99. A real life example of centering and its impact on a Black woman
Summary
In 2019, Erica and India got together to discuss India’s experiences at Afropunk, the summer festival of Black art and music. In the midst of what she describes as a place of love and support and people coming together celebrating their own identities, she also had an encounter that shook her - something she might once have considered part of the normal experience of being a Black woman. Looking back on the event revealed to India just how far she’d come on her DEI journey, and now, Erica and India bracket their original conversation with fresh appreciation and the wisdom of hindsight.
In this discussion:
An introduction to the unique experience of Afropunk Festival
What it means for people within marginalized identities to feel safe and joyful in their self-expression
Taking up space in ways that help you feel whole, and in ways that are problematic
Finding language to describe everyday experiences you now see in a new light
Practicing awareness in spaces where you’re not the intended audience
Measuring progress on the DEI journey, even when growth is not immediately recognizable
Keep The Dialogue Going
Examine the nuances of your DEI journey and learn how to put those experiences into words. Join us over at Pause On The Play The Community.
Article
When The Past Is Present
Erica continues to move house and navigate box land this week. So Pause On The Play has brought back a conversation that beautifully illustrates the topics we discuss over in The Community: visibility and doing something in a visible way, one that connects you with your people. What kind of audience do you want to engage with? What is your why? How do you effectively communicate your purpose?
The answers come down to authentic storytelling and sharing more about yourself. But before you can do that, you have to understand what the hell it is that you're experiencing. For an example of what this looks like, Erica and India revisit a conversation they had back in August 2019 following India’s first visit to Afropunk in Brooklyn, NY.
The shit was fresh, and she was pissed. “She was hot as a hornet’s nest,” Erica says, “in a good way though, because, in my opinion, it needed to be heard in its entirety, and the emotions that were there needed to be captured. That needed to be exactly what it was.” The conversation was so much more than what people initially got from it and gave India a deeper understanding of where she was in her own DEI journey,
“Right,” India agrees. “And I think that that's what stands out to me the most is realizing that, in hindsight, I was able to understand and bring the conversation to things that I experienced, incredibly fresh and still salty and still a little bit raw in that moment that I don't think that I would have understood in the same way, you know, in 2017 or ‘18.”
A year and a half later, the experience still resonates with her. “I was learning more about what microaggressions look like, taking up space, or fragility, centering...these are things that, like, I'm not a DEI coach, so I didn't have language for that,” India says, recalling the events that took place at Afropunk. “I looked at certain things as the normal experiences of being a Black woman, and didn't quite clearly see or understand that some of those things that I looked at as my normal are not normal for everyone and are not acceptable and are rooted in racism.”
“It's an interesting thing,” she continues, “to take a step back and realize that when you're in the moment, learning more about DEI, you may not feel yourself changing very much.” Looking back, she says, “you have a whole new level of understanding for things that were just Tuesday and I think many times people listening to this podcast or getting to know us better or consuming DEI content from anywhere, really, know that that's true for people who are cis-gendered or heterosexual or white, but that's also true for people who don't fall into those categories. There were a lot of things that I was not completely aware of were happening because of race or because of sexuality, but absolutely were rooted in that.”
If you haven’t heard the phrase it’s just Tuesday before, it means, “Oh, it's a Tuesday; it’s just regular stuff!” because sometimes shit like this happens - and it's commonplace!
“It's a real thing to have self-preservation kick in and to kind of block certain things out because it helps to keep you whole,” Erica points out. “I don't think it's that people don't realize these things because they don't want to. It's almost like your mind just does not let you process it because it doesn't think that you're ready, or it just knows that your emotional wellbeing could be in jeopardy if it truly opened you up to everything.”
This topic and the rawness, vulnerability, and honesty of India’s storytelling mirrors what’s happening inside Pause On The Play The Community. As India recalls of the original conversation, “we actually decided to just press record as I explained what happened, and I think it's important to note that...I'm not happy.” Nevertheless, she continues to learn on this journey. “I now have more language and more understanding as to why that was allowed to take place and what the unique nature was.”
Before rewinding to 2019, India makes it crystal clear that, had the incidents she’s about to detail happened ten years earlier, she would have just chucked them off as usual, everyday experiences. “In today's day, I see that very differently.
