Leah M. Robinson Junior Writing Portfolio Updated April 26, 2016 R/GA
1. In the fall of my senior year, I took a poetry-writing workshop with award-winning poet, Lyrae Von-Clief Stefanon. The following 2 poems came out of that class and have been featured in multiple Colgate publications. Spring Break Forever Whisper softly tying satin ribbon tight to skцll Neutered language, reframed heart My mask is white. The Pale Male Gaze chants Spring Break Forever. And I fix my state & dust my stage, my cage Since I perform this spectacle for you It matters more than I if you were to die I am dizzy. I turn around and see that You make me and I make fires And in our wake are clouds of ash. Who is under these eyeholes? Who is that on bikini-clad beach rubbed with dark tanning бil I belong to you, to Cancun To spring break Forever. Nothing is wrong Nothing is шrong Nothing is
(Xmas) Eve’s End Souls are going in and out of consciousness Performing white coated misery Grey snow disappears on lavender salt Covering brick, cement, universe, home. Cracked lips bleed and clouds of sulfur obscure mind’s end White turns grey turns black turns tar And underneath, dark bodies lie silent
2. After Beyonce’s release of “Formation” and performance in the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show, I contacted Interbrand with the idea for an article. They loved it. I wrote it. Brandspeak: Beyoncé Transforms Halftime Show into Activist Space Posted February 10, 2016 by brandchannel The following is a guest post by verbal identity specialist Leah Robinson: Beyoncé has inundated the internet and the American conscience with her new song, “Formation.” The song is a deeply personal and inherently political statement concerning the black body in a post-Katrina United States. Beyoncé utilizes historically marginalized voices to make her point, featuring black babies with big afros, young black hip-hop dancers, members of the black LGBTQ community and poor black women alike. As a song and music video, “Formation” forces the audience to face the black experience in modern America, from gender roles to beauty standards to the realities of police brutality. However, as a live performance at Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show, “Formation” pushes even farther, reconstructing the traditional halftime show from an entertainment venue to a militant activist space. The initial mission of the Super Bowl halftime show was to entertain restless fans and ensure that no remote viewers would turn away from their TV screens during a break from play. In 1993, Michael Jackson was the first performer to draw a halftime audience more interested in his performance than the game. With the theme, “Heal the World,” the show was an optimistic, feelgood American celebration created by NBC’s producers. Halftime shows have continued to provide messages of American pride, unity and resilience, most notably in 2002, when U2 created a moment of national healing during the halftime show, singing “Where the Streets Have No Name” as a tribute to 9/11 victims. Even before Beyoncé stepped onto the stage last Sunday, the 2016 halftime show was politically charged. The rainbow dancers, costumes and flowers during Coldplay’s performance introduced a subtle same-sex marriage theme that was brought to fruition with a stadium-wide banner, “believe in love” and and incited antigay fans. However, their words were drowned out by an even louder chorus of hostilities against Beyoncé, which were led by prominent voices like former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In the past 24 hours, the performance has sparked a New York City #BoycottBeyoncé protest. So what exactly did Beyoncé do differently from Coldplay? The entertainer pushed the potential of the Super Bowl halftime show with an overt message far more controversial than 9/11 or love. With performers dressed as Black Panthers dancing in tribute to Malcolm X and referencing African-Americans targeted by police, the show was a radical tribute to the pride and pain of black life in contemporary America. In showcasing
“Formation,” Beyoncé proved that a mainstream event like the Super Bowl could stand, not for national unity, but dis-unity. The Super Bowl could point to the nation’s flaws and celebrate bold, radical American leaders. While Mayor Giuliani’s assertion that “This is football, not Hollywood” highlights the multitude of Americans who believe the Super Bowl is an inappropriate platform for national politics, what is done is done. The Super Bowl, as a bastion for consumerism, patriarchy and mainstream America, has butted heads with grassroots political feminist activism. Will another star take on the challenge next year, or has the backlash already confirmed that the halftime show’s overt activist days are already behind us? Leah Robinson is a New York-based verbal identity specialist.
