate one. They would hate the idea that someone Black would claim this nation as their own. They would tell us to go back to Africa. That there is nothing here that is ours. I like the idea of a fuck you; it is ours, even if only some of it. It makes me feel like I have something. Like I am not this stateless, flagless, rouge woman trapped alongside others in this “settler project” without any roots in the earth. At the same time, I recognize it’s all too painful. There are so many layers, so many sticky tangles, and no one or right way to ease the hurt. I think Beyoncé’s album captured some nuance well: there is suffering, hope, survival, and acceptance. It’s a messy album for a messy group of people. There is “Blackbird,” “16 Carriages,” and “Yaya,” and if this nation does crumble, our stories and contributions will also be held up as a requiem for America.

Sometimes, I have dark thoughts that I would spend my whole life contemplating my existence. That I will never escape — or find ways to balance — the torrential pain associated with being a product of this nation’s sins. That nothing is acceptable for me to love in this country and that I would spend my whole life running, trying to find ease. It frightens me that no place might exist. But then those thoughts eclipse, and I hear the chirping of a spring day.

This conversation is endless, existential, and intricate — one we will have for the rest of our bloodlines. At times, I have no pride. I have all the pride. I have everything here and nothing at all. The writer asked if the Confederacy had won, would we proudly hold that flag, too? I don’t know. Should we wear star-spangled outfits or dashikis to Beyoncé’s concerts? Should we celebrate our forebears or, as the writer said, “honor different ancestors?” I don’t know about that either. What I do know is that I won’t deny others the satisfaction of at least giving a nod to the closest thing we have that tells the story of our time here. Whatever story we find that may be.

💫Kitty Talk💫

Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• Washington Post, “DEI is getting a new name. Can it dump the political baggage?”

• Financial Times, “South Africa’s ‘lost leader’ faces the end game”

• The Atlantic, “The One Place in Airports People Actually Want To Be.”

Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of The Black Cat.

As always, here is some Good Black News.

First, a few weeks ago, I spoke to fellow writer Tia Kelly about my journey as a journalist covering tech. You can read my interview on her Substack Cultwoo. Elsewhere, UrbanGeekz partnered with Moovn, a Black-owned ride-sharing app, to share news content with its passengers, and Campus has raised a $23 million Series A extension to connect students with university professors.

This month, I’m reading: La Bête humaine by Emile Zola

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: Escapism by Raye

💢From the Chatterbox💢

Let me preface this by saying that I actually loved Challengers. I did. I loved the aesthetics and the score. I loved the premise. I love watching tennis and used to play it as a child, so the movie tapped into a certain nostalgia that I rarely see properly converted to the big screen. It’s one of the best tennis movies, hands down. My only notes on the tennis playing were that each set was called Set One, Set Two, Set Three. I have it drilled in my head that it’s First Set, Second Set, Third Set.

“That’s for the people who don’t play tennis,” my friend with whom I watched the movie said when I asked why they were calling it Set One.

I don’t have many notes, but there are a few points of discussion I want to muse on.

I felt the movie did a great job of selling itself, so much so that the hype it created allowed audiences to project their wants and wishes into the glaring omissions within the film. Overall, it fell short of the grand expectations I came to have for it. Zendaya, I will say, has the most amazing ability to sell moves — she has the movie star red carpet quality that doesn’t always translate on screen in her acting chops. I think she’s growing, though, and as she gets more opportunities on film to test her craft — and as she grows up in general — her acting will only improve. I do see, however, that she has a very sharp and ripening producer and director’s eye, as a few critics have pointed out. That doesn’t help, though, regarding my main problem with Challengers. It’s not her; it’s how her character, Tashi, was written.

Tashi felt one-dimensional to me in a way that I expected, given the fact that she is a woman written by a man, directed by a man, and whose story is told through the eyes of men. She, at times, felt like a stock character, one that solely existed so that we could learn more about the men who desired her. She was their fodder. Even the way the two other leading characters (Art and Patrick, played by Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, respectively) spoke about her was with objectification. Tashi wasn’t even a leading character if we are, to be honest — she was a supporting actress, at best, and Zendaya was simply the star power needed to sell the film. Tashi was the leading lady in the way a man thinks about a woman, absorbed and fixated upon, without the intricacies that would make her human. She is an object of desire and a purveyor of lust and passion. I think of all the complex women we have seen on screen this past year — mainly Emma Stone in Poor Things — she, too, was written by a man, but in a way that was not afraid to embrace the madness of womanhood. Tashi was supposed to be angry, but she was only so angry in a way that her white writer could translate to a page.

My point is somewhat proven by the alleged first page of the screenplay that I found someone posted online. Patrick and Art have full character descriptions, while Tashi has only a few sentences.

As one popular Twitter person pointed out, “I think the description of characters—especially of Tashi makes it so glaringly obvious that her character is a background character in this film. Not the prize. Not the mastermind. 33, Black, a former player. No description of what she’s wearing or who she is as a person. Hmm”

The senior culture reporter at HuffPost also pointed it out. “Interesting to see their races identified here when the film doesn't really know what to say about the role of race at all,” they tweeted.

I think Zendaya did the best she could with the material given. But, if I must, I would like to go one step further: I also sensed no tension between her and Faist, and she didn’t believe for one moment that she and he had started a family together; she had kids. The true chemistry was between Faist and O’Connor, and I was also not sold on the idea that they wanted her as much as they desired each other. I think I see where the script wanted to go with Tashi, though. She was a woman who lost her career, so perhaps she was trying to live her life through her husband. For that point to drive home better, I wish her stakes had been better established so we could see what Tashi had lost and her motivations for wanting to continue climbing. It is easy for me to project this, but I would love a scene about just her, her childhood, with her family, more about her emotions, her thinking, so I could better understand who she is aside from a ball bounced between two men. It is not enough for me to see a vindictive woman manipulate two attractive white men for the sake of it. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the interactive character development Zola gives, even to a tree.

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After my screening of Challengers, there was a Q&A with the screenwriter. Hearing his thoughts made it worse. He spoke a lot about the class elements he tried to intertwine into the film, which, if that’s the case, also fell short. Faist’s character was supposed to be upper middle class, while O’Connor’s was supposed to be very wealthy. In the film, O’Connor is introduced to the audience as assumingly being poor, which I actually found to be emotionally jerking because it established the stakes of why he was so competitive, especially in contrast to the quiet luxury life Zendaya and Faist’s characters build for themselves. But then we find out that O’Connor’s character isn’t really poor, and we never really learn why he cosplays as being so. I told my friend that this lends to my theory that people are afraid of writing poor people, and making O’Connor secretly rich in this film was a cop-out. It eliminated nearly all the class tension for me because it meant the stakes were never high to begin with.

I would have loved a flashback of Tashi, who is not as wealthy as the two other characters in the movie, trying to keep up with the expensive tennis circuit and how she felt as a person of color in this white country club world. We never get that tension, either. We are sold sexual tension, but even that is not as present as online discourse might have you think — and again, all real chemistry is between Faist and O’Connor. None of these characters develop over the course of two hours, and the time jumps — which were close to outstaying their welcome — do nothing to show the evolution of time. It was a scintillating cinematic purgatory.

Maybe that was the point.

To continue harping on this one point: The screenwriter said he always wrote Tashi’s character with the idea that she would be a Black woman. I felt that was disingenuous; it was something that was only meant to garner more audience attention. People were already very interested in seeing a woman of color seduce two white boys, a play on societal power dynamics. But the past century of women’s tennis has been about dark-skinned Black women, not light-skinned biracial like Zendaya. Everyone knows that Zendaya is Hollywod’s acceptable version of a Black woman, and I thought about how that impacted the film: she played a safe line in the movie by having a certain level of anger and seduction that white audiences could be drawn to. I will say, though, that anger is one of the better emotions Zendaya plays; much of the film had excellent non-verbal communication. But Zendaya herself said somewhere that she doesn’t really like taking roles from Black actresses, and the screenwriter made it seem like the production team was conscious enough to know a woman of color needed to play this role, with the unspoken being that they also had to sell the movie.

