Why I Left the DEI Space to Become a Storytelling Evangelist
Let’s get one thing straight, I never once set out to be a DEI specialist, trainer or educator. It has never been my goal to spend my days trying to figure out the best way to wipe the racism out of white people’s psyche. All I ever really wanted to be was a writer. (Although there was a short time when I really wanted to be Lisa Bonet’s roommate on A Different World.) But for some reason, as a Black woman writer, who writes from the only perspective she knows, that of a Black woman, I became a de-facto anti-racism expert and DEI educator.
The Anti-Racism Role Was Given to Me Early
Believe it or not, my first official job as a professional writer came in high school. I had my own column in a local African-American newspaper (shout out to The Milwaukee Times). My column was called, Thoughts from Tharps. And even though my column topics were as random as one would expect from a teenager, I was often opining on issues that dealt with race and racism, trying to make sense of them from Black teen’s perspective. I remember one column I wrote, I tried to explain how embarrassing and annoying it was when white people assumed that my baby brother was my son because we were living through the 80s when teen pregnancy was a national crisis. And Black girls were being collectively demonized as hyper-sexual, baby-making machines. So, I was primed early to use my pen to fight against the enemy of racism and white supremacy.
When You Write About Race (and you’re Black)You Become an Anti-Racism Expert
My first book was about Black hair politics. My second book was about being Black in Spain. My fourth book was about parenting and global colorism. So, admittedly, I did build up an expertise in race, racism and identity politics. And soon enough, rather than talking about my books, I was just talking about the subject matter in my books. I wasn’t mad about that. In fact, I felt really motivated to lead anti-racism workshops and give talks at schools, conferences, and in corporate boardrooms. I was doing my part to make the world a better place. I was breaking barriers and opening hearts and minds. Someone told me I was like a racism whisperer, because white people really listened to me and I seemed to understand their pain. And I took that as a compliment. I embraced my role as The Racism Whisperer. I even thought about putting it on a business card. I’m so glad I didn’t.
It Was the Best of Times and the Worst of Times. It was 2020.
In 2020, I was deeply dedicated to the DEI space. I wanted to save the world, by helping white people be less racist.
In 2016, when He Who Shall Not be Named became president, my work shifted into overdrive. I doubled down and race whispered like my life depended on it, because it did. And not just my life, but the life of every non-white person in the United States. And then the pandemic hit. Followed by the murder of George Floyd and the civil unrest that followed, a movement I dubbed, Black Lives Matter 2.0. I started racism whispering on Zoom screens across America and even across the ocean. Suddenly, everybody was ready for anti-racism training, and like a soldier who signed up for war, I made myself available for duty. But the funny thing was, I was doing all the teaching, training and educating I could, but I didn’t see any tangible results. I didn’t see any significant changes in the hearts and minds I was whispering to. The only person who was changing was me. I was getting more and more despondent, angry and stressed out by this un-winable war where my primary objective was to teach white people to stop being racist and dismantle white supremacy in our public and private institutions.
By the end of 2020, I realized, that no matter how much I whispered - or shouted or raged - this was not my battle to fight. White people are the ones who invented racism and the concept of white supremacy, so, I believe they are the only ones who can truly administer the antidote. That is why, when I moved to Spain in 2021, I made the very conscious decision to retire from the DEI game. (Let me just put a clarifying * here to say that my exiting from the DEI space does not diminish my respect for DEI experts and the work that they do. DEI professionals are heroes, and they deserve huge salaries and big offices because the work is so necessary and so hard! It’s just not my ministry.)
Storytelling Evangelist is My New Ministry
Even though I was very confident that moving to Spain meant I could shift the focus of my career from writing nonfiction books about race and racism, to writing novels about whatever I wanted to, I still struggled with defining my career focus for this second half of my life. I knew I wanted writing to be at the center of my work, but I wanted the work to be centered on joy and Black people and other writers and readers of color. And while I didn’t want to be a racism whisperer anymore, I still wanted to do my part to make the world a better place for my people. And so, I started thinking about what that would look like. What I came up with was this platform, Reed, Write, & Create.
I'm happier now as a Storytelling Evangelist in support of BIPoC stories and storytellers.
Reed, Write, & Create wasn’t conceived as a fully fleshed out idea with a logo, a podcast, and a tagline, but the idea of helping BIPoC writers get their stories published and into the world, was clear from the beginning. Why? Because as I look back on my own life, and then contemplate the world around me, I can clearly see the function of storytelling in the way society operates.
I overstand the power stories have to change hearts and minds, in both positive and negative ways.
Take a step back and consider how governments use propaganda - which is just a fancy word for storytelling - to galvanize their populations to fight unconscionable wars or adopt horrific social policies. I can see how the false narratives based on white supremacy have shaped global belief systems that oppress us all. Using logic then, I figure if we can share new narratives and tell new stories, we can in fact, disrupt and upend white supremacy. No race whispering required.
Allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is Lori L. Tharps and I am a Storytelling Evangelist.
Books Save Lives, So I’m Going to Be About the Books
In this new iteration of my life, I have chosen to uplift and serve BIPoC writers, rather than whisper until I have no voice. And I’d say, it is the best decision I ever made.
Today my life’s work involves a lot of reading, writing, and coaching BIPoC writers. I spend my money on books. I hang out in bookstores and libraries. Writing retreats are my new vacations. The books I’m writing now are steeped in romance, magic, and choosing joy. When I give talks and lead workshops, they’re about the power of storytelling, instead of the pain of white supremacy. Needless to say, I’m happier now and I can see the immediate results of my labor when the writers I work with get their books out into the world, and those books have glorious impact on the people who read them. (Not to brag, but look at the impact my client, Jonathan Conyers is having on young people across the United States by sharing his powerful memoir, I Wasn’t Supposed to Be Here.)
Books change lives, so I’m going to do my part to make sure they keep getting written, read, and launched into the world.