Shonda Rhimes's 'Year of Yes' - Book review? Book club discussion...

This is probably the only book review you’ll come across without major spoilers. I’ll leave you with more questions than answers, I’m sorry about that. My mind is abuzz with information and I am compelled to categorise it depending at which point I am in my life. This review will tell you more about me and the current state of the world and where Year of Yes fits in. When I reread the book during another growth spurt, I’ll be inclined to revise this review. As of January 2019, here is an audit of my life in my own words after Year of Yes by Shonda.

The importance of diversity.

The absurdity of this topic is almost laughable. When ‘The Black Panther’ came out beginning of 2018 black people all around the world were thrilled to see a movie that starred a cast of black people as regal and it wasn’t a comedy. The closest black people are thought of as regal in day to day ends with the punchline “Nigerian prince who is trying to defraud you’. And this was a superhero movie none the less. Even Africans in the clasp of poverty and struggling to catch up technology were caught up in the excitement. That’s how powerful diversity representation in media is.

Most of what people know about something they have never experienced is greatly influenced by media. “Does life imitate art of does art imitate art?” The story of the hen and the egg. I’m ashamed to even say that when I started writing all my fictional writing featured white characters. Mostly because I figured that’s what everyone wants to see or read about. Books about Africans were bleak and television shows were oddly unrelatable, painting us as some primitive and unthinking herd. Another possible reason is that shows with white people is all I watched. Looking at it now, I get why the government at some point enforced a hundred percent local media broadcast.

It was only when Scandal was on television that I realized that diversity was important. People loved the show but kept wondering why there were so many gay scenes. Most of the questions weren’t particularly homophobic. No one changed the channel when they came on. But this made me realize that no one complained about the abundant of heterosexual displays of affection. I couldn’t help wondering if somewhere, someone was wondering if having so many black, asian or disabled people on a show was necessary. Was there someone who preferred knowing that women went to bed without make up but did not want to see that shit on the big screen?

First. Only. Different.

My decision to embark on a journey to read books by “First. Only. Different” individuals came soon after reading this book. There was a slight resistence when I made this decision public. I had read books by many authors, majority of them I’m realizing were probably F.O.Ds within their rights but had somehow feared facing the same subtle resistance I was currently facing. When you publish information to the world, you find yourself not wanting to offend as many people as you can, you usually do anyway. So while you take a different route or make decisions no one else has, you find that you have to lie about it. Like when someone asks about your skincare regiment and you find yourself mumbling about doing nothing special or summarizing it into ‘Korean skincare products’ because you know that mentioning “Korean Skincare Routine” puts you under fire for “doing too many steps”, “wasting time” or “wow, you must not have a life for you to diligently do that”. Either way it comes back to them undermining your personal efforts with how they couldn’t do something like that, as though somehow you answering a question they asked had turned into a network marketing ploy to suck them in.

I had posted my journey on Facebook maybe as a reason to keep myself publically accountable but I had disguised it as a chance for people to suggest other books for me to read. Suddenly I found myself being told I was limiting myself and we shouldn’t strive to be “First. Only. Different”. ‘Sometimes we should just define our own success’ How had my post taken that turn?!

People who were F.O.Ds were more relatable to me. I was, after all, black, female and from an african middle class family. Books by authors I wouldn’t describe as F.O.Ds were hard to relate to. I had read so many books by white males and every time I closed the book I felt like I was missing vital information in the middle. It was only with time that I came to realize that the information that they left out was “their privilege”. The stories always swung from “I was hopeless and depressed in whatever situation” and somehow they managed to swing from one job to another with a higher salary, or they met a like-minded person who (even though they worked out of their garage) still managed to produce a prototype and find investors. These people’s low point was almost always moving back to their parents who forced them to take their money or they slept on the floor of their tiny apartment. How do you afford rent on minimum wage? Minimum wage where I live is usually transport fare and a small grocery!

Like I said, I’m black, female and underprivileged. Even to this day, my traits are “fashionable” but not employable. Natural hair is in most work environments considered unprofessional. Unless you work in an artsy job, being me is not a hard pill to swallow, instead I’m a hard suppository to push up. F.O.Ds have known what it feels like to swim against the tide and they don’t mind still doing it because even though they have figuratively “made it” they recognize that they’re not the norm. They have worked five times as hard just to rub elbows with someone who got there by jumping over less hurdles.

F.ODs are not just defined by race, financial background or gender. F.O.Ds are the women who after years of education and scientific breakthroughs still have to deal with questions about when they’re getting married, are they planning on having children or why they date so much (or so little). F.O.Ds are people who despite breaking the glass ceiling many times over, look around the room and they can’t have a conversation with their peers without realizing that most of the room would vote against their personal decisions or inherited traits if they could do it anonymously.

Conclusion:

This is a motivational book as much as it is an eye opener. Everything I talked about comes back full circle. Maybe being an F.O.D wouldn’t be an issue if media displayed diversity as it is on television. Perhaps if television didn’t play so much on stereotypes, people wouldn’t ask me “how did you get here?” whatever more advanced place I go as though airplanes couldn’t possibly have made it to the black hole I crawled out of. I wish local television channels made of an effort to show other people, focusing on their ability to be who they are but still accomplishing, living or even succeeding in environments similar to the viewers.

Am I inspired to do a Year of Yes? Definitely not. Maybe another time. But that's only because I'm doing a year of me, a year of relearning myself and a year of redirection. Have you read "Year of Yes"? What did you get from it?