As one grows up, certain personality traits can coalesce into undeniable truths about a person. Take me for example. My natural gregariousness and ease around strangers translates into undeniable Anthonia Akitunde truth #43: I’m really good in interviews.
Job hunting in New York has afforded me the opportunity to see this truth in action. Since I moved here in February of last year, I have been on [starts counting on fingers] 11 interviews. I have 26 different cover letters all trumpeting my online, social media and print skills, reassuring “To whom it may concern” that I would be a great addition to [insert media company here]‘s staff. Unfortunately, when it comes to steady, full-time, 401k providing , health and dental benefits-giving employment I am always an interviewee and never a hire.
But hey, in these hard economic times, that’s the story for me, you, and every one we know, right? And it hasn’t exactly all been fruitless. I finally found my way into WNYC (my second through fourth, then eighth, interview in the city) after meeting with the business and economics editor in late December. Starting January 24, I’ll be doing as-needed per-diem work for the station’s business department, which is amazing. This new gig brings my count up to four big-name outlets I’m doing some type of work for: Fast Company, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businesseweek and now WNYC.
Which brings us to Anthonia Akitunde undeniable truth #76: I’m the definition of a hustler.
There is nothing like having your own, especially in a shaky job market with an even shakier economy. Over the last few months, I’ve noticed an uptick in women turning their passions into successful businesses, from Grace Bonney’s design blog turned book Design Sponge to former classmates Erica Cerulo and Claire Mazur’s game changer Of A Kind, a limited-edition shopping site that has the distinction of being the first commerce-based Tumblr.
Seeing these friends and strangers court success — instead of waiting for it to come to them in the form of a job interview — has inspired me to pursue a life-long dream of mine. I’m not quite ready to divulge just what that is yet, but I’m applying for grants, coming up with a business plan and giving myself six months to make something happen. Because what’s the point of waiting any more? The clear path to success that used to be preached from the pulpit behind teacher’s desks no longer exists.
For as long as I can remember, there were two institutions that held considerable significance for me. One was Harvard (Poppa Akitunde recalls me telling him during my elementary school years that I was going to go there) and the other was the Grey Lady herself, the New York Times.
While I traded up in terms of higher education (GO MAROONS!), my fascination with the Times remained. As far as most people are concerned, it is the paper of record, still printing all the news that’s fit to print while acting as a leader in the way news is read online.
So you can imagine my delight when my Hail Mary toss of my resume to the Times deputy real estate editor got a response. And lo, my glee when a pitch about an Astoria family reshaping their neighborhood through luxury apartments and amenities was picked up. But to see my name in that familiar font on newsprint? Or to click on a NYTimes.com link that takes me to words I wrote? I mean… there are literally no words. Or, really, there are words… but they aren’t fit to print on this blog
Click the picture or this link for my first (and hopefully not the last) New York Times article.
Like every Halloween before it, this year’s batch of costumes had the usual play on words and pop cultural references (I was the Black Swan in case you were wondering). But the all-too-common practice of wearing racially insensitive costumes went viral thanks to an Ohio University student organization’s ad campaign called, “We are a culture, not a costume.” You can see some of the posters above.
The powerful campaign — and a troubling encounter I had in a bar two weeks before All Hallowed Eve — led me to write an essay to speculate what people who dress in blackface and present racial stereotypes are getting out of the experience. A friend came up with the concept of “disposal blackness” which I thought was a great way to put it: in some cases, the person is getting to participate in a fetishized and commercialized culture without having to think much about what it means to be of that race/culture beyond November 1. I pitched the essay to The Root DC, an affiliate of the Washington Post focused on black news, and it ran on their homepage on October 28!
Read my thoughts here and let me know what you think of the post in the comments section!
Photo: Anthony Harvey/Picture Group, taken from BET
Being a 26-year-old woman with a low tolerance for idiocy, I begged off from watching the much-tweeted and ballyhooed 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. (I also don’t have cable.) But I would have had to be living in a cave without Internet access to avoid the big news of the evening: Beyoncé Knowles is pregnant!