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Vulture writer Angelica Jade Bastién added to this point in a New York Magazine newsletter about the film. She pointed out that the only time race is mentioned in the film is when Zendaya says she takes good care of her two little white boys. Bastién also pointed out that Zendaya is a producer on the film, which is also part of its selling point. It’s supported by the remarkable achievement of how much agency a young Black actress is getting, something that is rarely seen. But if that is the case, then where were the women and people of color behind the scenes of this movie? The screenwriter said Zendaya came on very early as a producer, and now I wonder how much power she actually had when making this film. Undoubtedly, all of the characters, especially her own, would have been fleshed out if, say, a Black woman had directed the film. But maybe then the studio wouldn’t have made it. We would have been able to see Tashi, though, through the eyes of an actual Black person who perhaps could have better understood the complexities of what it means to be a Black woman under the constant guise of the white man in this white world.

Zendaya never spoke to another woman alone in this movie. During my Q&A, the screenwriter said one of the moments that inspired him to look more into tennis was the infamous line call made during Serena Williams’ match, which ultimately saw her lose to Naomi Osaka — two Black women having a heated discussion under the lens of the cold, harsh world. He spoke about the dramatic elements in tennis, the passion, the bloodlust — he spoke about how Tashi’s character was partly inspired by Roger Feder’s wife, Mirka, and how he always wondered what she was thinking about as she watched her husband play because she always seemed so stressed. I got the impression that this screenwriter was trying his hand at understanding what goes on in the head of a woman so filled with desire and passion she wouldn’t just die for it; she would kill for it, too. Instead, he never quite gets it, which, again, was expected. Race, class, desire, and gender — it takes a special hand to master all at once.

The result is so many almosts. It almost captured racial tension, it almost captured class tension, it almost got it. Instead, I left the theater thinking that, of course, it is every man’s fantasy to be in a love triangle with a hot woman. There is a thrill in that, too, I guess.

My final bit is me sharing my alternative castings: Dev Patel, Henry Golding, or Mena Massoud, alongside Stephanie Hsu or Danielle Deadwyler. I loved O’Connor, Zendaya, and Faist, though, too. After all, their racial casting dynamics were important — the movie needed to be made, and the studio needed to be assured that audiences would see the film. That was the legwork of O’Connor and Faist.

Those were my main notes about this otherwise very fun film. Everyone had different thoughts and interpretations, which means it was good — it inspired discourse, debates, and analysis, which is what art is supposed to do. It also went viral, which I credit almost solely to Zendaya. Challengers is this year’s Saltburn. Any other notes I had are quite irrelevant since, regardless, I’ll probably go see it again, and again, and again, and again.

💫Kitty Talk💫

Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• New York Magazine, “Challengers Is Almost a Sexy Adult Drama”

• The Paris Review, “Bad Dinner Guest”

• Axios, “Dear venture capitalists: You're blowing it”

Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of The Black Cat.

Here is some exciting Black news.

Topicals founder Olamide Olowe launched a new platform, Cost of Doing Business, to help provide business resources to aspiring entrepreneurs. Speaking of platforms for founders, Luna Clervaux-Morris has launched Femme Noire to offer training and mentorship to Black women looking to launch businesses. Tiana Tukes, co-founder of LGBTQ+ VC, is now a lecturer at Spelman College — one of the first openly Black trans women to teach at the storied institution. Finally, HERide has become the first Black-owned rideshare company to secure a contract with the Atlanta airport.

Side note: Afrotech has opened applications for its AfroTech Future 50 list, which seeks to highlight the most influential Black innovators across various sectors. If you want to nominate someone — or yourself — please do so HERE.

This month, I’m reading: L’Ouvre by Emile Zola

This weekend, I’m listening to: Cowboy Carter by Beyoncé

💢From the Chatterbox💢

I remember the rules clearly: Don’t wear burgundy or denim. Do not touch the prisoners unless they touch you. Don’t make any promises. No running. No navy. No internet access.

The rules were for my visit to a women’s prison, where I agreed to watch and judge an inmate pitch competition. An investor first told me about the program while we were sitting in a New York café. He let it slip that he volunteered with an organization called Defy Ventures, which helped incarcerated women build entrepreneurship skills so they could go on and start their own businesses one day. He told me to let him know if I was ever interested in volunteering and, if so, I could come to Graduation — the final day of the program where the women pitch their companies to curious outsiders. That day was special to the women — and to the organization. It was a day of families coming in and cake being made. It also was the first and only time many of the women would ever wear a cap and gown. There was also the added joy that the winner of the pitch competition would receive a substantial sum of commissary money

I was to serve as a judge, analyzing pitches and giving feedback alongside a group of other writers and tech workers who agreed to volunteer that day. Some had been there before; others were new, like me. The slowly rose as the bus made its way down the highway, with a soft orange glow trying to break through the otherwise stubbornly gray clouds of the morning. I knew we were close to the prison when we turned into a driveway that looked like it led to a manicured forest. Thick trees hid any life behind these walls, and soon, we, too, disappeared among the fall foliage. I started thinking that I was now out of sight, out of mind, just like millions of people this nation has locked up behind bars. Some of the women I would meet would be released and go on to maybe launch companies, but most would have no choice but to take the cash and spend another day, another month, another year behind bars. I have to admit, the U.S. prison-industrial complex scares me, and here I was, among some of the most voiceless of our society, our most obscure, our most forgotten. Even when prisoners leave, they are landlocked to the fringes of society. I came that day to see the pitch competition and to also see if the rumors were true: If this was the real America.

Wearing pink pants and a black turtleneck, I joined a group of people in the waiting lobby. Security was kind. One guard’s radio went off — a fight broke out — they easefully slipped away and came back as if nothing happened. Smiling, they held us for just a moment and then led us into another room. The electronic doors opened gradually and closed with an unhurried pace. I looked to my left and saw the room where prisoners met with their families — a long room with long brown tables and plain walls. I started thinking about the intense lack of privacy these women had stripped from them — bathrooms with windows, recorded conversations, and guards watching their every move. The prison was very clean, looking freshly bleached, with shoes squeaking with each measured step. Frankly, it looked like my high school, which was rumored to have been designed by a prison architect.

But I knew the prison was putting on a show for us today. The courtyard we walked through was silent, with vast dorm-looking buildings standing completely still. If there was a fight anywhere on campus, all traces of it had been eliminated. Security tried to make conversation as they escorted us to the gym. One told us that prisoners are the ones who translate braille for the entire country, and I thought about every time I’ve traced my fingers along those dotted lines and how that was the result of the 13th Amendment. We made it to the gym, where the women were waiting for us, dressed in navy and burgundy. They cheered as we entered the room, and we had to dance to our seats. We smiled, gave brief introductions, and then the program began.

Everyone broke into small groups, and the women—around 30 of them—rotated to pitch their ideas to each of us. It was impersonally personal, with clear unspoken dynamics: they laughed, grinned, and cracked jokes but often let slip what life was like behind bars. They hated the food, commissary prices were high, and women were very mean behind bars. We couldn’t hug them, ask too many personal questions, or tell them too much about ourselves. They could only pitch us practical ideas, meaning no one could launch a software company because the women didn’t have computer access. They, instead, told us about more relatable businesses that I actually found refreshing, compared to the world of venture and startups that are always trying to digitize, always trying to find the next trend. The women spoke about knitting companies where some proceeds would go to helping incarcerated women; there were food trucks and recyclable furniture companies. Here presented a class divide. Pitches and business ideas were only as good as the information these women could access. Those with families who came by often could give more detailed ideas since their families would provide research. Those with no one had more sparse ideas, but the ambition was all the same.

Ambition is the same everywhere, and their scrappiness would have been adored even outside the prison walls. I started thinking about how these women would be on the Silicon Valley circuit; no doubt some of them had billion-dollar ideas. I spoke to a founder recently about his furniture recycling business and how he had raised millions for it. I thought only of that woman and how nothing separated the two besides life circumstances. Then, the reality of life for women also hit: the odds were low that these investors would give them the time of day given their gender. Plus, there was the overall uncertainty in how investors would perceive them. Would an investor jump to write a check to a brilliant Black woman with a criminal record the same way they do to white felons who go on and on again with their business ideas after a life of white-collar crime? There are already a lot of investors who know about this prison program, too, and one woman wrote about it back in 2016 — what has happened since then? It seems like those promises, like so many of these people, were forgotten.

