If you care to understand me a little bit more then please read this article. I find it almost scary how much I relate to this article. Thank you Florka for sending this around.
" I watched my mother put on her best Diana Ross “Mahogany” outfit: a camel colored cape with matching slacks and knee high boots. I was miffed, as only an only child could be, about sharing my mother’s time with the neighbor girl. I must have said something about why we had to do this. Vivian fixed me with a stare as she was slipping on her pearl earrings and told me that people who can do, must do. It took half a day but something about my mother’s performance of respectable black person — her Queen’s English, her Mahogany outfit, her straight bob and pearl earrings — got done what the elderly lady next door had not been able to get done in over a year. I learned, watching my mother, that there was a price we had to pay to signal to gatekeepers that we were worthy of engaging. It meant dressing well and speaking well. It might not work. It likely wouldn‘t work but on the off chance that it would, you had to try. It was unfair but, as Vivian also always said, “life isn’t fair little girl.”
Perhaps now you will see why I insist on dressing the way I dress. For me its about the first impression. As a black male I have to try twice as hard if not more to make a good first impression. Because someone out there is going to judge me based off something as trivial as a logo.
I would have liked to see some reflection on this and exploration of it.
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