Last year, I did the My Black Perspective series for Black History Month. I wrote a post each day all month long covering an aspect of being Black in America. I covered a LOT of ground, but this year I didn’t want to be as narrow as ONLY presenting MY opinion. So, I extended an invitation to others to share their voices.
And wouldn’t you know it? Some of them actually came through!
What to Expect from Black Perspectives
I conducted a number of email-based interviews with a number of Black (and Mixed-Race) Millennial-ish Professionals. This was intentional for a few reasons:
- I think that email-based interviews reduce the number of surprises for either party involved.
- IT’S FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH.
- I went with Millennial-aged (and maybe one younger) individuals because I wanted the views expressed to be representative of the current largest group in the U.S. workforce (yep, that happend in 2016, folks). I also wanted them to be young enough that it gives a sense of “and these attitudes may prevail for years to come” to the whold thing. Sorry, to my older connects.
A HUGE SHOUTOUT to the participants in this year’s series. None of this would have been possible without their work and collaboration.
In the first part of what I’m hoping becomes an annual affair, I had a daily schedule of when certain topics would be covered. That was super easy to do then because it was just me.
However, now we’re talking about juggling the schedules and lives of nearly 20 grown professionals.
That said, no schedule this year (I genuinely don’t know when I’m posting which person, and some of the responses are still literally rolling in as I type).
But… What I can tell you is a bit more about the types of individuals you’ll be hearing from.
This year’s selection of perspectives potentially include:
- Engineers of various disciplines
- A Lawyer/Professional Bodybuilder
- A Medical Entrepreneur
- A Teacher with a growing Real Estate portfolio
- Education Professionals
- A Flight Attendant
- A Biker
- A Machine Learning Engineer
- Designers (of the web, fashion, and media variety)
- An Artist
- A Product Owner
- A Rapper aiming for Rockstar Status
- A Director of Marketing
- Tech Entrepreneurs
- A Clothing Brand Entrepreneur (maybe 2 of those, we’ll see)
- A Community Organizer
- A Media Savant
- *Gasps for air* and POTENTIALLY more
Again, it all depends on the follow-through that people are able to commit to because I get it – life happens and you don’t always have time to respond to the deluge of questions I’m asking these people via email.
Still (I quick example of response rates in action…) – I asked 44 people about participating in this project in the last week of 2021. 33 of them responded, expressing interest. As of right now, 20 of those people are somewhere in the process of their interview, and over half of that number has actually completed their questions completely meaning that “I’m the hold-up” because I’m trying to draft each post with care for their approval.
But we’re in the home stretch and there will be SOMETHING to show for all of this work next month in February. I will post a nice summary navigation-based thing for the series on March 1st after it completes.
Last year I said…
And who knows? This may mess around and become an annual tradition and grow over time into different mediums with features from others. We shall see.
Source
And while I may not be crossing over into different mediums with this one this year, we’re getting there. We at least got the other voices going, so I’m counting that as a win!
What This Means for Posting in February 2022
Last year, I flat out said that series would be the only thing I write all month.
This year, since I’m not guaranteed to have the proper amount of interviews to cover each day of Black History Month (sorry, I’m such an amateur) – but, I would still like to have at least (note the wording) one post up each day.
SOOOOOOO…
It is still February, and I’m not one of those single people who hate Valentine’s Day — I’m just not. So, when you aren’t seeing an amazing interview posted as the only thing for a given day – if that occurs – I’ll be dropping some of my random insights into matters of the heart.
I know. I know.
“SUCKEEEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!”
But the world needs more love in it, and I’m a hopeless romantic/glutton for punishment. So, I’d like to throw a few sometimes lighthearted, sometimes heartbreaking/exhausting, but always honest reflections on a few topics out there.
Some days there will be 2 posts (or whatever I feel like beyond “1”) – and some days there may be a single post, but they all won’t be Black Perspectives unless I suddenly get a flood of responses from those 33 people I mentioned before-and-throughout the month of February.
There is going to be something for everybody!! You know… Everybody into the spirit of support for Black History Month or Relationships, anyway 😅
Seriously, though – last year’s series drew in – and still does draw – a lot of vulnerable conversations, DMs, text messages, and emails from those who read the content. Keep that coming. Let’s grow together.
I appreciated that involvement, and I hope that some of you will deem the conversations with these fine people you’re going to meet worthy of the same level of interaction. I’ll happily act as a middleman to pass your messages on to the interview subjects and vice-versa. And, as always, you’ll have the option of commenting on the posts directly if you want them to see things directly from YOU.
With that — I’m looking forward to jumping into the thick of things again with you all in February. I just wanted to give you more of a heads up than I did last year (literally announced it the day before) so that you can mentally prepare for what’s to come. Back to our regularly scheduled programming until then.
Peace, and thanks for reading.
The soundtrack for this post provided by…
Image Credits:
– Cover Image © NStafeeva (Shutterstock)
– Body Image 1 © fizkes (Shutterstock)
– Body Images 2 © pichit (Shutterstock)