Britt's Blog

Hip Hop is Life! 

Happy 50th Birthday Hip Hop

Posted on September 22, 2023 by Britt Oates

Dear Mama: 

A Love Letter to Black America from Afeni and Tupac Shakur

Posted on May 16, 2023 by Britt Oates

Behind the headlines, jail time, myths, and conspiracies… Behind the music, the gold chains, and court cases, a Black woman and her Black son sit in silence. After what feels like an eternity of internal questioning, strategizing, and visualizing sunsets of red, black, and green, they turn to face each other then giggle like children. They leave each other’s side for a while, maybe forever. She, setting fires along the journey and he, carrying hurricanes on his shoulders, cultivating and widening the path as he follows not far behind. They meet again only to say goodbye, fully aligned in healing, hope, and an unwavering mission of freedom realized. With tears in heart and molten lava in eyes, they take a final breath and sink into the seeds which they planted in the soil beneath them. As the soil dissipates, and seasons cycle through, even as the concreate is poured and dries, you can hear their whispers ever present, ever existing in the atmosphere. A sprout begins to grow, and soon a rose emerges from the concreate with the scent of a mother’s love and a son’s fury. We hear them, we see them, we are with them as they are with us. And we carry on in their memory, in their voices, and in their love for us and for each other. Their story is our story. We love them because they have only always loved us.  

Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur is an intimate telling of a most precious love triangle. Not in the typical sense meaning romance, but a love triangle pure of heart, mind, and soul between mother, son, and Black people in America. From her profound leadership as a Black Panther, to his earthshaking ghetto poetry, Afeni and Tupac are 20th and even 21st century Black America’s symbols of enlightenment and deliverance.  

Afeni loved her son deeply, and Tupac loved her. Likely the most quoted line in his acclaimed song Dear Mama, “And even though you was a crack fiend Mama, you always was a Black Queen Mama…” was just one testament to the honor and respect he had for her. Even when she was at her worst, unable to keep carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, somehow young Pac understood her pain and struggle and loved her still. The love the two of them had for one another extended to the rest of us. Afeni fought for justice and freedom for all Black people, and Tupac carried the torch through his words, and generosity. His raw and unfiltered lyrical content and poetry was a sweet embrace for Black people, and a cracked and bloody mirror for society at large.

Tupac was our Malcom X, our living history taken long before he could receive his crown, yet just in time to change the world. We watched him victimized by police brutality, yet he continued speaking truth to power. We watched him become falsely accused and convicted of a crime he did not commit, and rather than crumble under the system, he used it as fuel for his most successful album All Eyez On Me, recorded and dropped only 2 weeks after he was released from prison. Every song on that album spoke to every Black man, woman, and child in ways white America would never understand. For them Tupac was angry and violent, but for us he was forging a new path to freedom via love and fire. When Tupac speaks, it is our call to prayer.  

An American Dream Come True?

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Britt Oates

New Adventure! 

In August 2022 I got a new gig - a career propelling gig in fact - which is the reason for my move to the East Coast. Now I am living in the incredible city of Washington, D.C. and could not be more excited for the journey! I’ve dreamed of living in this part of the country for years, surrounded by an almost anti-Hollywood, and highly socially conscious culture of people, where seasons are actualized rather than suggested, and fellow Black people move through the colonial architectured streets with a sense of belonging. 

I am finally working in a dream role. I am an exhibit content developer at a non-profit organization that is building a new museum here in D.C., focusing on the creation and curation of exhibit experiences surrounding public health and medical research. Pretty dope right? Especially given the tumultuous road I’ve trekked for the last decade leading to this point. Sometimes I ask myself, was all the degradation, sacrifice, underestimation, racism, microaggressions, and debt worth it, just to get here? 

So, I’ve now got the dream job, but it comes with a bit of an ironic caveat. The content I am creating in my new role is centered on supporting this thing called “the American Dream.” This concept of the “American Dream” has never been something I felt I could identify with (for many reasons including those which have already been established earlier in this post), and I’d be lying if I said I felt much different now. So why did I take this job? Could I be more concerned with what my career profile looks like on paper, and am therefore a sell-out? Or could my decision be deeper than that? And so, my internal conflict grows with intrigue. 

Dreams vs. Reality

Upon deeper reflection, I realize that it’s never been about looking good on paper. I’ve had jobs that look good on paper before, but I was completely miserable from either the work or the management, but most of the time because of a combination of both. On the flip side, I’ve had jobs that didn’t look as good on paper but I absolutely loved because the work itself gave me joy and self value. After having built up so much experience working these sorts of jobs, I’ve learned to really embrace my self-worth and push hard to build a career doing what I love - making museum exhibits - but now with greater wisdom and gumption. I realize that taking my current job was about much more than a respected title and getting to move to one of my favorite cities. It’s about doing what I love to do in the face of the system that for so long made me believe I wasn’t good enough. Could this be the Black American Dream?