Venture capital is not the only opportunity to get funding, but the life of a former inmate trying to launch even a regular business is not easy. Criminal records often make it challenging to access capital and sometimes even just support. But starting a business could be a lifeline: formerly incarcerated people have incredibly high unemployment rates, and the lack of opportunities importantly impacts Black people. Starting a business is at least a way to employ oneself. Others are getting the hint, and I’ve started to hear more about entrepreneurship programs in prisons. I loved the idea that these women were building such incredible skills and admired the way Defy Ventures worked to put this program together and give these women an opportunity to show themselves as the business leaders they are.

There were great strides taken to humanize the women: for one, they were just women, not prisoners, and we were only separated by circumstance. I was careful not to ponder too much about what was clearly on everyone’s mind: What did these women do to get locked up? Some still had baby cheeks, while others had the look of time passed on their faces. During a lunchbreak game, everyone was instructed to take a step forward if they related to a fact and look around to see how much we all had in common. The women were on one side, and we were on the other. “How many people have drunk driven before,” the program coordinator asked, and people on both sides took a step to now look each other face to face. As we learned more about the fabrics of our lives, it became clear that another unspoken factor was the situations many of the women came from and how that greatly influencer where they had ended up. Unstable childhoods, domestic violence — the pipeline showing how this nation failed its most innocent and most vulnerable. After the game, I sat next to a woman who immediately told me what happened to her. It was as if she had been waiting for someone to talk to, for someone to care. She told me she was another victim of the prison system and had served nine out of her 20-year sentence as she awaited her new trial in a few months. Until then, she was just someone just waiting around until the courts were ready to listen.

Suddenly, the program continued, and we had to pick a winner. The woman with the recyclable furniture company won, and the tech guy in my group called it one of the best pitches he’d ever heard. We all smiled proudly as she smiled, holding her commissary check for a few hundred dollars. One person asked when she officially planned to start the company, and she gave a little knowing smile — she let slip to us that she’d already been in for fourteen years, with no hint of how long she had left.

💫Kitty Talk💫

Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• Capital B, “How Black American Migrants Are Faring in Mexico”

• New York Times, “The Dinner Party That Started the Harlem Renaissance”

• The Economist, “Making accounting sexy again.”

Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of The Black Cat.

As usual, here is some Good Black News. SheMatters raised $2 million to launch an app that will let new and expectant moms track symptoms that could lead to health complications. There is a fun game called “Are you Blacker than ChatGPT” that is not only fun to take but also shines a light on how far ChatGPT has to go when it comes to understanding the Black community. Meanwhile, Howard became the first HBCU to create a figure skating team. Their first competition was last weekend.

I decided to try out a twice-a-month newsletter for the time being, mostly because I am working on a cool investigation that I can’t wait for you all to read. The paywall fell at TechCrunch, meaning all of my work is now free to read. I’m still covering diversity, equity, and inclusion in venture capital so sent me tips, tea, and stories as usual. In the meantime, let’s catch up.

This month, I’m reading: Germinal by Emile Zola

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: Simmer Down by Bob Marley & The Wailers

💢From the Chatterbox💢

I’m back, and I just saw Dune II.

The movie was beautiful to watch, but I couldn’t get over the blatant and obvious colonial overtones drenched in the whole movie. I had an inkling of that when I saw the first one on Sunday — a group of white nationals trying to conquer the desert where the natives happen to all be brown and Black. They repress them, abuse them, and exploit them. When the natives try to fight back, the nationals try to kill them. The white characters have their sovereign, their warriors, their gold, soothsayers, and a military general — I think that’s what that blob was — who looks like something RAID spray could get rid of. The chosen savior of the natives is supposed to be Timothée Chalamat, a skinny little white boy whose mother — wait, no spoiler alerts. Just know that when I was watching Dune II, her behavior made me so uncomfortable; the way she lied and manipulated the brown natives to take power from them and to have her son placed as their savior.

There is a secret they both harbor that makes it even more painful. I think I was supposed to see the world through his eyes, but I kept accidentally seeing it through Zendaya’s. Timmy and his mom came off as parasites who, at the flip of a switch, could easily evoke the white man’s ire, proving to be no better than the empower himself. There is at no point in time where the natives have control, even when they think they do. They are pawns in an imperial game, revenge for the throne. They live in the desert, they have rituals, they are supposed to be the contrast to the high-strung and orderly world Timmy and co. comes from. It was fun to watch the movie, even if I found it predictable on that front. In life, brown people never win these types of wars — and I knew that this movie would be no different.

In the first movie, every Black person but Zendaya died. In fact the first person he ever killed — both in the movie and in his whole story line — was a Black man.

In this movie, there are too many Black people to kill, though fighting does break out and many die in bombings, and conquest, while the imperial army destroys their landmarks, homes, and safe spaces. The imperials did this because the natives kept fighting back and nothing else was working — the army eventually had to kill them all. The first part of the movie made it seem like Timmy would save them from this, but it became clear that he only wanted revenge for the death of his father, and he was using the natives — rowling them up — under the belief that he was the chosen one that would lead them to so-called paradise when in reality he was leading them to a holy war that would hopefully secure him the throne, as he chose a bride suitable to rule alongside. For those who thought Zendaya and Timmy had a love story — no spoilers, but is that suitable bride ever a Black person?

The natives never found this plot out, which made it even more uncomfortable to watch. In the movie, Black people were guides and foils, while the rest of the natives were naive. I must also point out the fact that no one of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) descent seems to even be in the movie. Instead, there were dark Black people and light-skinned Black, Hispanic, and Latino actors hired to represent the natives in the desert. Thank you for finally hiring Black actors, but we didn’t mean for it to come at the expense of another minority group you easily could have found and hired. I saw someone online say they would quickly convert to whatever religion Timmy’s mom in the movie was head of — do you mean Islam? The clothing, the costumes, the makeup and designs, all felt out of place on what as obviously European white skin. Even I, who has little knowledge of Islamic culture, understood that when Timmy was told to watch out for the jinn in the desert, that was obviously and so very clearly a word that is used in Islamic culture to describe little ghost genies. I felt that the imperial themes in the movie and the obvious lack of MENA representation was a commentary in and of itself on how the West feels about the Middle East. I kept saying to myself that maybe this is the joke that everyone is in on but me. That movie was so obvious that it had to be a critique of just all that.

I was chatting to my friend who is a person of color, and she said that everyone knew these themes, that the exploration for spice in the movie was supposed to be symbolism for oil and how the Eurocentric world has used and abused the Middle East in a quest for extracting its resources. That made me feel better and perhaps it is true that everyone already knows this and I seem like someone who so obviously has missed the point. I didn’t know much about Dune before I watched the movies for the first time last week, and I still don’t know much about Dune even after skimming the Wikipedia pages of the book’s plot. But just knowing the West, I do not believe that everyone, that most people, I should say, is going to this movie believing that it is a commentary on U.S. Foreign Policy and are watching this as some form of justice or protest to stick it to the system.

It was clear the author was inspired by something, and that is fine. I didn’t read the book to know if he was giving any commentary on whether what he was inspired by was right or wrong. This book series for the most part is from the 1960s, and at times, I could tell. I went to talk at Lincoln Center and heard the director speak about Dune II, where he said that he gave Zendaya a lot more presence in the movie than she would have had in the book because it was a good way to understand Timmy’s character — she served as his foil. The movie did an excellent job at that, and I loved that he thought it was important to give her more of a role. At the same time, I was only slightly upset that the role ended up being one to help us better parse the actions of a man. That’s not the director’s fault though, it’s what the author’s text called for, which is why I am pretty sure there is not a hint of irony in the imperial themes of his work. I take it as a literal interpretation. Another layer to it all is, now that I think about it, I would have found it much more interesting, original — a breath of fresh air, dare I say — if for once a person of color was looked at as the imperal savior. It would have made the plot less predictable for me and added new sociological themes to parse. I would have loved for, like, Damson Idris or Taylor Zakhar Perez to play Timmy’s role to mix it up a bit. Zendaya can stay, but I also think Bailey Bass from Avatar and Interview with a Vampire could have given the cast a run for its money.

Overall, believe it or not, I loved the movie. I thought it was beautiful to watch. And because it was so beautiful, it made me sad. My favorite characters were the sandworms.

💫Kitty Talk💫

Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• Slate, “TikTok Is on the Decline”

• Town and Country, “Lord Lucan and the Enduring Mystery of Who Killed Sandra Rivett”

• New York Magazine, “The Theft First, there was the burglary. Then everything went missing.”

Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of The Black Cat.

As usual, here is some Good Black News. Neon Money Club just launched Score, its controversial dating app for people with good to excellent credit, and SocialCrowd, co-founded by Raphael Akinsipe, announced it raised a $1.6 million pre-seed. Twitch star Kai Cenat has become the first streamer to partner with Nike, and the New York City Council had its first Black Girl Magic Day to honor Black women throughout the city.

(Side note, will a publication please let me review Beyoncé’s hair care line.)

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber — I have a discount going on where you can subscribe for just $3 a month, $30 a year, or full price at $5 a month or $50 a year. Just click that entire sentence above, and it will take you to the subscription page.

Feel free to send around, email me your reflections, and follow me on Instagram at dominicmadori.

This month, I’m reading: L'Assmomoir by Emile Zola

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: 16 Carriages by Beyonce

💢From the Chatterbox💢

I realized something during Super Bowl weekend: Black and white Americans really do live in two different Americas, especially when it comes to pop culture.

While Black Twitter was going on about what Usher would sing, the media was dead set on tracking Taylor Swift’s jet to see if she would make it in time for the game. After the show was over, Sky News reported that “Taylor Swift's appearance at the Super Bowl helped it become the most-watched broadcast in US television history since the 1969 moon landing.” Usher only got two sentences at the bottom of this story, and as a Black girl who grew up in the South, I find it baffling that anybody actually thinks millions of people wouldn’t turn on the Super Bowl to literally watch Usher. Ushermania swept through the South like no one has ever seen, and that movement is very much still alive. And anyway, Swift was shown for only 54 seconds during the entire game! I do believe hoards of white women turned on the game just to see Swift, but the Black dollar shouldn’t — although it always is — be underestimated when it comes to supporting the art and culture that makes us happy.

When Black people want to show up, we do so in droves, and Usher is someone we have always been bullish on. It’s actually quite funny, though, because even talking about Usher with my non-Black friends revealed a divide: Me and my Black friends were certain he would sing his older R&B hits (which obviously he ended up singing), while many of my non-Black friends went for his more recent pop stuff. It made me think that we know two different Ushers — the one I grew up with and the one who made that song with David Guetta.

Something else happened, though, that also piqued my senses. I went to a party, and as we talked about the rumors of Beyoncé dropping something, one white girl mentioned that her father only knew Beyoncé as Foxxy Cleopatra from Austin Powers. I gasped audibly. That night clarified the feelings I had had since Taylor Swift beat SZA at the Grammy’s. I added it all back to her because, in an odd sense, it did all go back to her — I kept thinking, Beyoncé is one of the biggest superstars America has produced this century, and you know only her from Austin Powers; I bet he doesn’t just know Taylor Swift as that girl who made a cameo in Valentine’s Day all those years ago. I kept pondering about how this goes back to the severe disconnect between Black culture, the media, and white America. The Taylor Swift divide is the biggest example I am seeing of it right now and has piqued my interest since I started seeing arguments flare up on Twitter between Black people explaining why they don’t care about her and young stan accounts insisting why they are wrong.

As a Black Swiftie, I do agree she is an amazing songwriter and a brilliant marketer. but I don’t compare her to any Black artist, ever. It doesn’t make sense to. She is all-Amerianca Girl-Next-Door, a skinny blonde white woman for whom the stakes have never been that high, let’s face it. If she were Black, she wouldn’t be famous at all, as I don’t think her talent alone fits the twice and good narrative that propels Black songwriters to stardom. Her relationship with Travis Kelce is popular because people are projecting themselves onto these two random strangers living out some high school quarterback-popular girl fantasy that, as a weird Black girl from the South, was never an aspiration for me. Culturally, I don’t understand the obsession with Taylor, and I do love her dearly. I don’t understand Midnights, one of her weakest albums, beating out SZA’s SOS — though I do understand that the Grammy’s are racist and that no Black woman has won Album of the Year this century. I don’t understand the fights about whether Taylor Swift is the next Michael Jackson for the sheer simple reason that, for the most part, Michael Jackson appealed to Black people. Swift doesn’t culturally appeal to Black people at all, and that is seen by the discourse Black people have about her. I think she is Miss Americana in the best and worst way, frankly, with a clean-cut image representing a white America that has been, at times, the best friend and worst enemy of Black Americans.

She sings about innocence and girlhood that is rooted in fantasy for many people of color and is always given the benefit of the doubt granted to white women, artistically locking her in this box that hasn’t grown since she was about 22. Beyoncé released her Lemonade around the same age Taylor Swift released Midnights. If you are familiar with those two records, you would know the maturity gap between them is immense. Then think back to yourself and ask: When was Beyoncé ever a teenager to us? Or if SZA released an album like Midnights would she even be nominated at the Grammy’s? Swift has a lot of non-Black fans, though, that push her to extreme heights as an emblem of everything they are or have ever wanted to be — its projection to an extreme. It’s because we are lonely as Americans, because we are broke, because the government sucks, because we don’t go outside anymore or talk to people in real life; all we have are our screens and our idols and Swift fits the bill of a low-stake, non-risky pop star, with no heavy socio-economic baggage that’s easy to peg our attention on. She’s also the biggest pop star white girls have at the moment to make them feel seen.

There is only so much that I, as a Black girl, would get out of projecting myself onto Taylor Swift and expecting to be seen in return. I don’t even think about her, really. I listen to her music and apply her words to stories in my own life; I don’t, however, listen to her music with the intention of hoping I am represented. I do so more because I am curious about the way she writes. I think this detachment is probably why I become so confused when conversations arise about how she has shifted culture. It’s actually quite funny because I saw some non-Black people online trying to say that Swift, indeed, has Black fans, and it made me cringe. I said to myself, here is someone who has never had an honest conversation with anyone Black in their life. We have conversations in private, as we do about most social issues that would unleash hoards of wrath by people shocked to find that we do not see the world as they do.

Watching these faceless accounts argue online brought me back to discussing what songs Usher would sing at the Super Bowl: we really don’t know each other, do we? Someone online listed the names of people she has influenced, and they were all young, mostly white singers. I don’t hear conversations about Swift at all when it comes to the next generation of Black talent, and I think that’s okay to admit. Her work is not translating across as many cultural bubbles as one might assume based on the heavy media coverage and praise that white institutions give her. A part of me thinks these institutions feel they finally have a millennial prodigious pop star on their hands that they can attach praise to so they can feel good about themselves, that or so they can continue ignoring the rising talent of color that has overwhelmingly been taking over the music industry: from Latin pop to Beyoncé’s country debut. Swift is their last stronghold.

On another note, I think that many mainstream pop artists are rooted in some form of Blackness and embrace mid-to-heavy elements of Black culture to propel their image. Swift has managed to exist near-wholly outside of this, meaning there is rarely a time when she and Black culture collide. The extent of her association is when I saw a critic call her album Reputation “hip hop flavored,” her collaborations with Future, the cursed Ice Spice remix, and the actually pretty good Kendrick Lamar song. I also remember when she was accused of stealing a marching bad idea from Beyoncé some years ago, the accusations of cultural appropriation during the Shake it Off music video. and I recall her always talking about her staying away from politics because she was warned not to as she rose through the country's ranks. It could be — and this is a stretch — that she has stayed away from finding a direct way to connect with Black audiences because she probably really doesn’t know how, and instead, we are just left with this awkward white girl and, well, either you organically connect with her, or you don’t.

As for myself, I connect with Swift, but I’m also so much more than what she sings about. Maybe it’s that, as a Black woman, I need more than just love, loss, and fantasy; I need a more intersectional analysis and representation of my girlhood, my work life, my love life, my pains, my pleasures, and my culture. Red and Midnights only scratches the surface. I’m also Mad by Solange, I’m Party Girls by Victoria Monet or Low by SZA. Black girlhood is a multifaceted experience that one white woman can’t and won’t ever be able to capture. I don’t understand the hate when people remind Swifties of that.

These past two weeks have caused interesting introspection regarding the ways I view myself and my relationship with pop culture. The Super Bowl ended for me when Beyoncé announced her new music. I knew Usher was going to sing “Caught Up” and I did find it offensive that the broadcaster only gave a shoutout to Ariana Grande when she was seated next to Grammy Award winner Victoria Monet and thee Cynthia Erivo. To me, all three of them are stars. But alas, I was reminded to look around once more and see whose world I was in.

