I’ma Be Me, Business Or Otherwise
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jul 29, 2020
A couple of weeks ago I received a very interesting message on Twitter from someone I didn't know. I have a certain way that I market and promote myself on Twitter, which includes sharing some of the articles I've written for business purposes over the years. Out of the blue I was asked why I was posting links to articles I've written that had nothing to do with Black Lives Matter and protests. I was asked that question by a young white man.
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When the question came in, I have to admit I was a bit shocked. First, I was shocked by the question. Then I was shocked by the person who was asking. He didn't explain himself, but I understood the question he was asking after I thought about it. I ignored it at the time because I didn't think it needed to be address. However, now I think it's time to answer that question just to be clear about things.
In my opinion, speaking out for the right to live and be treated fairly by everybody, whether it's employment or the police or the government or each other, does not preclude any person's right to make a living. After all, what's the point of trying to get fairness if you can't earn any money?
Over the last two or three months, I have written a lot of articles and created a lot of videos on the topic of race relations and diversity. But it's not the only topic I've talked about. The truth is one can't be a one trick pony and progress in life, especially if you're a minority or someone in a disadvantaged group in America... or self employed and offer a diversity of services.
Every day when I wake up I strive to be the best that I can be. I work on motivating myself so that I can push forward both in life and my career.
At the same time, every single day I recognize that I am a black person, living in a world that either dismisses me or ignores me unless I can make some kind of positive statement. That statement doesn't have to be me word-smacking or physically smacking people daily for them to notice that I happen to be a black man trying to get by. Most people who see my picture are going to recognize that, even if, when I'm in a room with certain people, a majority of people, they try to ignore that or forget that. It's a strange conundrum, but it happens.
If I continue to only write or speak on topics that are related to diversity or race for the rest of this year, that means I'm willing to pretty much ignore the rest of my business, and things that I do to make a living. Frankly, I'm not predisposed to do that to myself.
I can't be a health care finance consultant if I don't speak about health care finance issues. I can talk about leadership and relate it to diversity, but not everything about leadership concerns diversity issues.
I can still talk about diversity issues, since I've presented seminars on the subject, while talking about other things. I can multitask fairly well in this regard, just like every other person in the world can talk about more than one thing at a time. It's amazing that we can all do that don't you think?
I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong impression though. I've been black a long time, over 60 years now, and it's something that's not only hard for me to forget, but something I would never want to forget.
How people talk about it, and act while being black in 2020, is a bit different than it was back in the 70s and 80s. Back then, I was conscious of the fact that I was a trailblazer, and that both my performance and my decorum were going to shape part of the future people of color were going to have to deal with.
I knew that if I failed, many black people who didn't know me would suffer for it; if I did well, "maybe" it would benefit other black people, giving them the opportunity for employment in my field of expertise. It was more common to do that back in the day; that's how many of us felt.
These days a lot of young people will hear me say that and demur, saying they shouldn't have to worry about how their behavior and their actions are going to modify the thoughts of someone else as it regards people of their race. I totally disagree with that, because we know it does, but I also believe that everybody should be able to live the standard they feel like living in public, and I will live to the standard I feel like living.
If my standard says that I need to market or promote myself in business as more than just being black, then that's what I'm going to do, whether it's Twitter, LinkedIn, email or snail mail marketing, or whatever else might fit. I doubt, once I put out there, that anybody who sees my picture is going to miss the fact that I'm black.
I hope not anyway, because I certainly can't turn it on and off, and I would never want to do it in the first place. Because I'm black more times during the day than I'm an entrepreneur; it's prominent in my life.
But it's not the only thing that defines me, and if that's my point of view about my life, then it shouldn't be anybody else's point of view about my life, no matter what their background is and no matter what their agenda happens to be at that moment.
I'ma be me regardless, you be you regardless, and maybe we'll all live in some kind of harmony. Does anybody have a problem with that?
Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2020 Mitch Mitchell 
A valid point, Mitch. In the last couple of months, I’ve posted about racism and diversity more than anything else, but I’m still sharing stuff I write about marketing, because that’s how I earn my living. When someone is ready to pay me to write about diversity, that may change.
