The Underdog: Meet Jessica

With this new year, unity has been at the forefront of our never-ending mission to help people see the world differently. "Diversity matters" was our mantra going live with our first site and with this new site we wanted to push 'Unity over Uniformity'. In other words: it's okay to be different. We must accept each other for our differences. The first way of doing that is taking the time to hear people's stories. This week we wanted to highlight two phenomenal women who identify as queer, nonbinary and so much more. Today, learn the story of Jessica, a black, queer-identifying multi-faceted businesswoman who speaks about juggling her corporate job and her side hustle, unexpectedly being the spokesperson on mental illness and what it means to be black maneuvering in these spaces.

Where are you from? What is your ethnic background?

I was born and raised in Macon, the red clay heart of Georgia. My upbringing was very black. Even my education was rooted in blackness. My parents sent my sister and I to a Christian private school for the first few years of our formal education, and we grew up surrounded by people who looked like us. That played a huge role in the molding of my character and identity. 

What words describe you?

Brilliant, passionate, vulnerable, resilient, goofy, charming, goal-oriented

Describe a regular day for you.

I start my morning as slowly and gently as I can. Before getting out of bed, I give myself time to collect my thoughts and harness both my mental and physical energy to get my day started. 

I have a lot of fun getting dressed, often with music playing. Getting dressed is a way for me to affirm myself every morning. It’s another way for me to honor whatever space I’m in, which is a significant part of my confidence. 

My commute is my sacred time. I spend most of the drive to work singing; it’s a form of meditation. I wrote a song to help me focus my mind and my energy for the day. It’s only a few lines, but it helps ground me mentally and spiritually. It is a meditative devotion of sorts that acknowledges my challenges and simultaneously reminds me of my strength and the power of having compassion for self. 

I get to work some time between 9am and 11am, usually chugging a Red Bull on my way to my desk. During the day, I work as a Senior Art Director on the Alexa Shopping team at Amazon. My workflow is a blend of design strategy, collaborative marketing partnerships, and conceptual pitch work. My day could entail anything from writing strategy docs for a cobranding integration programs, to brainstorming art direction for advertising campaigns with my team, to collaborating with our marketing partners to outline a tiered testing structures to understand our customers and improve our experience. My workflow and workload are always changing, and I love that. My team is really passionate, quirky, disruptive, and incredibly talented. I enjoy collaborating with them, and the ways we all respect, challenge, support each other. One of the best things about my job is having the opportunity to build with a genuinely collaborative team that is disrupting the norms of visual design in the tech space. It’s a lot of fun. 

After work, the “other” work starts. I wear a lot of hats, and it’s a balancing act I’m honestly still working to fine tune. So my evening routines vary quite a bit. Incense, music or Netflix for background noise, candles and a Himalayan salt lamp create a really chill ambiance and peaceful vibe in my space. It’s so relaxing. I’ve learned that giving myself time to transition between the responsibilities and demands of my day yields better productivity. Once I’ve given myself room to decompress, I delve into my passion projects—The Underdog Co, a lifestyle brand I started back in 2010, working on portraits for my upcoming exhibitions, writing, or getting ready for a speaking engagement. It varies quite a bit, but I don’t feel scattered or stretched. All of my “hats” are extensions and expressions of the same story; my story. And I do give myself days to just do nothing. Those are really important.

Have you faced any discrimination based on the color of your skin? Your sexual orientation? Battling mental illness? If so, how did you overcome it (if you have not overcome it, tell us about that)?

Discrimination is pretty inevitable for black folks, especially those of us from the South. That’s when I experienced it most often, and it’s shown up in the workplace frequently. I’m a black queer woman working in the design industry, in corporate America, and in the tech industry. It comes with the territory. I’m learning to disengage though. I actively work to nurture interactions and partnerships and collaborations and networking opportunities that are empowering, supportive, replenishing, inspiring and ultimately positive. Especially as a person living with depression and emotional trauma. I’ve learned and am still learning how to pick my battles. It’s important to advocate for and stand up for ourselves, but it’s even more important for me to know which battles are not worth my energy. I often ask myself, “Is this something I should internalize? Is it something that can be resolved? In the grand scheme of things, is this really worth my energy? What do I gain if I engage this?” That helps me discern when to fight and when to walk away. 

What are your passions? 

I’m really passionate about story-telling, primarily through photography, writing and journaling. Fashion. Portraiture. Art from the African diaspora. Connecting people and making genuine connections with people whose paths collide and merge with mine at some point. Learning. Entrepreneurship. Using my creative and business acumen to help dismantle barriers to entry for entrepreneurs of color and POC-owned small businesses. There are so many different things I want to do though, so many different creative outlets I want to experiment with.  

What do you wish people knew about you?

I wish people knew how hard I fight to exist authentically in my intersectionality, and how vulnerable my transparency is. Projecting my voice to bring light to mental illness in the black community, in an attempt to help break the stigma around it, has materialized into a platform of its own. But it’s still really vulnerable. My hands shake often as I’m speaking or posting on social media. As hard as I work to destigmatize mental illness, I still have to break the stigma for myself over and over again. So I think I wish people knew that I’m still a work in progress. That I didn’t have it all figured out. I’m still learning as I go. Healing as I go. Growing through life as best as I can. And I’m having fun with it. It’s like an infinite adventure, like being on a scavenger hunt with the universe. I’m learning so much about myself. The plot twists often. No two days are the same, and I love that.