💫Kitty Talk💫

Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• New York Magazine, “The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger”

• The Atlantic, “Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out”

• The Economist, “How San Francisco staged a surprising comeback”

Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of The Black Cat.

I want to start today off with some good news — Spelman College received $100 million, the largest gift ever granted to the university. That’s amazing, and I hope to see more large donations to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. As I wrote before, Spelman is one of the big graduators of Black STEM talent, and anything that helps create and sustain resources for the institution is bound to have a lasting impact on all of the students who pass through those halls. Elsewhere, Honey Pot was just acquired for $380 million, and ballerina Misty Copeland is working hard to get Apple and Unicode to make more diverse shades of the ballet shoe emoji since the only shade right now is “European Pink” (you can sign her petition here).

This month, I’m reading: The African Trilogy by Chinua Achebe

This weekend, I can’t stop listening to: Kill Bill Acoustic, SZA

💢From the Chatterbox💢

I’ve been having thoughts — about excellence, about magic, about perfection, about all of it. Black excellence is a hallmark; it’s what we strive for to make our people and our ancestors proud. At times, though, the heights we are expected to climb leave too much room for a free fall, and alas, when that fall inevitably comes, we shatter on the rocky ground. After Claudine Gay's resignation, I kept asking myself who and what Black excellence is for. So many of my friends are tired strivers who would want nothing more than to rest for once, yet we are pushed and pulled in all directors to be the best in everything we do. Why? And for what? Sometimes, it feels like the quest for Black excellence is less about living up to our own expectations and more about trying to prove to white gatekeepers that we are worthy of adoration, opportunity, and love — that we are exceptions to the rules they created and try to enforce upon us.

On one end, it feels like there is no place for African Americans to just exist. Every action or inaction is branded as a revolutionary act and, don’t get me wrong, it is — rest is an act, luxury is an act, an indulgence is an act, working hard or not working at all is all an act for a group of people who are not supposed to be acting at all. At the extremity of this end, there is a society that forces our benchmark for success and happiness to be derived from how well the Black community fares against its oppressors. The true mantra of freedom and revolution, then, is how well one is able to detach one’s mission in life from those very frameworks; that is also a privilege, a power, a position one spends their whole life trying to grasp, yet only a few have truly seized.

There are many sides to Black Excellence. On its surface, it’s really just a term, a statement of celebration, of happiness, of joy. It’s something to strive for, something to motivate you, to push you forward. I don't think there is anything wrong with the term at all. In fact, the only time I sigh at the term Black Excellence is when moments like Claudine Gay happen because I start to realize how hollow and empty it is. These terms are just nice reminders that sometimes, some people do better than others. At the end of the day, though, excellence is not enough to save the Black community because a lack of excellence was never the problem to begin with.

In the wake of Gay’s resignation, I started to see more people talk about Black Excellence in this way because her concession was a reminder that nothing is ever enough. Black people, Black women especially, work so tirelessly hard and receive only a fraction of what others receive — and they have to keep working hard; of course, they can’t stop; they have to be excellent to survive and to reach a level that is considered just normal for others. They do this all while knowing that the endless demand for perfection is most often rewarded with nothing, and it does truly feel at times that if you don’t strive for the sun, unlike others who fall among the stars, they will crash and burn into the ground. Black Excellence, in practice, is its own celestial paradox: the skies sought to fly in are still not quite inclusive or equitable enough and, instead, leave Black professionals gliding over those harsh terrains with winds that cause burnout and singe wings. I oscillate often between wanting to be the best and wanting to just enjoy the mundane triumphs of everyday life. But is that enough?

A 2021 thesis by Janelle Raymundo entitled “The Burden of Excellence: A Critical Race Theory Analysis of Perfectionism in Black Students” had an interesting take on the idea of Black Excellence. She isn’t Black and therefore gave an outsider’s perspective on this topic. Raymundo wrote that the pressure of “perfectionism is a form of oppression,” and though Raymundo wrote this essay about Black students in honor programs, I think the same can be applied to any Black person working in a high-level professional environment. She spoke about the double consciousness Black people in these spaces face: they are the noted exception to the rule of their oppressors, yet must always prove that they are so; they are second-guessed, unheard, and overlooked. W.E.B du Bois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk about the depersonalization associated with being an African American, and at times, it feels the quest for Black Excellence is, at its worst, another burden that leaves too little room for error.

I found Raymundo’s view interesting. It makes sense that the mental anguish associated with trying to be perfect at the time can be considered its own form of oppression, as it puts pressure on Black people to always aim for the sun, even though we know Icarus fell into the sea and drowned at the end. It would be quite dark, though, if this were actually a strategy people used to eliminate Black people from high positions — just put enough pressure on them until they collapse or until something terrible happens, or you use them as a shield and watch them shatter on the ground below. Like most people, I’ve always said there needs to be more room to desire mediocrity and to just exist or more leeway in finding the ways that serve us best. Poet June Jordan had a line from her book On Call: Political Essays that I recently came across online: “Like a lot of Black women, I have always had to invent the power my freedom requires.” I liked this line as I started thinking about how creative we often have to be in order to move through structures not designed for us and how resourceful and innovative we must act in order to get what we want — rest included.

Alysha, a publicist, told me whenever she hears Black Excellence or Black Girl Magic, she thinks of the terms as being aspirational. “Like — here's what it looks like when we're really outstanding, shining, and operating at our best and doing it in our own unique way,” she said. At the same time, she feels the term has come to put too much pressure on Black people to be exceptional. There is no room to be good rather than great, no space to just be alright. “Not everything we do can or should always be about showing up and showing out at maximum capacity; that gets exhausting, and it can wreak havoc on our mental health and wellbeing,” she said. “There’s gotta be space for us to sometimes operate at our highest, and sometimes not, and have that still be okay to show up in this world.”

Often, when I hear about rest spoken, it’s in the context of it being “part of the journey.” This year, I no longer seek to contextualize or justify my rest. It’s something that exists, that happens, that just comes, and that is more natural to us than this capitalist corporate machine we put our bodies and minds through. Actually, the idea of rest could very well be a generational thing, too. I read in The Standard yesterday about how young people are realizing that hard work doesn’t pay off the way it used to; that we will never own homes, or probably have social security, or be able to retire — there is no point in burning oneself out anymore because there is no payout, you might as well take that vacation, take that summer Friday every Friday and leave those fruitless jobs when they no longer serve you. In a world where we control nothing, I am happy to see people my age regain possession over their time. I think it’s time for a new counter-movement for people to slip into when they seek refuge or simply want to retire from the game. I vie for the Black Mundane, a phrase that encompasses the quest to just be happy, get by, and do just enough without the pressures to outperform or overcompensate. Just cruise at mid-altitude. It’s an answer to what happens when you see what the sun has to offer and you choose to just cruise along its rays.

🔥Please, Mind My Business🔥

Please consider subscribing to my work at TechCrunch (just click on one of my articles and subscribe on them, please!) and signing up to listen to the podcast I co-host called Found, where me and my colleague Becca talk to entrepreneurs about their startup journeys.

• “Funding to Black founders was down in 2023 for the third year in a row’

• “Funding for female founders remained consistent in 2023”

• “Tulsa’s tech scene remains resilient amid state’s anti-DEI efforts”

💫Kitty Talk💫

Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• New Republic, “A Death at Walmart”

• Town and Country, “In Our Future”

• Teen Vogue, “Gen Z Voters Say They Are Opting Out of the 2024 Election”

Happy Sunday morning, everyone.

The holiday party season for me is officially done as I make my way back to Florida for Christmas. This has been a whirlwind in the last two weeks: I won my first journalism award for editorial coverage of the year, presented by Yahoo’s Black Employee Resource Group; I also was honored on the Forbes 30 under 30 Media list for my overall coverage of diverse founders, and contributed to this year’s Nieman Lab’s Predictions for Journalism, writing “Experts — not influencers — will cover more Black news.” Thanks to everyone for your support this year!

If you are in the giving mood, think about helping these families with their Amazon wish lists this Christmas. As always, please feel free to subscribe, send around, email me your reflections, and follow me on Twitter and Instagram at dominicmadori.

This month, I’m reading: Does anybody have any good book recommendations?

