Baratunde gets stippled by the Wall Street Journal, and he likes it.
Several weeks ago I got an email from someone claiming to work for the Wall Street Journal who wanted to interview me. "Too soon!" I thought. I had not yet perfected my doomsday domination of all the world's capital nor fully implemented my plan for reverse colonialism (which imposes a hefty licensing fee when people like Miley Cyrus decide to twerk or whatever). But, "better too soon than never!" I thought.
So I spent about an hour on the phone with their reporter discussing the broad topic of "independence." We ended up talking a lot about the shame of dependence, and the section they printed reflected that part of our conversation. They interviewed six "luminaries" which means I'm a luminary! I need to start saying more luminarious things like "The key is not to open the door but to let the door open you!".
Anyhow, they interviewed Jonathan Adler, Nadya Tolokonnikova (Pussy Riot), Diane Von Furstenberg, Richard Ford, and Diana Nyad. We had very different things to say. I'll pull quote my own but you should read the entire page. It's quite thoughtful and dare I say illuminating.
Independence means nothing without the concept of dependence. Independent from what? In this country, we're fond of the idea of independence being founded in opposition to something. We've got all these legends and myths in America about rugged individualism. There's almost a sense of shame associated with dependence. But dependence is where society comes from, why families stick together, why churches work. Things are shifting, and some of the tools and language of emerging businesses are more about interdependence than independence, but the overall narrative of the country is still very much: We're on our own.
—Thurston is the author of the book How to Be Black and cofounder and CEO of the digital agency Cultivated Wit.
Sincerely,
#stippletunde