Smarter in Seconds W Blaire Imani
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Shine Brighter Together Podcast- Smarter in Seconds W Blaire Imani Monique: [00:00:00] You're listening to the Shine Brighter Together Podcast. And I'm your host, Monique Melton. Here, we will explore the challenges, complexities, and sheer joy of building healthy relationships and doing the heart work to pursue. Black liberation, so we all can live freely and fully in our humanity, you can expect to hear solo episodes and heartfelt conversations with guests, from various backgrounds and various beliefs that are all committed to living a life aligned with our humanity. Also, before we get started with today's episode, I must remind you that today's information is shared for informational purposes only and does not substitute professional or medical advice. And we do not edit out adult language or code for cuss words or swear words, so please consider this. We also discussed topics that may not be suitable for young children, or you may hear things that are triggering. So, consider this as well. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, and I hope you enjoy. Welcome back for another episode of the Shine, Brighter Together Podcasts. And I cannot wait to get right into this one. I'm Monique Melton, published author international speaker, anti-racism educator, and your host of the Shine Brighter Together Podcast, and today we have very special guest with us. All of the guests are special, but I just have to say it. We have a very special guest with us on the podcast. And what I want to do first is share her bio with you, and then we're going to get right into this conversation. So today we have with us Blair Imani, Blair Imani is a critically acclaimed historian, out spoken advocate and activist and dynamic, public speaker, the author of two historical books, Modern Her Story, stories of Women and Nonbinary People Rewriting History, 2018 and Making Our Way Home, The Great Migration and the Black American Dream, 2020. She centers, women and girls’ global Black communities and the LGBTQ community. She is the cohost of America. Did what? An educational podcast and anti-racism initiative with Kate Roberts. Blair has appeared on Fox news and MSNBC presented at colleges and universities spoken at conferences around the world and delivered powerful talks for organizations and brands, including TEDx and Glaad that's GLAAD. I am super pumped to get into this conversation with Blair. So, let's get to it, [Theme Music} Y'all, I'm so excited. I say that every time, but I am, I love sitting down and having these conversations with so many brilliant, incredible human beings. And so today is no exception. I'm super excited. To be here with the incredible Blair Imani. Welcome to the show, Welcome Blair: [00:03:47] Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me. Monique: [00:03:50] Yes, I'm so happy. You're here. And I've already shared your formal bio with the folks, but can you tell us something about yourself that you wish more people knew about you. Blair: [00:04:06] Ooh. I think I've been shouting it from the rooftops, but I just got engaged. I'm very happy, so that's a new fact about me. I think, too, that I wish I could be a rapper and a comedian. When I lived in New York, I was trying to take rap lessons and I could not find any legitimate ones. So, I let that ship sail, but I spend a lot of my free time watching comedy shows, a lot of my friends are comedians and I just absolutely love all types of music. But I'm not musically or comedically inclined whatsoever. we just work with the gifts that God gave us. Monique: [00:04:41] You know what I feel like we should have a rap battle because I, in no rights to claim to be a rapper. We do it for fun, me and my daughter, actually, we have rap battles. We have rap battles in. They're hilarious, but I feel like we should have one at some point. Cause that would be, that would be fun, and I, I love comedy too, so we have that in common. that's so cool. I love it. So how have you been, you and I have this similar. Experience of all of a sudden, everyone was interested in what we had to say for about 2.5 seconds. What was that like? And, how are you? How are you now? Tell us a little bit about that. Blair: [00:05:24] Sure! It's been really interesting, like I've had dreams that I woke up and had a massive platform, and then it was a dream and this time, it happened. I went from like 50,000 followers to now, I'm like 250,000 and I always thought doing this influencing thing and teaching thing would be a pipe dream, something I would do on the side prior to, in May, at the end of May, I was looking at unemployment. And, I was going to have to do that hard thing where you put your dreams on hold and go back into the nine to five sectors. And I was getting ready to do that. I was writing grants to get right, to do that, and I like to say that a law is the best planner in the need and the interest started to emerge. And so that's, it's been interesting. It's been like a, mental gymnastics of figuring out why now, and, putting all that together, whether it's the pandemic, whether the quote unquote perfect martyr situation. But I'm just grateful to be in this moment and to be able to show up in a way that's helpful, but it has been exhausting. people not respecting boundaries, people, Questioning, things that they shouldn't even be asking about. People feeling entitled to my space, that's been difficult. but I do feel largely blessed. I think I'm a chronic, maybe a little bit of a toxic optimist where I try to find the silver lining and absolutely everything. But it's been largely a blessing to be able to share my gifts in a larger way, and also to be able to innovate on this platform and try to walk the walk of doing what folks I think consider influencing to be, and then making it my own and doing education through those means as well. Monique: [00:06:57] Yeah. And you definitely make it your own. You have a very distinct brand, when you're scrolling on Instagram, you don't always see the name first. You might see the image, or you might see the caption and especially this new message, you have this new style of showing up. What do you call it? Smarter in what is it 60 seconds? Blair: [00:07:16] Smarter in seconds. okay, I'm a corndog I was going to call it quarter, minute lessons because I make everything over complicated. Monique: [00:07:23] Oh no, I'm so glad you didn't do that. [Laughs] Blair: [00:07:25] Yeah, my friend Color Me, Courtney, Courtney Quinn, who has a master's in marketing and branding. I believe she's @colormecourtney. I highly recommend her to everybody; she is just like a breath of fresh air and she took me under her wing immediately as soon as I started to get this growth. And even prior to that, she has this #colormeclassrooms that helps folks like innovate. Using the different platforms that exist and make it their own and also monetize and everything. and so, I told her, I had this idea for reals because, we're at the same agency now thanks to her. And, she was like trying to give me some ideas about how I could use the platform, and so I was like, okay, I have this idea where I do these 60 second lessons, Or do these 15 second lessons? And I was coming out with all these terrible names and she was like, just smarter and seconds. So that's what it is now. And it's just 15 seconds of me breaking down an issue. It's funny to see the rejection of it, some folks are totally down. Other folks who are more like used to an academic setting. When I explain intersectionality in 15 seconds with citations to Kimberly Crenshaw, people were like, ah, you shouldn't explain that in 15 seconds. And I was like, if I can, why not? if we can make it simple. Why not. And so there's some stuff that works in some stuff that doesn't, so I'm still playing around with it, consulting with folks to make sure that I'm getting the education across, making sure that it's, heavily researched. But the one that has the most views are on, non-gendered ways to introduce guests and friends and family. And that has a 2 million, 481 views. And that is massive to me. It's me with all these different hats. Just say in different ways you can address, and folks are excited about it. I think folks want to do better, but it's just a matter of making that information tangible. And unfortunately, attention spans, especially as far as media goes, is getting shorter and shorter.