BLACK

What does being Black mean to you?
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“I mean… I love that s**t. To me, I’m not religious, but the best way to put it is that I’m blessed. Granted, all the fu**ed up things that happen to Black people: the inequality, the injustice, it’s all extremely fu**ed up. The world without Black people would be very boring. We run s**t. And I think that’s the tough pill for a lot of white people to swallow. I remember when I used to work security, there was this white girl who kept making these jokes. I said, “everybody wanna be n***a until they gotta be a n***a”. You sit here and make all these jokes. You love Black culture, but yet you all appropriate the f**k out of our culture. She responded, ‘what is Black culture?’ And I mean, what isn’t?? She asked, ‘well then what is white culture?’ I told her, ‘well, when you find out, let me know.’ I was serious. If you think about it, even way back when… it was Native American culture. I guess they’re European so they got wigs, maybe? There are so many other cultures that have become valuable or profitable. Because a lot of white people feel so entitled, they think it’s theirs.”
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~Da'Vi McKay
Father. Entrepreneur. Creator.
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“Well, in 8th grade, I dated a white girl whose father was a racist. That was interesting. She was not. I’ve also been told, ‘you talk really well to be Black’. I was the Black white kid in school. I wasn’t hood enough, because I talked a certain way and dressed a certain way. I’ve been in stores where I’ve been followed. I’ve been in elevators where white women have clutched their purses. Like if someone opens a door for me, and I say ‘thank you’ their face will light up like they weren’t expecting that type s**t from me. It comes in all forms and happens so often that sadly I feel like a lot of Black people, we kind of get used to it so we don’t really pay attention to it as much. It’s weird. Although, I do enjoy having interactions with people that you can tell they probably thought one thing and then you start talking to them and they’re like ‘oh s**t, he’s not who I thought he was.’”
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“It would be nice if white folks would stop saying all lives matter and just understand everything that’s going on in terms of the injustice and how just as much as everybody thinks that everything is equal, it’s not. I’ve been saying for years now that it’s a Black and Brown matter, not just a Black matter. I understand the Black Lives Matter movement, because we are dying at a crazy rate. I remember looking at a statistic only a month after George Floyd was killed and there were already over 100 police brutality cases involving the killing of a Black person. It’s one of those things where once people can understand and see and it not be a thing of ‘well, what about me?’ that will help. I also think that the younger generation is going to shake some s**t up. I think more than ever they are the ones that are getting away from the social norms and traditions. They are shaping things into what they want it to be. I feel like, because of that, in five years, we will start seeing more of a shift. As much s**t that I give some of the kids these days, I commend them-- whether it be their sexuality, relationship status type things. They move how they want to move. I can’t knock them for that.”
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~Da'Vi McKay
Father. Entrepreneur. Creator.
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“I felt like I was ahead of my time, I guess, because I didn’t subscribe to the typical high school bulls**t. I was cool with everybody. I wasn’t a jock, but I was athletic. I was smart, but I wasn’t in the AP classes, I was in a couple plays. Like I knew everybody: the drama kids, the jocks, the popular kids, everything, but I never considered myself one of the popular kids. But also because I dated big girls, I would catch backlash for that. That s**t never phased me. My mindset was that I needed to get good grades and be done with this s**t. But at the same time, I was working and making sure I had money. High school wasn’t everything to me. It was four years of my life I gotta go through and just get done.”
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“My grandma and I were always close. Even when I was younger, I would go over to her house on the weekends or when she got off of work. That was just like home for me. I learned the whole family dynamic from my grandma. Because when you think of Black grandmas, you think of the movie, Soul Food. She was that rock that held everybody together. Holidays were done at her house. She would cook all the good-ass food. She taught me, without teaching me, to take care of your people. She raised me and she helped take care of my cousins a little bit. She always put herself on the back-burner. That’s why I think today I am the way I am. One of my little brothers lived with me for a little bit and one of my other little brothers lived with me a little bit too. I have an open-door policy as long as you are actin’ right, you can crash with me.”
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~Da'Vi McKay
Father. Entrepreneur. Creator.
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