This weekend I can’t stop listening to: My House, Beyoncé

💢From the Chatterbox💢

This year, I went down to Austin to attend my first AfroTech.

Before, the only tech conference I had ever attended was TechCrunch Disrupt. It’s filled with the standard San Francisco tech crowd, who all wear dark-colored vests and plain-colored shoes. AfroTech was nothing like that. Upon walking into my first party, I was greeted with pops of color, African print, and people decked down in designer logos; looks were completed with Nike’s, and there was not one single strand of hair out of place. “You should have told me everyone would be wearing Jordans,” one white man wearing a suit said to his friend.

I was fascinated to see how all the Black techies dressed when they didn’t need to ward off micro-and-macroaggressions or conform to the white tech crowds. We signaled wealth, culture, and status to each other; it was a celebration, indeed, of showing to ourselves how far we have come. I started thinking a lot about style and perception. When I first started out as a young business reporter, I tried very hard to blend in: I wore stereotypically masculine perfume with dark colors. For some reason, when I started working at TechCrunch, I completely rejected the standard tech uniform and leaned into what I simply call “girl.” My style now is just “girl.” I wear very sweet-smelling perfume, lots of dresses and heels. I doll myself up like a little tech Barbie. It is, I think, a psychological response — me taking my power back from such a masculine world.

I was tired, though, when I arrived at AfroTech, so I decided to fly under the radar. Fashion can be used to say everything or nothing at all. This time, I used it as a cloak to move around assumingly and chat with a Black investor.

He told me that we use our clothes as a form of code-switching. When we are on our own, of course, we feel more comfortable expressing ourselves. Outside these walls, though, he said the goal in tech — and for us, in venture capital — is often to blend in since our skin already makes us stand out. This means more conservative tones and casual fits. From our accessories to our shoes, when we go to those pitches, happy hours, and dinners, we have to play the game.

When I started asking more people in venture about the way they dress, I found layers to the conversation. So, I called Katrina Jones, an equity and inclusion expert, to chat more about it. She brought up how Black people are trained to be hyper-cognizant of professional standards that are rooted in this white-dominated culture.

“We’re always navigating that, but more importantly and more insidiously, we’re also always navigating stereotypes, threats, and bias,” she told me, adding that for Black people, we present ourselves in a way to make white people as comfortable as possible so they don’t view us as threatening. “Disproportionately, people from historically and presently marginalized communities are penalized for how they communicate and how they show up.” This includes verbal and non-verbal communication, she said.

This reminded me of when I was very young, and my grandparents always stressed the importance of looking stylishly presentable. They grew up in the Jim Crow South, where, I imagine, presentability, respectability, and likability were a matter of life or death. Clothing has always been a costume for Black people. It is how we blended in and spoke without using words. I’m sure we were all taught very young that, indeed, what you wear matters, and white people are always paying attention, so don’t look suspicious! My Black British tech friend also shared similar dynamics, saying her style stemmed from her mother. She, too, doesn’t fashion code-switch to the old British stuffiness and loves wearing bright colors; at the same time, “it’s Sunday's best vibes, but in the corporate world,” she told me of her tech style. “It’s something that’s embedded in me. I like looking nice [and] don’t like feeling underdressed because you never know who you’ll see.”

Jones also spoke about her own challenges. She is a curvier woman, and she said she spent the early years of her career trying to make her body less curvy to avoid negative attention from men and women alike. “I don’t think people understand there’s so much thought and analysis that goes into how you’re showing up.” This is especially in contrast to the venture and startup world, where a disheveled and casual look has become a trope in and of itself. There is no disheveled Black American billionaire look, however. There is hardly a disheveled Black tech look, either. When we are in those white rooms, at worst, we are elevatedly sloppy; any hair out of line is an intentional mess. I imagine the pressure is even harder for Black men. “If you wear your hoodie, you are full urban streetwear in the office; but if you walk past your same colleagues on the [road], they’ll probably cross the street,” Jones said.

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I started thinking about my own style and how I present myself as a tech journalist. Reporters tend to copy the industries they cover: business journalists often dress conservatively, tech a bit more casual, and politics is a bit more refined. I asked Jones what she thought about how I dress like a Barbie in those white tech crowds, and she offered that it was a way not to feel diminished, to feel confident, and to say I was okay with being different. She does that, too; she said the idea is: “There are very few other Black women in this space, so I might as well fully embrace that and show up as myself — I can’t hide who I am. I’m going to stand out anyway.”

This is the only way to explain why the hell I wore neon yellow platform heels on stage at Disrupt this year. Or a bright green dress for our speaker’s reception. There is something that has always fascinated me about how men in these spaces expected women to dress with hopes of breaking into their boys’ clubs. I wanted to reject the notion that I needed or wanted their little boy’s club. I saw a lot of women in tech this year dressing in bold, bright suits, I saw a Black investor wearing Jordans. Maybe yes, I want to be seen because Black women are always ignored; and in those spaces, and because of my job, people are somewhat forced to see me. In that, then, maybe I want them to see someone willing to break every rule they wrote just to say, I’m in control now.

This drive is compounded by the fact that I overall do like clothes and costumes. I like how dressing can tell a story; take you someplace new, and let you be someone else. It’s a form of storytelling to me, and unsurprisingly, I love a good story. An investor once asked me if people took me less seriously because I dressed so well. I told him I never thought about that. As a Black woman, I assume most people don’t take me seriously, which I take as a free pass to do what I please. That’s why I wore a mini dress and six-inch platform heels to a business party where the dress code was “smart casual.”

Perhaps there is a generational divide in this thinking. Older generations have the mindset of not wanting to stand out, whereas younger people are more willing to rewrite those rules. That, or maybe after centuries, we’ve all just had enough, and have given ourselves more grace in not caring what people think. Maybe white people, too, have loosened their expectations of us, making it easier to be ourselves in the societal boxes into which we’re often thrown.

I asked my friend Tobi, who has a web3 company, about how she dresses in the tech spaces. She said dress code-switching doesn’t really impact her, and she “couldn’t care less” about the standard minimalistic look tech people gravitate toward. “They never looked like me,” she said of the white tech barons of today. “So I never looked at them as reference points on how to dress. In the most humble way possible, I dress well. For any circumstance, I show up, and it’s got nothing to do with whether it’s a white or Black space.”

Luke, another Black founder, also does not fashion code-switch. He’s been dressing like "himself” since his days working in corporate finance. “In NYC, we all ride the subway. I wanted execs or CEOs to see a kid on the train dressed like me and know that she or he may be able to run circles around their board too,” he said. He carried this freedom of expression with him as he went to launch his own tech company, and now he and his employees are known for their bold, unique style. “Whether it’s walking into Amex with beanies or Jordans on or showing up to the investor conference not looking like anyone else there, it just happens,” he continued. Luke standing firm in his own style has created an interesting impact: partners and investors now try to dress like him when he enters the room. “They find their best hats, sneakers, and fits, and we like it,” Luke said. “It’s a term of endearment.”

One founder, Kimberly, told me that in white tech spaces, specifically when she is pitching to investors or participating in professional activities like demo days, she tries to avoid attracting any attention to her clothes. “I am not casual, so you won’t find me in a hoodie or T-shirt with my company logo printed on it, but I will stay toned down and in neutral colors like black, blue, white, and grey in these environments.” At the same time, she lives in Atlanta, where tech spaces are usually mixed or predominantly Black. At places like the Gathering Spot, she told me she reaches to wear the brightest clothes in her closet. Overall though, it’s not the clothes that bother her so much. “It’s the hair that makes me the most conscience,” she said.

“When engaging with predominantly white spaces, I prefer straight hair to avoid unnecessary conversations about my waist-length braids. My straight hair also makes me seem older which I believe adds more trust, even if superficial,” she continued.

I messaged a founder named Issac, who sent me laughing emojis to my question of perception. “I’m laughing because I had a pitch this morning and hit a moment when I couldn’t find my Patagonia vest and was like, ‘damn, these white people will never give me money,’” he said. At the same time, Rich, another founder, said he dresses the same in every room. “My parents yell at me til this day cause I don’t conform, but I can’t be myself when I don’t dress how I like,” he told me. “I feel like a fraud.”