Afropunk’s Awesome Blackness
For those who’ve never heard of Afropunk before -- the annual festival celebrating Black art -- allow Erica to introduce its brilliance with a brief rundown. “It is amazing. It is music. It is culture. It is inclusion. It is acceptance. It is just fucking amazing.”
India returned from the event full of details to share and experiences - most good, some bad - to dissect. “I've been to concerts before,” she says, “and so I figured I kinda knew what I was walking into but let's just say I had no idea!” Even having attended various other festivals, India admits she wasn’t fully prepared for Afropunk’s epic sensory adventure.
Beyond the music, India reveled in the joy of seeing people coming together, celebrating their identities, “just being in a place of love and support and fully being able to step into the fluidity of who you are and what that meant for you.” From the freedom to wear what you wanted to the option of moving as you saw fit, the environment at Afropunk was one of the most profound experiences she’d ever had.
Even Afropunk’s approach to on-site marketing caught India’s attention. One such component was a beautiful gold reflective backdrop installation with props - like crowns and headpieces - that attendees could use for photos. “I got to know one of the girls that was taking pictures for people with their cell phones,” India says. “She actually said Instagram supported that and that they had launched a whole thing called #shareblackstories.” Who would’ve thought that diversity was even on Instagram’s radar at that point or that the company would invest money into an expensive festival installation?
In an age when festivals are commonplace (pre-COVID, of course), it’s rare that we walk into any event without having already formed an opinion about that experience - even if we’ve never attended a particular festival before. India says, “I had these preconceived notions of how a concert should go. As much as I think that I'm open-minded, even I had, like, ‘Oh yeah, been there, done that.’ But there were so many surprises that I was not expecting.”
No -isms Of Any Kind
India noted that Afropunk’s inclusivity and safety theme extended to its retail area, where many non-profits were represented alongside the majority Black-owned businesses. “I was like, ‘Erica would be all over this,’” she says before reciting the messaging repeated throughout the festival. “No sexism. No racism. No ageism. No homophobia. No fatphobia. No transphobia. No hatefulness. And no Trumpism.” Most of the text appeared in white font on black background, except No Trumpism, which appeared in either hot pink or red. “I was like, ‘Oh! well, now I know what kind of space I stepped into 100%!’”
From day one of the event, Afropunk organizers announced that if an attendee did or said anything to make someone else feel unwelcome via any of those -ism ideologies, they’d be asked to leave. Immediately. India appreciated this clearly stated, no-nonsense approach. “It's, like, zero tolerance. I don't think I've ever been to an event that has addressed that.”’
“I feel like, more often than not, it ends up being, ‘Oh, we're all here. They're an asshole; you just gotta keep going,” Erica says, citing the hands-off practices of standard-issue event policies.
India agrees. “Leading with that also meant that to have so many people that had these big, bold personalities all in one space...I didn't see what I think most people would be afraid of at a large event like that, which is fighting and rudeness. I mean, it was literally like you could have gave them all CBD oil or weed, and it would have been kumbaya,” she laughs.
Afropunk’s strong zero-tolerance stance communicates their equally strong, values-driven foundation. “Like, here's what we stand for, here's our values, here's our beliefs, and if this ain’t for you, then you don’t belong here.” That clear messaging sets expectations from the word go and invites specific energy into the event, one aligned with Afropunk’s ethics and values. There’s no room for claims of ignorance or surprise when no-go behavior gets someone thrown out on their ass.
Erica reminds readers how important it is for folks who identify with any of the categories mentioned above to feel protected in public spaces, know that they are in a safe environment when they likely - regularly - have experienced feeling the opposite. India agrees. “I don't think I'd ever been at an event that just clearly, walking in, you knew you were in a safe space to be yourself, and that you wouldn't, or at least you would hope that you wouldn't, be treated any differently for that.” She also points out that knowing security is on your side is a very different experience for people in marginalized groups.
Non-Profits And Corporations In Community
Back to her retail row experience, among the brands represented (free Thinx period panties!) and Black icons lending their support (Oh heyyyy Spike Lee!), one organization stood out to India. Their booth featured items for sale that said: Fuck A False Arrest. It was a New York-based non-profit called Good Call, NYC with a hotline available for falsely accused, falsely arrested folks in need of legal services. “It just really hit me that like, yes, I'm a Black female, but just really seeing how there's all these different causes that I don't really consider on a daily basis, even being a minority, female, that organizations are being created daily that I wasn't even aware that existed to help support different things,” she says.
