We’re residing in a time when one information alert or a single scroll on social media can shift your complete temper — typically sparking a full-on existential disaster concerning the state of the world. For creatives particularly, it could actually really feel practically not possible to remain impressed or motivated.
However for 2 days at CultureCon, the noise turned down. 1000’s of Black creatives, spanning industries, generations, and profession levels, got here collectively in New York to attach, recharge, and bear in mind their energy.
Now, that doesn’t imply the challenges dealing with Black communities had been ignored. Fairly the alternative: the conversations that stuffed the weekend acknowledged the truth of mass layoffs, ever-changing enterprise and business practices, and the uncertainty many are navigating. Nonetheless, what rang loudest was pleasure, hope, and affirmation.
“This yr’s theme was so impressed by the present local weather,” CultureCon founder Imani Ellis instructed theGrio. “We’re seeing at a drastic price this messaging of being smaller, being afraid, shrinking. That may be contagious. However I additionally suppose pleasure and hope will be contagious. I consider that simply because the pendulum swings to the suitable, it’ll swing proper again to the left, and so we want an area the place we will be reminded of our energy. Once we’re remoted, it’s simple to imagine we have now to face all the pieces alone. However once we get collectively and see how a lot energy we have now, once we simply present up for one another, it’s inspiring to maintain going.”
On social media, CultureCon seems like a feed of daring, inventive outfits and superstar cameos, which this yr featured Morris Chestnut (who, sure, smells pretty much as good as he seems), Jennifer Hudson, Taraji P. Henson, and extra. However the true fantastic thing about the occasion occurs in the course of the in-between moments: the “I like your outfit” that turns right into a 20-minute dialog; the prospect run-in with a former coworker; the sincere reminder that no matter profession stage, we’re all nonetheless figuring it out.
And with 1000’s of Black girls not too long ago shedding jobs, these conversations hit tougher this yr. Therapist and speaker Kier Gaines spoke to that rigidity with theGrio:
“It’s okay so that you can be unhappy about [a job loss] and never should really feel instantly actionable about your disappointment. But additionally, you may maintain being unhappy, however being ‘unhappy and…’ What are we going to do to be productive…be reflective…to take advantage of this downtime?” he suggested folks in these transition durations. “As a result of whenever you’re not busy with the working a part of your id, you may develop the opposite components of your id.”
One in all Black girls’s largest superstar crushes, Morris Chestnut, echoed Gaines’ messages emphasizing that “you don’t wish to skew to darkish days, darkish nights or darkish months. Keep targeted on you, hold creating you” as a result of because the notorious saying goes “this too shall go.”
Sheryl Lee Ralph urges the ladies in these transitions to attempt to reframe their mindsets.
“Typically you want a break. You didn’t get fired, you had been supplied a break to find what it’s you wish to do subsequent. Perhaps the place you had been is the place you need to have been then, however the place do you wish to go now?” she shared in her message to theGrio’s viewers. “Be kinder to your self and cease considering that the world is in opposition to you. The whole lot all the time works out the best way it’s imagined to.
“And with regards to me, all the pieces all the time works out for me,” she added with a confidence I believe we should always all attempt to undertake in life.
If there was a throughline this yr, it was religion. Not simply the religious type, however religion in your self and your journey.
“Your design, distinctive promise, and plan can’t be modified or harmed or taken by any evil that could be overtaking sure issues, or by any evil interval,” award-winning journalist Gia Pepper shared. “As a result of if God is for you, who will be in opposition to you. Don’t let these folks scare you, put your religion the place that concern is, and hold placing one foot in entrance of the opposite.”
Equally, LeToya Luckett, the queen of the pivot, took us to church along with her message to folks in transition:
“To begin with, sis, God bought you. We serve an intentional God, and He didn’t deliver you this far to go away you. Perceive that typically we bought to get nonetheless within the midst of the storm in order that we are able to hear clearly from him to know what the following factor is gonna be,” she stated stressing that this can be a second to construct and pray. “In moments like this, that is when we have to, initially, be on our knees, praying probably the most to listen to from God so that we are going to know the best way to put together for the following factor that’s gonna propel us. In order that we will be prepared. We are able to have each instrument that we have to construct that enterprise. To have the ability to say, ‘Okay, y’all, I’ve been by way of this, I labored, and I managed this, and I’ve this expertise, however guess what? I bought extra instruments in my toolbox. I’ve fallen brief. I’ve been fired from the job. That is taking place to me. I understand how to mud myself, get again up, rebuild once more, and, child, I’m doing it greater and higher.’”
Whether or not you had been there for a celeb sighting, to buy Black-owned manufacturers on the Chase Ink Market, or to make connections within the “We Met IRL” networking lounge, the center of CultureCon was easy: affirmation.
Affirmation that irrespective of the layoffs, shutdowns, or systemic roadblocks, Black individuals are nonetheless constructing. Nonetheless thriving. Nonetheless discovering methods to point out up for one another in a world that may really feel more and more isolating.
And if the weekend proved something, it’s this: the inventive thoughts continues to be alive, nonetheless impressed, and nonetheless able to reimagine what’s attainable.
