RISIKAT ADESAOGUN
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Break my heart in a minute flat.

4/21/2018

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I've been researching local videographers for a little project. Getting recommendations was easy - after all, everyone knows someone with a camera and an empty pocket. Finding someone who can tell a compelling story in a short amount of time has been much harder. Desperate for inspiration, I turned to some of my favorite short films. I think you'll enjoy them, too. (And if you know any enterprising videographers, get at me)
5 films about Technology: Instagram, selfies, and porn
This short tells five distinct stories in less than five minutes. Hilarious and a little sad, each story resonates. 

I felt amused, disgusted, sad, and sheepish - all at once. 
Place des fêtes 
I am not a hugger. In fact, I am miles away from being even minimally affectionate. But I cry ALL THE TIME. This short film, featured in the Paris, Je t'aime collection, left me in tears and reaching for an embrace.

​I don't think people are meant to be alone. 
In a Heartbeat
I typically don't go out of my way to watch new animated works, preferring instead to stick to the basics like Mulan and Lion King - or even Pixar classics like A Bug's Life. But this viral short touched me. 
Know the ledge
Subverting the white gaze isn't new. America's favorite author, Toni Morrison, explains it beautifully in this video interview from years ago.

Performative Blackness suffocates. Know the Ledge was a gust of warm Los Angeles wind on my face, bright sunshine all around. 
Lick the star
Every Black or immigrant kid I knew had a room in their house where no one was permitted to enter; in my family's house, it was the upstairs living room. Formal visitors only - kids and teens were persona non grata.

I remember sitting in the downstairs family room, sprawled on the couch, waiting for Lick the Star to roll around. It was pre-YouTube, so I had to lie in wait while watching the International Film Channel. And honey - this film aged WELL. 
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DC: I love you, but you're bummin' me out.

4/9/2018

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There's a lot to love about Minnesota - the pristine lakes, rivers, and streams (we've got over 90,000 miles of shoreline, dontcha know), the festivals, the clean streets, and our ever-inventive ways to stay busy through long winters come to mind. But we also have serious issues. Knowing that Minnesota has some of the worst racial disparities in the nation when it comes to things like education, jobs, and incarceration doesn't exactly put my mind at ease. 

I recently traveled to Washington, DC for a training. Being there opened my eyes to an entirely different dynamic: race and class and nationality, all mixed together. I ducked into the Chinatown Panera to receive an important call. Having just come from a meeting, I was wearing a smart navy blazer - weave on point, eyebrows on fleek. Seriously, I looked good. Inside, the security guard, a West African man, briefly glanced at me as I purchased a self-serve coffee. A young Black American woman came in, followed by an older white woman. She approached the steps to access the seating area. 

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING? You can't sit at the tables unless you're a PAYING customer!"

The security guard then turned to the white woman, saying, "Sorry for the inconvenience ma'am, steps are this way."

The young Black woman turned on her heels, incensed. "Why shout at me about being a paying customer when you know you can seat yourself and order your food from the table? Why are you falling all over yourself to help this white lady? She's my AUNT. I'm treating her to lunch! Why are you typecasting?"

Instead of digging a hole deep into Panera's tiled floor and throwing himself away for being so discriminatory, the security guard doubled down. "I'm not doing anything wrong! You people come in here, this is for PAYING customers. I have to make sure you can PAY."

It was bad. 

I caught up with the woman briefly, offering to back her up with a complaint to the manager. I asked, "Does this kind of thing happen often around DC?" Her answer: "Hell, yeah."

Granted, I'm aware of the tensions that can exist between Black Americans and African immigrants. My first year of college, an Ethiopian friend of mine once complimented my hardworking nature by telling me my "Nigerian side won over". (What? As if my Black American ancestors weren't forced to work for free, for hundreds of years). My interactions with recently-immigrated Africans versus US-born Black Americans have been fraught with confusion. This is further complicated by my having a Nigerian immigrant father and a Black American mother. I recall being called "African Booty Scratcher" by Black American kids and people mocking my name. But I've also had Africa-born folks swear up and down to me that the racism experienced by Black Americans is self-created and totally in our heads. 

Still, witnessing the Panera ordeal was surreal. 

The inter- and intracultural issues among Minnesotans of color are complex. Really complex. For some reason, I'd assumed that the "crabs in a bucket" school of thought wasn't as prevalent in places where people of color aren't in the extreme minority. The Panera incident shook me out of my naive stupor. 