3. Interbrand needed a visual and verbal theme for its 2015 month of service. I collaborated with a creative team to develop this corporate citizenship aesthetic. More at: http://interbrand.com/views/month-of-service-2015/
4. This long-form creative piece was my capstone project for a writing and rhetoric class entitled “Discourses of Whiteness.” It won Colgate’s esteemed Trimmer Award for Excellence in Expository Writing. Here are some samples taken from the larger work. White in a White World My White skin began shaping my life before I was even born. The inherited wealth used to pay for my excellent pre-natal care and the cost of my home birth in a spacious West Village apartment are due to my parents and grandparents’ race. As I grew in the womb, my mother’s skin color affected the amount of toxins and diseases that I was exposed to as she walked down the streets of her neighborhood. When my head crowned, I already had a trust fund set aside for me – money that had come easier to my parents and grandparents due to their White skin. As my parents flipped through books of baby names in the days following my birth, Whiteness had already influenced the name I would receive. A White man at Ellis Island who had found my great-grandparents’ family name, Robinovitch, too difficult to pronounce had Whitewashed my Jewish heritage as a result. Upon learning this story seventeen years later, I recall feeling relief at having been given an average American name, a name that fit in. A name that could further mask my Jewish identity behind my White one. Though I did not yet fully understand what being White meant, I was unknowingly feeling thankful for its presence in my life, for growing up in a world that had accepted me, affirmed me and celebrated me. From the moment I was born, I was infused with Whiteness. I was taught to have a sense of superiority over others who looked different than me, a belief that I should be given the best and that I deserved the best, due, mostly, to my White skin. I was shown in subtle and not-sosubtle ways that I should have power and influence over those with darker skin and that I should feel a sense of paternalistic pity towards them and their lives. I was taught that it was my job to
help people of color, smile at them and love them while still grouping them as a them, an other. I was taught to identify with and reward my White friends and to focus on and praise the assimilated, White aspects of my friends of color. Everyday, I went to a school full of White people, came home to a family full of White people on a street in a neighborhood full of White people. I got my skin checked for moles by a doctor with the same skin, I got my hair checked for lice by a nurse with the same type of hair, and I sat in their waiting rooms with White patients. I prayed at a majority White synagogue and watched movies and read novels full of White people. Because of the mentors I was exposed to while growing up, ninety–seven percent of the figures of authority in my life are White. I was shown images of White women who I was told epitomized beauty, and I was shown images of White men who I was told epitomized power. I was taught to celebrate the White men in my family who had high-paying salaries, who entered Black spaces on other continents in order to shoot animals on safari and who had fought in World War II and retained stereotypes about the people of color whom they had fought against. I was taught to celebrate a White drinking culture that the elders of my family used to numb the pain that their own Whiteness had caused them, to nurse the wounds of their White guilt and to fill the void left in their lives from giving up a piece of their religious identity in order to be considered White and mainstream. I was born into a family that never once discussed the color of their skin, I was born into a White bubble that lived in a perpetual state of frame assumption. ***
The subtle (and not so subtle) images, narratives and events that taught me the meaning of my White skin, day after day:
~ Day 2,848: “This day will forever mark the way that you see the world and how you will interact with its members” – Ms. Jessica, my 2nd grade homeroom teacher. 32, White. I was seven years old when I watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center’s South tower. That was a pivotal moment in my education of White fragility. As I read news, watched TV coverage and listened to my Jewish, White teachers and parents speak about the event, I was taught that the Arabs were my enemies, and that they had brown skin. I recall standing at the window of my classroom with my teacher, watching smoke billowing from the towers and listening to her tell me that I would never see people in the same way. I now understand what people she was referring to. From that moment on, I walked into the subway with fear. Seeing my father cry for the first time as he watched the television coverage of 9/11 taught me that I, and all others who looked like me, were victims. From that moment, I was constantly hyper-aware of the color of people around me and the presence of hijabs and Kufis. I had created an association in my mind between those individuals and my mental imaginings of New York City MTA subway bombings. And my fear was reinforced by newspapers, parents, radio reports and by the posters of dark hands slipping black bags full of explosives under subway seats that I looked at every day on the train to school. I was told by the post-9/11 automated subway reminders, “if you see something, say something.” Subtext: There are specific people who are making your world unsafe. My White privilege was already breeding thin skin and self-victimization.
Things I learned at School 1. Dolls look like me. The way I look must be the normal way to look. 2. Native Americans were kind, but they don’t really exist any more. I can learn more from Totem Poles and Longhouses than from the people themselves. 3. Teachers are White, principles are White, secretaries are White, and janitors are Black and Hispanic. People who teach me things and need to be respected are White, people who clean up after me are not. 4. When I hear American, I should associate that with a White person. Anyone else needs to add a hyphen after the word American to denote another identity. 5. It’s great to help other people. The people who need the most help are the people who do not look like me. I should always do community service! It doesn’t matter if I don’t think I have any skills because this work is easy and does not require any knowledge. People who don’t look like me need all the help they can get from educated and kind people like me. 6. I go to a high school named after a man who walked next to MLK in the Selma March in 1965. That makes me not racist and means that I can feel free from blame for the problems that I see in my society because I stand for those values. 7. There is a proper way to speak English and it’s the way that White people speak. If there are students of color who are speaking English differently, they are speaking it wrong. If there are student of color speaking English in the way that I do, they are probably smarter and better and “more White” than other people of color who don’t. 8. Since I ride the New York City subway, I see people of color everyday, so I know what it is like to be a person of color.
9. Since I live in New York City, I live in a racially integrated community. 10. I should not trust Black people, especially if they are not dressed like the White people I know. Especially if there are a lot of them. 11. It’s ok to use the N-word if you are making a joke. It’s not okay to make Holocaust jokes because they’re never funny. 12. Even though it’s not their fault, all people of color in America are poor, down on their luck, overweight and will never achieve anything. 13. I might not get into a good college because students of color have a better shot since they can tick more boxes. 14. People of color always live in dirty areas where I feel less safe, so they must not care about cleanliness. 15. Asian-Americans must not count as people of color because the ones whom I have met don’t seem to be struggling financially, seem assimilated, live in predominantly White neighborhoods like mine and go to my school. 16. It’s okay to group people of color or all members of one race together as a monolithic group when trying to explain something. 17. Movies about racism in America do not pertain to me, and I should not feel the need to watch them. 18. My salient identities are being Jewish, being a woman and being a New Yorker. Being White has nothing to do with who I am, how I act or how I walk through the world. *** While these experiences are described in the past tense, they still subconsciously play
in the back of my mind. Like all human beings, the prejudice swirling around me each day has informed my opinions and beliefs. It has shaped me, escaped me and hollowed me out. The way in which my white fragility manifests itself is frightening, and it is real. Confronting my life and my white skin has shown me that whiteness is far more than a privilege; it is also a pathological condition. It kills.