Although she knew that false arrest was - and continues to be - a thing, seeing the attention drawn to the reality of false arrests impacted India. She engaged with the cause’s representatives and donated on the spot, hoping to support its planned expansion into other cities. “You know, I've been blessed to say that maybe I do have privilege, into where at this point in my life thus far, I haven't had to worry if I was pulled over, but there are other people that do.”
“It's a part of that whole once you see it, you can't unsee it,” says Erica. “You can't unsee the reality hitting you in the face that this is a necessity, even if it's not a necessity that you regularly need to take advantage of. And that in itself tells you that there's some things that need to be adjusted - and that's the mild way of putting it.”
India found Target’s approach at Afropunk to be another positive marketing surprise. “I was very surprised to see that when you walked into their installation, they hired a Black artist to paint the inside,” she explains. The design featured a series of concentric circles featuring hair, makeup, and beauty brands made by and for Black folks. “There were so many in the circle that, like, I didn’t even know prior to that point were Black-owned…sometimes it's a lack of awareness as to why we're not supporting businesses that are owned by people that look like us. Maybe we don't even know that that option is there, but they are out there in these commercial businesses and big box stores that we patronize.”
Seeing Black-owned brands honored and sold in big box stores is an essential part of visibility. “The access to products and education and knowledge for hair that looked like mine looked very different,” says Erica of her experiences growing up. “I want that self-love and worth and awareness around what makes somebody unique and you supporting that for them as an individual, being a part of normalcy. I want those things to absolutely be normalized.”
India agrees, noting that she rarely sees ads promoting these businesses on traditional or social media, even when she ticks survey boxes self-identifying as African-American. “I see Garnier, or I see Pantene Pro-V all the time,” she says, listing the standard beauty brands. “I kind of wonder where's the visibility for these [Black-owned] brands? And it made my heart smile to see that they got so much visibility at this event.”
“I think that that's a part of the importance of minority-owned businesses, regardless of what that minority is,” Erica says. “It is important that businesses that don't get the same type of access-slash-platform are given that access and platform wherever possible so that they can get - I can't even say a fair shake because the fact that you even have to do that shouldn't be a thing - but they can get as much of an opportunity as, hopefully, the next business, or at least damn close as we were fighting for that to not even have to be a thing!”
Taking Up The Space You're Due
Afropunk proved to be an eye-opening experience on multiple levels. “I was able to see, like, the lack of visibility for these organizations, these businesses, the lack of awareness that they're there.” India also notes that artistry triumphed over Auto-Tune in keeping with the festival’s ethos of realness. “It's okay to be yourself. It's okay to take up space. It really stood out to me and impacted me to see people just kind of stepping into who they are, whether they were born male, but they were wearing dresses and makeup that was done better than mine or, you know, whatever it may have been, but just kind of owning that and saying, ‘Here I am, take me as I am. I'm not going to water this down or be something else,’” she says. “What I think people can sometimes be afraid of is like stepping into yourself is now going to take away from someone else. And...it actually helped the other people feel more empowered to be more of themselves.”
For anyone unfamiliar with the phrase taking up space, Erica has you covered. “Taking up space is basically just deciding that who and what you are authentically from your core, you're going to be that, and you are not going to minimize that in order to make it easy for someone else, in order to assuage someone else's guilt or discomfort or to simply minimize something that allows somebody else to be okay with you being in the room.”
Many of the phobias - transphobia, fatphobia, etc. - directly relate to someone else’s discomfort. Think about it. A commenter isn’t genuinely nervous about someone’s health; someone’s big body makes you uncomfortable. “I need you to call it what it is,” Erica says. Trans folks aren’t confused. “Birth,” Erica says, “got it fucked up, and they decided that they were going to fix it! You are nervous because you can't fit them in a box!” Just because you can't equate it to something that you can easily describe or decipher or understand to digest it doesn’t make their existence less valid. “Taking up space is saying, ‘Fuck, that! I'm going to show up as I am, and you can do what you will with it.’’ There’s something to be said for showing up and taking up space, regardless of what about you makes someone else feel a certain way.