I loved seeing so many people who looked like me walking around DC. The men and women wearing suits, having big conversations, making power moves. I thought, "That could be me, changing the world." But what of the scores of people who also looked like me, but were sleeping on the sidewalks in the shadows of our nation's monuments? Or being wrestled to their feet by surly Black and brown police officers after sitting for "too long" in the metro station?

​What of the people who look like me, but who are unable to convince others of their innate humanity just by virtue of wearing a designer blazer - even if it DID come from a thrift shop? 


In Minnesota, I am Black, period. I am never allowed to forget it. But when you live in a place where being Black isn't treated as some freaky anomaly, what are you to people? And more importantly: how do you respond when the person mistreating you looks just like you? What, then? ​​

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Listen, Risikat! You might learn something.

3/2/2018

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And I do listen. Specifically, to self-narrated memoirs. I jumped into the audiobook world when my work commute grew from a quick 25-minute ride to a nearly hour-long ordeal. Now, instead of grumbling about the glut of Minnesota drivers, the snow, ice, and general misery of commuting, I can laugh and learn my way down the highway. 

Here are some of my recent favorites:
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Around the Way Girl, by Taraji P. Henson

​"I can give you a London accent, I can give you Becky the Valley Girl all day long. I can pull it back and get corporate when I need to, too. But checks are usually attached to that. I have to get paid to be that person. That is not who I am." 

Taraji P. Henson's story begins with her being kidnapped. And that isn't even the craziest, scariest thing she's encountered. I found myself listening to this book in the car, in the grocery store, and even in the shower. I can't wait to see what Henson does next. 



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Year of Yes: How to dance it out, stand in the sun and be your own person, by Shonda Rhimes

“But I only ever write about one thing: being alone. The fear of being alone, the desire to not be alone, the attempts we make to find our person, to keep our person, to convince our person to not leave us alone, the joy of being with our person and thus no longer alone, the devastation of being left alone.” 

Some truths are too hard to bear. But Rhimes makes a case for trying again and saying "YES", even when it's scary.  

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How to Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston

“For example, when the two of you are in the coffee room, she might say to you, “Hey, we should just take all these white people’s shit and burn it.” But then she laughs, and you laugh, and another coworker enters the room, asking, “What’s so funny?” and without missing a beat you both say, “Tina Fey!” 

Black folks have been in the extreme minority at every place I've worked. The emotional labor involved in navigating racial landmines at every turn is both exhausting and infuriating. But there is always someone - a senior leader, a mail room clerk, a bookish scientist - who will make you feel properly human again. Thurston's book honors this fact: there's always someone there. 

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The Last Black Unicorn, by Tiffany Haddish

“So I ended up getting out of pimping, because I didn’t make much money. It’s just not a lucrative business, selling dick. Dick ain’t really all that hard to come by.”

Tiffany Haddish's voice is completely unique. And so is her story. I thought it'd be all laughs but Haddish's life has some truly dark elements. I say this without a touch of irony: I laughed. I cried.  

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The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, by Issa Rae

“Question: “Is it real?” Thanks to the widespread popularity of hair extensions, this question is no longer asked solely within the black community. Some people are even desensitized to the question. For those who aren’t, the proper response is usually, “Is yours?” with a smile. If that person does not relent, you can try, “It’s as real as you are bold,” with a friendly chuckle. Passive aggression is absolutely appropriate in this instance."

I legitimately paused the audiobook and said, "Did this girl steal my personal journal? Do I need to get lawyers involved?" That's how universal the awkward Black girl experience is. And Issa Rae brings every cringeworthy element to life. 

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Why Not Me, by Mindy Kaling 

“Confidence is just entitlement. Entitlement has gotten a bad rap because it's used almost exclusively for the useless children of the rich... But entitlement in and of itself isn't so bad. Entitlement is simply the belief that you deserve something. Which is great. The hard part is, you'd better make sure you deserve it.” 

Let's say you're in the middle of a Minnesota winter, with months of frigid gray days blending into one another and no chance of sunlight in sight. Just grab Kaling's memoir - you'll feel better in minutes. 
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Books for the culture.

2/18/2018

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You haven't seen Black Panther? Close your browser immediately! To the theater with you - quick quick, yeah?

Black Panther was everything. As I'm not a card-carrying comic book or superhero expert, I'll just say this: the story and representation of different African cultures was on point. Seeing these cultures combine and swirl around to create the fictional world of Wakanda? Your faves could never. The complex, layered approach to Blackness and African-ness will no doubt be dissected and analyzed in future university courses. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there are so many ways to be Black in this world. I hope to discover them all. 

And hey - there's no need to let the euphoria of Black Panther die. Keep the party going with some good reads:
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Forest Gate, by Peter Akinti 
At first glance, Forest Gate may look like a graphic, brutally violent series of terrible events. But it is so much more than that. This novel chronicles the experiences of Somali refugees living on the estates in London (read: the hood).

It is not belonging. It is mental illness. It is being "the other" among those already relegated to society's margins. And it is rebirth and redemption. 

"She took several steps, holding onto the edge of the table, and then turned and went back to her seat. Meina had always thought of addicts as the lowest form of humanity, but here was this woman, a mother, still trying to feed her boys. It was confusing. She has resisted the strong urge to get up and help her serve, worried that she would be overstepping some boundary. She forced herself to keep still and sighed when she realized she had been holding her breath. Did they expect her to eat the sludge that had been slopped into her bowl? She looked at James, his head down, staring at his own bowl. They all at the cold porridge. 

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White is for Witching, by Helen Oyeyemi
I picked up this novel solely because of the author's name. I expected another fish-out-of-water story about immigrants doing their best to fit in. To be sure, those stories play an important role in contemporary literature. But this novel broke from that tradition, hard. 

This neo-gothic story gave me the creeps in the best way. It is subtle, dark, refined. Like if Edgar Allen Poe hand-fed you chocolate. You'd be too terrified to say no. ​

"At home, she put the mannequin in the bath and washed it with a flannel, from face to torso to heels, until it was completely clean. The mannequin was taller than her, but as she pulled it out of the bath by its hands, she felts as if she was its mother."

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Them, by Nathan McCall
Say it with me: Gentrification. Or "yuppification", if you prefer. There are a million articles about why gentrification is so problematic. Bodegas, brownstones, and laundromats giving way to ritzy yoga studios and artisanal cheese shops, and longtime residents becoming outsiders in their own neighborhoods come to mind. 

Them brings all of this to a human place that is at once accessible and uncomfortable - and not for the readers you might think. 

"At that moment she felt in herself the potential to actually hate Barlowe, right along with the rest of them. It startled her to know she could feel that way. It crossed her mind, if only for a flash, and as much as she wanted to, she couldn't deny that she had the potential to hate. These people were starting to wear on her. How could the reject her? Many times she'd defended them - their peculiar habits and behaviors - in dinner party debates, and now they were rejecting her. It seemed unfair. 

'You know what bothers me most?'
'No, Sandy. What bothers you most?'
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That was the first time she'd heard him call her name. In the time she had known him, he had avoided addressing her directly. She had wondered if he even remembered her name."



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What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, by Lesley Nneka Arimah
You start reading the short stories in this book and before you know it, you're having the crap beat out of your entire heart. 

It's a perfect mix of sci-fi, old-world reminiscence, and modern, sly wit. The stories are so short that you find yourself automatically slowing down, reluctant to finish.

"'You need something with strong limbs that can plow and haul and scrub. Soft children with hard lives go mad or die young. Bring me a child with edges and I will bless it and you can raise it however you like.' 

When Ogechi had instead brought her mother a paper child woven from the prettiest wrapping paper she'd been able to scavenge, her mother, laughing the whole time, had plunged it into the mop bucket until it softened and fell apart."


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Open City, by Teju Cole
This is not my favorite book. An angst-filled guy walking around the city, waxing endlessly about himself and the world is a little too "Catcher in the Rye", for me. But I gave it a chance and you should, too. 

The premise is a bit self-indulgent, but the novel still stands as fantastic - the people the Narrator meets are rich, each armed to the teeth with truth bombs. 

"It's a Christian idea, I said. He was a churchman, you see, his principles came from the Christian concept. That is it exactly, Farouq said. This is not an idea I can accept. There's always the expectation that the victimized Other is the one that covers the distance, that has the noble ideas; I disagree with this expectation. It's an expectation that works sometimes, I said, but only if your enemy is not a psychopath. You need an enemy with a capacity for shame. I wonder sometimes how far Gandhi would have gotten if the British had been more brutal. If they had been willing to kill masses of protesters. Dignified refusal can only take you so far. Ask the Congolese."