Sharon Hurley Hall recently posted..Freelance Writing Portfolio 2020
I wish someone would pay me to write about diversity, but I know I’d be paid way more if I land a health care finance contract. The question I got made no sense to me; we still have to pay bills, eat and live.
“These days a lot of young people will hear me say that and demur, saying they shouldn’t have to worry about how their behavior and their actions are going to modify the thoughts of someone else as it regards people of their race. I totally disagree with that, but I believe that everybody should be able to live the standard they feel like living in public, and I will live to the standard I feel like living.”
You’re both right. I’ll be the first to admit that while I don’t give a rat’s patoot about someone’s skin color, nationality, faith, sexual orientation – any of it – how they choose to behave towards others matters and influences how I perceive them.
We all judge. For me, the bottom line is whether we’re willing to BE judged by the same yardstick. I’m good with mine.
I see you. I see your Blackness; I also see you as all the things that matter more to me; I see you as a friend, a fellow blogger, an expert on healthcare finance, a New Yorker, a caregiver, a son who loves and respects his mother.
As I said on Twitter, this isn’t really your fight. The weird thing is, it’s not your fight but you have skin in the game. So of course you should not be silent, but it isn’t your burden to carry – certainly shouldn’t be an ADDED burden to what you’ve carried all your life. That’s enough, isn’t it?
I can see how people – any people – who fight this battle against racism day in, day out, 24/7 are tired, and I cannot imagine how they can not walk around angry and disillusioned by everyone 24/7. We’ve got to tag in and tag out. But this, too – https://humanparts.medium.com/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-white-ally-469bb82799f2
“The logic behind the expression “White Ally” makes about as much sense as me going into your room, folding your affirmations and putting them neatly away, cleaning all the introspection off of your mirror, gathering your feelings for the laundry, and then you pick up your golliwog, put it away, and announce triumphantly, “We’re in this together, and I am totally committed to helping.”
“Mmmm, not so much with that.”
Holly Jahangiri recently posted..Enough is Enough: The Slacktivism Won’t Cut It
LOL! If anyone ever finds a gollywog in MY house, they’re free to shoot me and take my card away! I appreciate your words; you get it. It’s hard to make all of this “my fight” when I have so many other things I have to work on. Yet I acknowledge that in an instant it could be me if I encounter the wrong person, and it doesn’t have to by law enforcement, as Ahmaud Arbery found out. I would only hope that someone cared more than the people in that particular area of Georgia cared in helping justice be served.
Meanwhile, I still have a business to promote…
I can’t comment on what it means to be Black but I do know what it means to have people make assumptions about me based upon other things.
There were 600k Jews in Los Angeles so growing up and most of my adult life it was unusual to meet people who lived there who hadn’t met at least one.
During the five or so years I have been in Texas I have had many occasions in which I have been the only Jew a person knows.
I have had many discussions because of it in which their preconceived notions about who I must be color everything.
Kind of a sad commentary really because instead of using my actions as a guideline they use these notions to judge who/what I am.
I’m not sure if you’ve heard of this or not. Before I moved to New York I didn’t know what a Jew was. I couldn’t even tell you if I’d met any, though I almost had to at some point in my travels (military kid). I’d only seen the word because of Hank Greenberg (baseball player) and how bad he was treated, but I didn’t understand it (back then, history classes talked about WWII, but never mentioned the Holocaust).
I moved here before the start of 11th grade. My English teacher was quite attractive that year, but a couple of months in she was talking about being in Georgia and someone finding out she was Jewish and that person asked her where her horns were. The other kids in the classroom laughed, and I laughed but felt I was totally missing something. I never really learned who Jews were or what being Jewish meant until my freshman year of college around Hanukkah where one of the other students explained things to me.
Most people have preconceived notions of what they think all of us believe and do. I’ve had to tell many people that all black people don’t know each other… that’s a true thing I’ve been asked! The only preconceived notion I work on changing is making sure people know that many of us are not only intellectual but possibly smarter than they are. True, that makes them think I’m an anomaly instead of potentially one of many, but I’m thinking the younger generation is going to educate everyone else on how things really are; I can only hope.
People and their pre-judging others and their expectations of them… sigh…