Gabriel, another founder, told me something similar. “Embracing our individuality and leveraging it as a value proposition is a formidable tool,” he told me. “It's this conviction in the uniqueness of our perspectives that empowers us to rise above any pressure to conform.” It’s clear there is a balance we all walk of expression, defiance, and respectability to both see and be seen in this world. Maybe in tech, after all the conversations of race these past few years, there has been more of an appreciation of what it means to be authentic when entering a room. The rules have changed, and finally, we are a little bit more in control.

Ironically, I’ve always hated, though, how, in talking about Black style — or Black anything, really — we center the conversation on whiteness.

That’s why AfroTech was fun to watch; there was no one there to perform for except ourselves. I don’t know what happened to everyone as they returned to their regular lives. I imagine some return to conformity while others still hedge on wanting to break free: and hey, maybe some people really do just want to wear neutrals all day. Whenever we go, though, there is a perception — we are now the representation that matters.

I take solace in knowing, though, that there are some forms of style assimilation that even we will not adhere to. Seriously, have you ever seen a Black person wear those Hoka shoes?

“Thank god no,” one Black tech investor told me. “Could never catch me spending money on ‘em.”

Refer a friend

🔥Please, Mind My Business🔥

Please consider subscribing to my work at TechCrunch (just click on one of my articles and subscribe on them, please!) and signing up to listen to the podcast I co-host called Found, where me and my colleague Becca talk to entrepreneurs about their startup journeys.

• “Black founders still care for Silicon Valley Bank”

• “Spill toasts one year with a $2M seed extension, Kerry Washington and Champagne”

• “Black founders received 0.13% of capital this Q3”

💫Kitty Talk💫

Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• “Fancy Wearing a Kaunda Suit? Not in Kenya's Parliament.”

• “How Bill Ackman’s Campaign to Oust Harvard’s President Failed”

• “How to Win Founders and Influence Everybody”

I am about to head back to New York to kick off the holiday party season, so that will be exhausting and fun.

I can’t keep thinking about the dinner Ruka Hair held for their U.S. brand launch a few weeks ago in Brooklyn and how it was fun to just be in a room with other Black women talking about our hopes, dreams, and hair. Ruka Hair is a Black British-owned company that sells high-quality synthetic hair to make wigs and weaves. I got my first weave last year and used their bundles. I knew I wanted to use a Black-owned product that offered good transparency and quality. I’m excited to see them start entering the U.S. market more, and I love the new wave of Black-owned hair companies coming in to offer us sustainable, quality products that can keep our hair healthy (especially as we all continue healing from the relaxer epidemic.)

As usual, please feel free to subscribe, send around, email me your reflections, and follow me on Twitter and Instagram at dominicmadori.

This month, I’m reading: Does anybody have good book recommendations?

This weekend I can’t stop listening to: Mad by Solange (feat. Lil Wayne)

💢From the Chatterbox💢

I spent a few weeks this summer working and traveling Europe and found myself chasing one question that’s always sat in the back of my mind: What’s it like being a Black founder in France? I knew much about what it was like being a Black founder and investor in the U.K. and knew all too well what it meant to be one in the States. I had even heard stories from Germany, too. Still, France felt like a mystery to me. That was quite interesting because I spent around five years studying French culture and France; from my college years to even today, I read news in French and travel around the country at least once a year. I read a lot of books and was very familiar with race relations in the country from even my brief time living there as a college student (I’ll tell you about this era of my life at a later time, lol). Years ago, as a young adult, I wrote in a blog about my views on France, “We talk of what the oppressor has done, but never how that made the oppressed feel — never hear from the voices of those impacted, but always read the documents of those who did the impacting.” Like how James Baldwin shaped my views on America, I was forever radicalized by reading Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire; after that, the City of Lights dimmed for me a bit, and in retroflection, maybe France wasn’t mysterious to me at all.

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When I went to France this summer, I made time to meet with Black founders and investors and talk to them about what it is like living in that world. My expectations were that France, specifically Paris, was a stratified bubble with a social and class hierarchy that is even more shrouded than that in the U.K. and that Black people are rarely, if ever, able to peel back any layers of that onion. Deep down, though, I was nervous I would get it all wrong and that everything was fine in Paris, and I was just projecting and putting my American nose where it didn’t belong. I just needed the confidence of a white male correspondent who just shows up anywhere and starts taking notes.

The biggest pain point is that it’s illegal to track data in France and Germany (primarily because of WWII), meaning that it’s hard to prove racism actually exists (unlike the data we can easily pull in the U.S. and U.K.), creating the perfect loop to gaslight people into thinking it is them as individuals rather than French society as a whole that is the problem. Data has been so important in proving discrimination in the U.S. and even the U.K.; it was the one thing found to work when social proof was dismissed. Here in France, without concrete data, I felt like I was walking on an unsteady foundation. Still, I trusted my intuition, and I believed my sources. I was determined to make sure my readers did, too. I set off to Paris to get a glimpse behind the curtain, to see what faces racism took when it manifested in L'hexagone. I couldn’t say that every city was like its capital, but as the French would know, common sentiments are what link a society.

First, for my “VC Office Hours” column in TechCrunch, I spoke with investor Fabrice do Rego about leading one of the few Black-led funds in the EU. His fund is called The Blueprint, and it focuses on seed and pre-seed rounds, writing checks ranging from €100,000 to €400,000. It’s based in Belgium but works with founders there and in France. Chatting about what the EU was like was fascinating; it was one of those moments when you realize the entire African diaspora throughout the Western world has yet to know peace from our colonizers and displacers. It was also interesting to see how one navigates an ecosystem with little evidence of one's pain.

Here is part of our conversation:

TechCrunch: Is there really a pipeline problem, or is it just an excuse for investors in the EU not to invest in as many diverse entrepreneurs?

do Rego: As you say, it’s a sentiment. The proportion of founders coming in from outside the traditional founder path is much bigger. As an investor, you need to look for them when other people don’t. Most established investors are simply selecting deals, because they have a lot of incoming deal flow from homogenous types of founders. But our job as investors is to look where the new superstar of startups can be.

Most new founders don’t know how the ecosystem works or what to look out for. They just know how to solve a problem, and at the end of the day, that’s what we are looking to do — we’re just looking for people who know how to solve a problem.

Founders from diverse backgrounds often don’t know the traditional path to raise money. They don’t know what type of deck to build, which kinds of connections to have, or what they need to say. Many don’t know how to do that, so it’s part of our job to look for them, not the other way around. VC firms need to take that effort if they want to have more diverse founders.

Education is also critical. It’s important to let diverse students from business schools know that they can have a professional life in VC. Most of them just don’t think about it because they think it’s not for them.

TechCrunch: France does not track diversity statistics, making it hard to prove that racism is even real in the country. What is a way around this?

do Rego: My thesis is: What you’ve experienced in the U.S. and U.K. — we have the same problems here. But getting that data in Continental Europe is complicated because, in some countries, it’s not even allowed to have ethical statistics.

Some people tell me, ‘Okay, what you’re tracking is a problem specific to the U.S. or U.K., but we don’t have those problems in France.’ I find that stupid because if I just asked a VC here to show me their portfolio companies that have diverse teams, they would struggle to do that.

If you don’t have data, you cannot track, and if you cannot track, you cannot evolve. But it’s touchy in France, and when we say we want to tackle this problem for some people, they take it personally and say, ‘You mean that we are racist?’ That’s not what I’m saying, and we need to change that mindset.

After this, I spent the next week compiling the big piece: What’s it like being a Black founder in France? There was a prolonged darkness that came over me as I covered France that made me very sad, even compared to when I first started covering Black founders in the U.K. It was my own form of Paris syndrome, and I tried hard to parse where that darkness was coming from. I flickered a light and found most of it came from a history of enslavement and colonizing that France has yet to recognize. It came from dealing with racial stereotypes and prejudices that manifest in the form of economic and social discrimination. It comes from a silent society, one that refuses to listen, one whose inability and refusal to talk about the past and present makes it hard to plan for the future. It comes from the fact that France denies Black people their pain. It came from me having to face those demons, too, constantly reminding me of how fathomless and evil the crimes against the diaspora were, what happens when a nation neglects to let those people speak, and what happens when a mass group of people has no hope of a better tomorrow. Next, I had to see exactly how much of these feelings also penetrated France’s tech bubble.

When I started this piece, I thought I would be talking about the mainland, but I soon found myself pulled into researching the région d'outre-mer (the overseas department islands). I had forgotten that the islands France still controlled throughout the world were actually considered to be part of France, not just a territory like Puerto Rico is for the U.S. I didn’t know what to expect of the outre-me-rs relationship with France, but was not surprised to hear what many told me.