Of course, taking up space can go left and become problematic if you're taking up space that wasn't meant for you, if you’re appropriating something that wasn't meant for you. “Taking up space can be negative if you don't respect whose space you're stepping into,” Erica reminds readers, “but if you step into a space and decide, I am going to take up all of the space that is necessary for me to be whole, that is what needs to happen.”
Taking Up Too Much Space
Anyone who’s ever been to a multi-day music fest knows what a treat VIP seating is - especially for someone with a bad back. India and a friend took their seats near the stage. When one of them wanted to get food or take a walk, the other would stay behind and watch their seat - a perfectly routine thing to do at any event. When Black folks asked about using the empty chair and were told that it was in use, they’d move on. “The very few white people would ask, and they did not keep it moving. I literally had one woman put her foot in the seat without asking after I said somebody’s sitting here,” India says. The woman stepped on India’s VIP bag and knocked her water bottle to the ground. “Who does that?!”
At another point, India returned from the restroom to learn that a similar incident had happened to her friend while she had stepped away. Another white woman asked to use the seat then proceeded to try to haggle her way into temporarily sitting there until India got back. “This,” says Erica, “is taking up space in the wrong way; this is entitlement.”
“I was just like...disrespectful as fuck,” India agrees. “There’s white people here but they're really outnumbered. So why do they have to be the offenders? Like I'm rooting for them. I wanted to be like, yay!” India explains wanting to enjoy the support of other ethnicities at a Black, Afrocentric event. “On the other hand, I'm like, you're ruining your image for your people right now.”
Erica doesn’t pull any punches in deference to this display of white privilege. “It felt like we can't have anything. You must insert yourself and take over everything!” she says. “Damn! Can you not be in one space where you don't come in and try to take over and colonize, please and thank you? Hello, Brooklyn gentrification. I see you.”
India acknowledges that in situations such as these, she used to err on the side of killing people with kindness. “If there is a situation, I'm going to be the one to talk us out of it rather than start throwing some ‘bows. For those of y'all that don't have that reference, it’s a Ludacris reference,” she laughs before letting her true feelings show. “I don’t think I've ever been more upset at a public event with somebody I didn't know in my life.”
The incident was jarring. “I honestly hadn't really experienced much racism and things like that from people who didn't look like me my whole life,” she admits. Stepping into a VIP situation, she thought people’s attitudes and actions would be more respectful.
Still Taking Up Too Much Space
Despite their VIP area access, the insults didn’t stop. Another white woman asked if she could sit in the seat while India’s friend was away. She didn’t wait for an answer; she stepped all over the chair, leaving her footprints on everything. “And then when I'm like, ‘Can you please not stand on our shit?’ By then she’d already annoyed the fuck out of me, then proceeds to take her foot off of our stuff, but still take over the seat,” India says, incredulously. “And I was just like, whatever. Okay, let me just Woosah; I'm gonna let it go.”
However, before she can, the woman’s friend comes by and tosses her food trash underneath the seat. “And I went from, like, zero to like eight real quick--”
“I might've been on ten, but you went to eight,” Erica says. “I'm like...but still, eight for you is a lot!”
“It's a lot to get me to eight,” India acknowledges, “but I'm on eight. Woosah, let me breathe some of this contact high coming from the other areas, so I don't look like the angry Black woman flipping out on the very few white women here.”
India reminds readers that they’re in a VIP area - with generous room for anyone who wants to dance. “We’ve got, we'll say, three SUV's length of space to work with,” she says. She keeps bumping into me because that's how close she needs a dance to me. I’m wearing my nice shoes--”
“TAKING. UP. SPACE.,” Erica says, as India explains how the white woman with all the space in the world danced right up on her nice shoes.
‘“I try to give you all the credit. I try to give you all the chances. Please go somewhere else,” India says. “I didn't hit nobody. I promise. I wanted to, but I walked away from that, and can I say it was the first time in my life that I almost, I don't know what it was, but I almost wanted to cry in that situation because I'm like, this is supposed to be for diversity; this is supposed to be an all love, all fun event. And even we can't have this. Like, you still have to intrude on my space. You still have to step on my bag. You still have to leave your footprint on my shit. You still have to leave your trash underneath my friend’s seat. You still have to bump into me and remind me that you're here.”
“Yeah.”