The challenge now however is more about the balance between personal, cultural, and professional integrity. I am confronting my personal feelings which are confronting cultural values, while confronting historically harmful tropes that simply cannot be avoided when talking about the American Dream. The American Dream, conceived by individuals who once considered people like me ⅗ of a human and have maintained this hateful thinking through the generations, perpetuating it time and time again, ie. Black Wall Street, Seneca Village, MOVE bombing, and many other incidents that we are never taught about in our history classes in school.  But I have to admit, there is something really satisfying about the thought of creating a successful life as my unapologetically Black self, in spite of all the attempts made to thwart Black people’s ability and determination to happily thrive in this country. Some would say that this is part of the “American Dream,” to overcome obstacles and find success, but then, what is an obstacle? 

The dictionary defines it as a “thing which blocks one’s way,” and when you stop and think about that, that means that it can be removed, destroyed, avoided, or pushed aside. Being Black in America is not an obstacle for Black people, but maybe it is seen as such by those who keep trying to, how can I put it, get us out of the way. We cannot undo being Black. We cannot remove our skin, or step outside of it. Being Black can never change for us. The real obstacle is the system in which we’ve become uncomfortably accustomed to living. This is something that can be removed, destroyed, sometimes avoided and pushed aside. This system that claims the American Dream encompasses equality for all, while destroying Black bodies (among others) left and right is the obstacle which needs to be removed. Sounds like an easy enough solution, but how to accomplish this is the big question those of us on the side of social justice are constantly grappling with, because let’s be real for a second, the people benefiting from the system are fighting to maintain it at the same time. 

What Happens to a Dream Revised?

One way to look at this situation is that the only new thing about my life is a better job in a new location. The struggle for equality has always been my journey. As much as I wish for it, I cannot expect my employer to be fully aware of this life-long conflict between myself, as a Black woman, and the multitude of off-shooting obstacles perpetuated by our oppressive system. But therein lies the crux of the conflict. 

I have grown tired of having to explain over and over again why I feel self-conscious and uncomfortable being the only Black person in the room, or on the team, or why that is the immediate thing I notice in the first place. I have grown tired of explaining why concepts as they stand, such as the “American Dream,” do not, and likely will never resonate with me. And further, despite the increased activism efforts and the corresponding increased attention and awareness of the truth behind those efforts, I find myself exasperated with still having to speak these truths to power, only for them to be quickly forgotten. But I recall the old saying in Black culture, “a closed mouth don’t get fed,” and remind myself that if I silence myself then I will be guilty of self starvation from the food which keeps my dreams alive, the food that keeps me alive. And this extends even beyond me. By speaking openly about the conflicts that continue to plague us, keeping us segregated even under the umbrella of concepts such as the American Dream that claim to be accessible to all people, eventually the bureaucratic powers that be will start to listen and eventually still, do something good about it. Possibly another facet of the Black American Dream.  

So what does this mean for me and my dreams? Often it feels as though the further along I get on the path to achieving my dreams, the more complex and conflicting it gets. At times, part of me wants to drastically switch to a life off the grid, away from the rat race, the hussle, and the seemingly unbreakable stronghold of this country’s oppression-rooted systemic function. I sometimes can't help but feel like giving in to the oppression, and accepting the false narrative of being unworthy of happy dreams come true. But I realize that questioning my dreams wouldn’t be of any benefit because there is no such thing as a wrong dream. My dreams are what made me, and what have been the driving force behind every goal I’ve accomplished, and the creativity which shapes my work, and are responsible for my motivation to seek my truth and happiness. 

Getting to where I am, after all that I’ve been through, the good, bad, and stank, began with a dream. The dream of standing face to stone with the pyramids of Giza when I was just 5 years old, and wanting to get a tiny taste, is what led me to a museum. A museum visit exposing me to worlds far beyond mine, filled with color and ancient cultural truths etched in rock faces I never imagined I could resonate with. A museum visit led to connecting with people of all backgrounds and loving them and their traditions, full of magical nuances capable of making the world better and more beautiful. A museum visit, unforgettable enough to lead me to anthropology, where I gained a few tools helpful for collecting bits and pieces of that magic to respectfully and consensually share with the world, as well as to personally learn from and grow with. And so here I am, a museum exhibit developer and curator in the middle of a 400 year (and counting) battle for freedom and peace to exist as equals.  

My dreams are not gone, nor have they ever been deferred. But they do require revision from time to time. They must evolve to accommodate the growing uncertainties of a life lived in a system that is undergoing multiple complex surgical procedures in an attempt to correct its genetic dysfunctions. Those dysfunctions being deep-seeded bias and hate. My dream of developing and curating museum exhibits has evolved to include the exorcism of demons of the colonizers’ past, creating a new lens through which we too can look and see ourselves (Black people) clearly in the dream. So, rather than shy away from the idea of the “American Dream” because of its colonial foundation and the constant reminders of the hate that persists often in its name, I’ve decided that it’s time I go toe to toe with it. This is my dream, revised. 

Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion (DEAI) Reality Check

Posted on MARCH 15, 2021 by BRITT OATES

We all know that 2020 was a year filled with unprecedented challenges that have forever changed our lives. Covid-19 brought negative impacts on the economy both locally and globally, extensive losses of employment, and not to mention the effects on personal health, causing millions of people of all ages to have to fight for their lives, many of whom lost that battle. On top of all of that, everyone felt the sting of the public murder (some even referring to the incident as a modern lynching) of George Floyd in Minnesota back in May 2020 by Minneapolis police. The incident became the catalyst for people of all races and from all walks of life to take to the streets in protest of racism, and police brutality against people of color, primarily Black people. While this was not something new for Americans who have never been shy about exercising their 1st amendment right, the reach of the Black Lives Matter movement and the call for attention to antiracist action grew to never-before-seen numbers not just in the United States, but around the world.  

With these events came the need for institutions, especially community-based institutions such as museums and other educational organizations, across the country to take a step back, acknowledge if/how they have contributed to perpetuating systemic racism within their organizations, and reassess how to move forward with a DEAI lens at the forefront of each step to be taken. However, even with the shift in focus to DEAI efforts, it is clear that institutions have quite a long way to go. Establishing and maintaining an antiracist environment, with all that such an environment would entail, is not something that can magically occur overnight, and more importantly, it is something that must be a genuine belief and the primary goal starting with executive leadership.

Whether or not this is the true intention of institutions claiming to be committed to this work, and in turn can become a reality, is something I tend to question. Is it that institutional leaders honestly care about DEAI and antiracism, or is this simply a trend?  Is the claim of commitment to DEAI work merely a way of “throwing the BIPOC a bone,” but behind closed doors, knowing you will only satisfy the minimum expectation so as not to upset your conservative stakeholders? What kinds of actions have been taken toward accomplishing the goals of DEAI and antiracist practices, and have those actions made some kind of immediate difference? How is/will the success be measured? I think these questions are important to raise because from a BIPOC perspective, simply talking about the issues is passe. Real action with tangible results is long overdue, and most of us BIPOC who have been navigating trying to survive in a society built to work against us are tired of talking about it, in the name of “having a voice.” It is no longer enough to simply have our voices be heard (should they chose to be heard at all), especially because we’ve always had a voice and we’ve always technically been heard. The difference now is that we are finally making so much noise that not only is there no choice but to hear us, there is also no way to continue ignoring us as well.

Here are 5 key points in the form of DO’s and DON’Ts for community-based institutional leadership to consider in order to amplify BIPOC as Leaders and Change Makers.   

White leaders especially need to step back, and rather than focus on receiving accolades from your peers on the DEAI work that is being done on the surface, focus on ensuring that any issues of bias that do come up are taken seriously and met with appropriate consequences. For decades BIPOC professionals have had to endure a great deal of racial bias and microaggressions that more often than not go unchecked for fear of retaliation. So, one of the most important and more immediately correctable issues that white leaders can resolve is the way in which the organization handles reports of racial bias, and this especially includes issues involving transgressions of executive leaders toward non executive staff. Remember, part of decentering whiteness means zero tolerance for bias no matter where that bias comes from.   

Since I was a child in elementary school, I’ve had a fascination with museums. For me, visiting them was like visiting far-away lands, filled with magic carpets and buried treasure. My favorite museums included those that featured anything having to do with ancient Egypt. Scarab beetles made of gold, obsidian, turquoise, lapis, and jade danced around in my dreams as a kid, in fact, they still do! It’s probably my fascination with ancient Egypt that made me fall in love with museums to begin with. They’ve been my time machine, transporting me back to what I believe to be the most prolific, innovative, and exquisite civilization that ever existed, ancient Egypt.

My dad and Michael Jackson

This docuseries, while indeed emotionally charged, presented our beloved holy Black mother and son with such beauty and light. It was deeply moving and rewarding to watch the magic that was Tupac, even before I came to know and love him, when he was only a child himself. Listening to him speak, I was jolted back in time nearly 30 years, soul to soul with my adolescent self in my bedroom, staring at his posters hanging rebelliously around the walls of the room while Shed So Many Tears blared from my boombox. Though imagined, I could feel his presence with me in my room where he and I would dance and sing and laugh and cry together for reasons I did and did not fully understand at the time. Somehow, we were connected through the pain that lived inside of our DNA even if separated by a generation. I remembered why I fell in love with Tupac before I was old enough to know what love was. His intelligence and sharp tongue and fearlessness, toe-to-toe with the oppressor was beyond that of any of the peers of his time. At just 17 years old, Tupac was a genius.