In my piece, I wrote:

Rodolphe-Emmanuel Hospice, founder of a healthcare company Clikodoc, based in Martinique, often has to go to mainland France to fundraise due to a lack of investors on the island. But when he does get to France, he sees many people like him being treated as if they’re complete foreigners. “We are seen as rural people [instead of] urban people. We are not taken seriously,” he said, adding that Islanders like himself are often considered lazy. “Also, we come from small markets, so we have to fight all these stereotypes to prove we can do interesting things.”

Late into the reporting process, I remembered that any story about France would be incomplete without Africa, so I had to go back and make sure I mapped how France still plays a very active role in the lives of many Africans. Africa, of course, is doing well when it comes to investors, and its relationship with French investors is different because the continent is a well-known multi-billion-dollar market. But I still wondered what type of bias would arise from even having solid proof of potential success. I wrote:

Moulaye Tabouré, founder of African e-commerce platform Anka, said … he had his challenges. Though he said he felt discrimination in the ecosystem wasn’t necessarily based on skin color, he believes there is a lack of cultural awareness on the part of the investors. He was often questioned about the size of the African market, or about whether people would actually buy his product. “With clear ignorant undertones,” Tabouré added. “No matter what data points you share with them, because it is so far from most investors’ reality, and they are not curious or risk-prone, you feel perpetually out of place.”

The stories from the mainland were pretty daming, though. It seems like some Black people who actually live in France felt like they were being ignored while resources and opportunities emerged for other groups of people, even others within the diaspora. This made me sad to hear. To me, at least over in America, the face of what it means to be French is not just a white girl with bangs and red lips. The face of France, to me, is more Black and brown than even when Baldwin went there. The more I heard about the dismissal of Black people in the mainland, the more it felt like France had yet to come to terms with who she was becoming in this modern era, that she would try to cut off the Black and brown noses only to spite her own face. Shaila Sahai, the founder of a fintech, told me she faces severe misogynoir in France and that investors there usually treat her with bafflement upon sight.

In fact, she’s had investors end the conversation in the middle of a pitch. I wrote about some of her experiences:

French sociocultural beliefs and actions are contradictory, and when founders from Black backgrounds come into meetings, investors don’t know what to do. When faced with a Black founder, [Sahai] feels most of the French investment community’s thoughts flow something like: “Should we welcome them and give them the same chance and the same place as the others, or should we remain careful?”

“It’s impossible that you can be their equal,” she said.

Naturally, on the topic of equality, I became very interested in classism. Although it’s hard to pinpoint racism, who is most impacted by socioeconomic divides was an easy way to see how opportunities were also cut through racial and ethnic lines in France. I wrote that:

Paris is segregated along class lines which separate the city along ethnic lines, too. Many Black and brown people within the Île-de-France region live in what is known as the “banlieues” or the “outskirts” of Paris. The conditions of these neighborhoods vary, but they nevertheless have negative stereotypes. Raphaël Jabol, the founder of legal services startup Ekie, grew up in one of these neighborhoods. While Jabol didn’t necessarily feel discriminated against when he sought fundraising, he still described the ordeal of learning the social codes of the venture ecosystem as “tough.” “This is the first step of creating inequality,” he said. “Poor education.”

France’s tech bubble was a microcosm of its own larger society, and those negative thoughts that Black people had in everyday society about their surroundings were represented, too, within the tech bubble. Hope was mixed, but they were not alone there; Black hope in most Western places oscillates depending on the year, the hour, and the president. France is just one of those places that I spend hours thinking about because of the nuanced way race, class, religion, and society intersect over there. The solutions to any of these issues seem so simple, and yet it seems like its strides in addressing them lag compared to those in the U.S. and even the U.K., and instead are handled with bitter resentment and dismissal. Are you calling me a racist? I thought most of what Sahai said, ruminating long over the image of tension between the need to finally accept Black people in higher realms of society or keeping them always one step below. History will show you that trying to keep Black people as permanent second-class citizens for long is never a good idea.

I always think about Baldwin saying that as a Black American, I would be treated differently over there because of my Americaness and that I would also come to find that I had more in common with the country that enslaved me than the people who originated from the same continent I once lived on. That is a tricky fact I am always conscious of when I move around in Europe, and it makes me feel like an outsider looking in at my own race. Overall, while traveling, I feel generally, as a Black American, concurrently resented and embraced. France was a society like and unlike my own. As I spoke to people I came across good stories and bad stories, but mostly a distorted face. Maybe that was the tension; maybe this is what a turning point looks like. The voices were muffled, and the image was shattered; it was a morph between what France is and what she wants me, perhaps as an American, to see.

A common theme many in Paris whispered to me of was disregard, the feeling of not being seen or ignored. If you can’t see race, then racism doesn’t exist. But in reality, when you can’t see race, you can’t see the person standing in front of you for who they are, telling you how you are making them feel. I ended up thinking long and hard about demons, about not shying away from talking about them, about facing them, about the importance of telling a story clean, cut, and to the point. When I put my France package together, I wrote down what I was told, tried to draw a string where there appeared thread, and gave credit to where credit was due.

I found there was some good movement happening in the venture ecosystem that Black people pointed me too. There’s Station F, which has become a hail mary for many emerging founders. Though I was told that diversity initiatives don’t last long in France, there are accelerators looking to help people from “underprivileged backgrounds.” (In the European sense, that usually means class.) Networks are growing in the outremer, and there are programs like Afrique Diaspora, Pass Africa, and Francophone Africa to help out Black founders in France and in Africa. Innovation is indeed happening, and aside from tech in general, I can only imagine what cool products would stem from specifically Black-focused French tech, lest the market becomes more acquainted with ethnic trends. I became happy again, and happy that some people were very happy. The American in me was optimistic, though the Black American in me was cautious, distracted almost, by the geyser of race I was standing on in their country.

Someone told me their ecosystem just needs more visible success stories and more people willing to come out in the open and be the face of Black success. But I found that put people at odds, though. Some people wanted to build in quiet because, in a sense, that’s safer in a race-blind society where people just don’t want to deal with talking about race. In that, however, people are denied role models and truth-tellers; they are denied someone or something to give them hope. Some found complete success just not mentioning or focusing too deeply on anything; others accepted their place without further fuss. Others, like Sahai, were mad, like very, very mad. People spoke to me in murmurs, with hope, anger, indifference, and despair. There was no monolith in feelings here, no matter how much I wanted to box in a clear answer.

So I did what always happens when France sends me on a spiral. I read. In the 1920s book Banjo by Claude McKay, a Haitian character, Ray, argues with a French student, who tells him that France has treated “colored” people — Black and Arabs — better than in the U.S. Ray responds, “I don’t know how it would be if you Europeans had a large colored population to handle in Europe. I hope to God you won’t ever face that.” When I think of the rising racial tensions in France right now, I think of this line because this is what is happening: a cultural and racial clash caused by an influx of Black and brown people they can no longer ignore, a friction that, depending on how it’s handled, will come to define France for the next century. That is the tension. That is the time. That is the distorted face. That is the good and the bad, the breaks, the shatters, the broken glass. There is more than enough social proof to see that this is a turning point. At the same time, I am optimistic and hopeful for all the Black French techies out there as the ecosystem continues to build. Maybe their ecosystem will build the perfect tech bubble, and the founders within will lie unaffected by the outside steam, and in the end, it will all be alright for them, as it soon will for us all.

I let the curtain drop and boarded a train down south to see what the sun felt like in Nice.

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Other stories I’ve written you might find interesting:

• “There’s a growing desire in the UK for more Black specialty venture funds”

• “The US could learn a lot from how the UK is crafting DEI policy for venture capital”

• “California passes law mandating VC firms to release investments’ diversity information”

Please consider subscribing to my work at TechCrunch (just click on one of my articles and subscribe on them, please!) and signing up to listen to the podcast I co-host called Found, where me and my colleague Becca talk to entrepreneurs about their startup journeys.

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Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met:

• Teen Vogue, “A Night At The All That Glitters Diwali Ball in New York”

• New York Magazine, “Plaza Regret”

• New York Times, “Everybody Knows Flo From Progressive. Who Is Stephanie Courtney?"