Portia Noir - Let's Heal Through Learning

There is a phenomenon that happens when it comes to the culture of Black people, especially how Black women celebrate it. There's the way we wear our hair, the jewelry we wear, the way we wear our nails, and more. There is no denying that Black people are the blueprint of everything other than oppression in this country. Music, fashion, art...all of it. What comes with that, however, is how colonization shows up and wants to take instead of celebrate. The instinct that when you see something you like, your move is to grab it and run with it. The move isn't there to understand what it is that you admire. The choice to instead grasp it and say "but hey, you should want to share with us!" is the one that is often made, however, the sharing that's mentioned is rarely sharing in the way it is meant to be.  Whiteness, and the inherent colonization that comes with it, turns what could be a sharing of something beautiful across cultures into instead a full appropriation o

A phrase that was introduced to me is the phrase "Pet to threat", and it is one that I have thought about since hearing it. To best explain the phrase, I'm going to use the example of being a Black woman in the corporate world. My story is, I'm sure, similar to that of many other Black women, we all just have our different "spins" on it, for lack of better phrasing.  At a former job, I was celebrated in a lot of ways, one of the most being the fact that I am a Black woman. Do I feel I was a diversity hire? No...? I don't think that was how it started, however, it wasn't long after that that I began to feel like a bit of a token, or a representation of the company being "diverse". I was asked to be on the Diversity Council before I had reached the typical employment length to apply. Once on the council, I was asked to lead not only meetings, but also to lead Employee Resource Groups, or ERGs. I thought nothing of these at first, as I was exc