“And then you can step on my foot in the process, and there's no sorry,” India says. “There's no consideration for how you're making the people around you feel. And I don't know how to put better words to it, but it made me feel so fucking small. So small. And I was like, we need to have this conversation because I think that this is the experience in a very, light-hearted almost funny way at a concert, but people go through so much more than even I went through in that situation. I'm like, I get it now. I can't even imagine how it feels to not be able to walk down the street and feel safe.” And this is how you can begin to realize what you didn’t fully realize before. It can be its own bit of painful unraveling of what you thought you knew.
Awareness, Acceptance, and Action Items
Awareness means having the capacity to say I enjoy this. I appreciate this. I also understand that this is not my space, and I will not take up too much of it; I will not come in and make it all about me. “It’s very difficult when, going back to the example of the Target thing and the whole, you know, here are these products that you really didn't think about,” Erica says. “If you go into Target, the black hair care section is very small in comparison to the haircare for everybody else.”
The analogy isn’t far-fetched - nor is the experience uncommon. “It's very often that the footprint by the person of color is so much smaller in reference to everything else, but yet even in a space like Afropunk, the people taking up the smaller footprint that happened to be white were determined that that wasn't okay,” Erica says. “I'm not going to say that was everybody; I'm going to say that that was with these people in your experience. But I do not believe by any stretch that this is a completely isolated incident; that is not normal.
India’s Afropunk experience drove home all the conversations that she and Erica have had on this podcast and made the work that POTP is doing more immediate. “My gratitude for people who show up and want to be an imperfect ally, they want to make change and are willing to have these conversations that they have with you to get these breakthroughs and to facilitate the changes that we need in this world...” India says, “my appreciation for that just went up so much more because I'm like here I am in a safe space and I still have to fight for my space.”
“It did make me think about the programming that we get as people who are marginalized, as women, as people of color, as whatever it may be, that it's not okay to take up space. And why is that?” India asks. “If it's that easy for this person to step into an environment where maybe they should have been the ones not feeling so safe, I mean, we're going to be honest, or, maybe they were the ones that could have felt small. But they didn't. Why is it that people who are marginalized don't have that? Why do we not necessarily have the innate ability to say it's okay for me to take up space? It's okay for me to show up. It's okay to ask for what I want. It's okay to say I need this radius around me and don't step on my fucking bag?”
“That's a mic drop because it's accurate,” Erica says. “And I think that, honestly, I think I do want to bring back that topic of taking up space. What does it look like when you’re learning what it is to fully take up space as you are? When you are marginalized, whether it's because of your race, your gender, your sexual orientation, or the way you choose to live, love, or worship? For the sake of example, people that are white have no problem taking up space, and I don't think that this is everybody; I don't believe in blanket statements. But I think that it is too often that taking up space is normalized as just a part of what you do. And that's not always the case for everyone else.”
Erica offers up action items for people on both sides of the equation. If you’re white, consider where you’re taking up space and, perhaps, you shouldn't be. “And, if you are Black or brown or trans, where can you take up more space? I need you to take up more space. And that goes for me as well.”
India takes it a step further. “For people who are fitting into these areas where it is okay to take up space, and they're taking up a lot,” she says, “where do you see someone else who might not feel as comfortable doing it because they don't fit your demographic - and where can you reach out a hand to them? Where can you support them?”
Conversations worth having aren’t always easy; the same goes for conversations worth revisiting. When we originally had this discussion waaaaaay back in 2019, it was not a pleasant topic for either of us. Yet, at the same time, it’s a Tuesday. Sharing experiences like these, and how you process them, is a powerful storytelling tool; an emotional narrative draws people to your message.
Thank you for revisiting the concept of taking up space with us and further exploring your relationship to the spaces in which you move.
Quoted
ERICA COURDAE
“Taking up space can be negative if you don't respect whose space you're stepping into.”
“If you are white, where are you taking up space that maybe you shouldn't be? And, if you are Black or Brown or trans, where can you take up more space? I need you to take up more space.”
INDIA JACKSON
"When you're in the moment, learning more about DEI, you may not feel yourself changing very much... but in hindsight, you have a whole new level of understanding for things that were just Tuesday."
“It did make me think about the programming that we get as people who are marginalized, as women, as people of color, as whatever...that it's not okay to take up space. And why is that?”