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Getting weird in Austin

1/31/2018

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​My father traveled a lot for work during my formative years. I'd eagerly await the small trinkets and souvenirs he'd bring back from faraway places - clogs from Amsterdam, intricate South Korean key chains, foreign currencies. I didn't quite know what engineers did; In my mind, dad was probably having the time of his life making friends and going on crazy Indiana Jones-esque adventures. As an adult, I would come to find that my rosy view of work travel was wholly inaccurate. Turns out, business trips are kind of a drag. Gray or beige conference rooms, bland box lunches, and hours of endless meetings followed by nights of silence are the norm for many an employee. 

But not this one.

I've gotten into the habit of requesting later return flights for business trips. As long as you cover the lodging costs for your off-work time, most human resources folks don't care when you come back. If your extra days happen to fall on a weekend, you don't even have to deal with taking extra vacation days. And if you already have a pug-sitter lined up? It's all gravy, baby.​ 

PictureAt the famed Graffiti Park in Austin - visit sometime!
And so it was with Austin, Texas. I attended the Environmental Protection Agency's National Air Quality Conference and spent three days surrounded with engineers, air dispersion modelers, meteorologists, policy wonks, and communications strategists like myself. The charge? Figure out a way to make people care about air quality and the connection between air pollution and public health. Having spent years working with engineers, I didn't exactly expect a knee-slapping good time. But I was pleasantly surprised. I met some truly talented minds and came away with a renewed energy to communicate tough science in better ways. I was also reminded that it's total nonsense when people say they can't have a racially and ethnically diverse staff because there aren't qualified people of color in STEM. (There are. I saw them. Fight me.) 

Still, three days of uninterrupted air talk left me itching to cut loose. Once the conference concluded, I left my swanky hotel and moved across town to a hostel on The Drag.

PictureFor the first time ever, someone complimented my grating Minnesotan accent.
​Now is a good time to mention that I am an extreme introvert. I may also be some kind of masochist, for why else would I voluntarily stay somewhere with shared bedrooms, bathrooms, and common spaces? To be sure, the constant activity took some getting used to. 

I spent the first half of my free weekend wandering Austin alone, listening to my most recent read: Company Man, by John Rizzo. I also picked up a copy of Helen Oyeyemi's What is Not Yours is Not Yours at Book People, a local Texas bookstore. I even had an impromptu group brunch at a neighborhood cafe with four perfect strangers. Texans are friendly, y'all!



​By day two, I was even braver. I chatted up the French dude who was sleeping in my room, Laurèns, and connected with some of the other hostel residents. This singular moment of courage quickly led to an hours-long whirlwind adventure with my new tribe, exploring the bustling Dirty Sixth Street (I drank! I danced - in public!) and weaving through the city to the laid-back Rainey Street (I drank more! I coolly bobbed my head!) ​

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My new friends and I regaled one another with stories from our homes - Perth, Australia, Brooklyn, NY, Fort Wirth, TX, Kansas City, KS, Miami, FL - and Minnesotan Me. We connected over our love for Swedish power metal band Sabaton (I saw them live in 2016!), Tim Horton's, and of course, pugs. 

We laughed. Ran. Drank. Posed. Jumped. Hugged. Ate. And a mere 12 hours after meeting, we said goodbye forever.

(Just kidding! Since it isn't 1978, we dutifully followed one another on Instagram and Snapchat)

Business trips shouldn't mean entrapment in beige prison cells with a succession of terrible PowerPoints and overpriced stale muffins bearing down on one's tired soul. They can be so much more. I'm happy to have had a small part in keeping Austin weird.  

​Bye, y'all!

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    ​RISIKAT'S THOUGHTS

    Osseo, Minnesota.
    ​The year is 2005.

    ​My tenth grade English teacher is in front of the class, brandishing a cylinder of grits. She holds the container high above our heads. "This is a food commonly eaten by Southern BLACKS - I mean, African American people," she says, eyes wide with excitement. Like clockwork, every blonde, brunette, and red head turns in my direction to verify. "Is it true?"

    It's true.
    ​I freaking LOVE grits. 

    These are my thoughts. 

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