“I’m sorry,” I told my partner before dissolving into a sobbing heap. Thirty minutes prior we’d been having brunch at a picturesque neighborhood cafe, but our meal ended abruptly after I’d let loose a string of uncharacteristically nasty insults. I felt vulnerable, raw, and very near my breaking point; any advice felt more like an attack than the caring observations of a loved one.
How had I become this snappy, depressed, anxiety-ridden, roller coaster of a person?
Deep down I knew the answer: my job.
I hadn’t felt challenged in months and the lack of internal organization consistently put me in situations where I had to work harder and longer, rather than smarter. Still, I was getting a steady paycheck and there were cool perks: free concerts, VIP sample sales, sometimes even press trips to exotic locales. I knew my feelings of stagnation were a natural part of any career arc. Few people stay at one company forever, so the growing pains were a manageable short-term reality.
The hand-over-fist commodification of black culture while thoughtlessly devaluing the creativity and feelings of actual black people, though – that stuck in my craw. Hard.
Being a woman in the streetwear industry isn’t easy. Being a woman of color is even more difficult. It’s a market estimated to be worth over $60 billion, and it’s drawn a following of impressionable young devotees who soak up all aspects of the culture like dry sponges.
While the industry is increasingly recognizing its female contributors, the sentiment that guys know best is still sadly common – you will be “mansplained” by a stranger in Supreme at some point, no matter how capable you are. The lack of minorities in spaces where they should be telling their own stories is disappointingly par-for-course as well. Take a look at the masthead of some of the most popular streetwear-angled publications and you’ll find it’s a rarity – if it happens at all – that a person of color (or woman) is in a senior enough position to effect real change. Considering the conflation of subcultures and demographics that inform streetwear this reality would seem counter-intuitive, but the truth is, readers rarely notice.
With commissioned pieces from a diverse pool of freelancers, a smart editor can easily populate a platform with timely, well-informed stories that feel inclusive to everyone. Externally projecting diversity doesn’t mean those same practices are occurring internally, though.
Shortly after Jean Touitou’s infamous “Last Niggas in Paris” runway show in 2015, graffiti artist Kidult tagged the A.P.C. storefront in Le Marais with the word “Niggas.” That day I watched what should have been a straightforward, reported news piece become a forum for a white, male editor to express his views on why white people using the n-word wasn’t that big of a deal anymore.
At first, I was so shocked I didn’t even know how to react. By the time I’d sent an email requesting the copy be amended, the damage had already been done. My work environment felt hostile, and I started to wonder if I could trust my colleagues with the stories that directly affected people who looked like me. Never had I been more aware of being the sole black employee in the office.
Another time, I elected to leave our company chat channel for several months after one of my white, male colleagues decided to have a lengthy discussion about how honored he’d feel if a black person called him “ my nigga,” and how we should all be using the word. Those are only two examples from a list that eventually grew so lengthy that even I could recognize my creativity, wellness and mental health were suffering. The feeling of powerlessness that comes from working in a setting where creators of color are simultaneously mocked and fetishized is impossible to put into words.
Why, I asked myself, did I have to come to work and be the only one to deal with the assumption that I would be able to identify a random baby because she happened to be black and the daughter of a rapper? Why did I have to be the one to explain why implying that rappers are inherently criminalistic to a vast, impressionable readership holds detrimental real world consequences for kids of color? Why?
At first I truly believed I could respond by disrupting the narrative when I could. “You have power,” my friends would tell me. “Hang in there, somebody has to open doors,” they’d say; I tried. When I interviewed musicians and creatives of color, I consciously made an effort to humanize them. Partly because I wondered if our audience thought the same way as some of my colleagues – were they bent on seeing these people as nothing more than a stereotypical trope? If so, how could I change that?
I couldn’t. Not single-handedly and not without feeling like I was being damaged in the process. Though I had plenty of supportive co-workers – a few reached out to me privately after some of the more inflammatory incidents – the culture never really changed. The accountability I wanted to see would have required a complete mentality shift; that and a good, hard look at the root of the prejudices that reared their head in the workplace.
Such introspection would have required a handful of my colleagues to ask themselves why they liked the inventions and creativity of black people from a distance, but felt hesitant to actually listen their opinions. And that would have required a great deal of discomfort on their part.
Truthfully, I didn’t expect much change, especially when there was no incentive. Musicians, designers and creatives who are eager for press and unaware of a publisher’s internal issues will always avail themselves interviews and features; it’s an understandable career necessity and I don’t fault them at all for it.
I felt trapped in a problematic cycle that I didn’t even know how to begin to fix. When I couldn’t cope with the racial microaggressions, ingrained sexism and frathouse work culture, I started to withdraw. I’d spend my days working in a one-person cubicle or on a different floor away from the majority of my co-workers.
It wasn’t until I was crying hysterically in my partner’s arms that I realized my work issues were taking over my life, too. Finally I did what felt right: I resigned. It’s been almost three years since I’ve freelanced full-time, and that comes with challenges of its own. Still, I haven’t felt this excited about the future in a long time.
This Op-ed was submitted by Stephanie Smith-Strickland, a freelance creative
