Dear Naomi Osaka & Taylor Townsend: An Open Letter To Black Women Who Dare To Create Spaces Exclusively For Us [Op-Ed]
Black women creating spaces for ourselves and gathering with intention inevitably draws surveillance and scrutiny born from white discomfort. The post Dear Naomi Osaka & Taylor Townsend: An Open Letter To Black Women Who Dare To Create Spaces Exclusively For Us [Op-Ed] appeared first on MadameNoire.
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I’m writing to you, Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend, as a Black woman who has spent the bulk of my career doing all I can to carve out spaces where Black people and stories get told and elevated. Along the way, I’ve come to understand something that aligns with the backlash you have experienced this week: that as Black women, creating spaces for ourselves and gathering with intention inevitably draws surveillance and scrutiny born from white discomfort.
It happened to me at my first job. I was 17 years old, working as an outreach youth leader for a foster care program in my hometown of San Diego. Two of the case workers I supported were Black women. A trend started to emerge early. When the three of us gathered to talk and laugh over shared cultural references, it drew immediate attention and ire from white employees and the all-white senior leadership.
There was another student worker alongside me, not Black and wholly uninterested in the work and in building relationships, yet my connections with these two Black women were deemed favoritism worthy of reprimand.
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The post Dear Naomi Osaka & Taylor Townsend: An Open Letter To Black Women Who Dare To Create Spaces Exclusively For Us [Op-Ed] appeared first on MadameNoire.