The 29-year-old singer (and Patron Saint of Wronged Women Everywhere) proudly displayed her baby bump on the red carpet Sunday evening, whipping her fans into an ovarian frenzy. Even if Beyoncé wasn’t dominating the charts with her fourth solo album, this news was sure to capture the media and world’s attention, what with our fascination with celebrities’ reproductive systems. I’m surprised we haven’t added a “FERTILIZATION ALERT!” to the “BUMP WATCH!” features in gossip rags.
One of the coolest things about my internship at Fast Company is the chance to uncover stories I would never have found on my usual Internet jaunts (which these days looks something like: Gmail > Facebook > Google Reader > OKCupid! and repeat).
While working on a blurb about the upcoming World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, I stumbled upon this amazing structure in Estonia envisioned by the geniuses at Salto Architects.
Photos by Martin Siplane, Paul Aguraiuja & Karli Luik, taken from Salto Architects site. Click for larger images.
Made primarily of spray painted bales of straw (with trusses lending support), the NO99 Straw Theater is as much an art installation as it is a theater space. The theater is built on the former grounds of the Soviet Navy’s recreational area and summer theater stage, which civilians were restricted to use. NO99 reflects the number of performances that will be held in the space; it will only be open for 5 months before it is taken down.
In the last 20 years it has been ” a closed and neglected spot in the centre of town with real estate controversies and several failed large-scale development plans,” according to Salto. Though I’m not fluent in Estonian, I think the architects and theater groups’ intentions were to create a visual representation of the void the space had come to represent for people in the town. Check out the video below for more information and to see some of the shows staged in the space.
There has to be a record for how fast (pun not intended but enjoyed nonetheless) this happened.
Before my first week in New York could even come to a close, I’ve secured a three-month, paid internship with Fast Company, a gorgeous magazine that profiles innovations in business, technology and design. I’m beyond excited and can’t wait to start on March 14. To get a sense of just how fast I went from New York transplant with no job to gainfully employed magazine intern, read on.
It’s a question that I get asked a lot, one that you think — what with years of schooling and experience — would have a hard and fast answer by now.
“Oh, dahling,” I should say, swishing the contents of my martini glass around while buffing my nails. “I want to follow the Bedouin tribes of Egypt for Vanity Fair while shooting an accompanying documentary on the effects of khat on peripatetic journalists.”
Instead it comes out more like, “Oh, gosh, I don’t really know. I mean, I have so many experiences in print, online, and radio. I really love to write and yet, I love editing audio and video… I would love to work for an NPR station as a producer/reporter or maybe a staff writer or online news editor for New York Magazine…and there’s still a part of me that wants to write long-form narrative non-fiction pieces for Vanity Fair…I just want to find something that combines all those loves, you know? ”
Which, of course, eight times out of 10 the person doesn’t know. Because apparently one must have a steadfast and unshakable answer to this question. A question whose answer the wavering economy and competitive (although slowly opening up) job market makes even harder to define.
But until the Journalism Gods touch my forehead with a golden finger that immediately presents THE ONE POSITION THAT WILL MAKE ME THE HAPPIEST JOURNO ON THE PLANET OH MY GAWD, I’ll continue to smile over my overpriced drinks and ignore the wide array of concerned expressions my nonanswer tends to illicit. It works for me.
Growing up, I rarely got the support other girls found in their monthly subscription to magazines. I actually had to make a conscious effort to stop picking up Seventeen or Teen magazine when I was in middle school; the sparkling blonde hair and vacuous copy just didn’t reflect my then chemically straightened black hair and Daria-age cynicism.
As I grew older, Black women’s magazines didn’t fit either. Essence and Ebony were for an older generation, one that remembered the Civil Rights Movement as more than just a chapter in a history book.
Thankfully, there is a rise of great online publications catering to a hipper, more connected and cosmopolitan black woman. Clutch Magazine Online is one of them — a site for intelligent black women to discuss community issues like the jailing of an Ohio mom trying to do good by her children to interracial dating. While applying to become their Daily Editor, one of the editors reached out to me to write up one of the stories I pitched to them in the application.
