💃🏾Black Face, White Space💃🏾
and then some
💖Motivation Meows💖
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.
“It’s Sunday's best vibes, but in the corporate 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.
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.”
🔥Please, Mind My Business🔥
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💫Kitty Talk💫
Here are some interesting articles I’ve read since we last met: