My Return to (Hot) Pink From Black: It’s a Brand

The concept started with my roommates’ date on a random summer night.

“So? what do you think,” she asked.

“He’s kinda beige,” I said, confused with my own description.

I’m Black, my girlfriend is Korean and White and the guy was White so I knew the confusion on her face was equally justifiable.

“I mean, his personality is just kinda blah. Not up or down. Just there.”

I then proceeded to explain that she was hot pink. Full of personality, stunning, kind, smart, and thoughtful; she could charm a charmer. This beige dude would work, if that’s what she wanted but I explained, ‘Don’t expect a beige dude to act hot pink. There are too many shades in between.’

I thought about this for years after the conversation. I’m guessing because of my marketing background and as a visual artist that I see most adjectives in living color. Happy is yellow. Brown in content. Pink is joy. Hot pink is in a special category, no comparison. I’m not entirely shocked that I see people as beige or hot pink with a shade scale in between. But wait; what was I? Where did I land on the scale? Could I move up and down the scale depending on where I’m vibrating in life? I fell down the rabbit’s hole. Can hot pink and beige co-exist? Can two hot pinks make it without trying to outshine the other? Can two beige people avoid living out their days in the suburbs? Then I thought about couples like Michelle and Baraka. Diana and Charles. Luke and Laura. Beyonce and Jay. Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog. The more I thought about it, the more complex it became. There’s always an exception but was it a typical outlier as in most studies or an indication that I may or may not have had a cocktail before I manufactured this thought consuming me? It was so much deeper than I knew.

Why Hot Pink? Why Beige?

I became a feminist in college. I loved everything about the movement, except for the unspoken rules I lobbied onto myself in the form of limitations. Ironic, yes? I was a soldier now, fighting for the rights of women everywhere. Soldiers don’t wear bright ass colors. And having dimples with a sunny disposition brought its own misconceptions, I thought. On top of all this, I had the ‘girlie’ sundresses, the ivory bedroom, and the porcelain doll collection as a child so by the time I reached college, I was done with pink. All shades. This thinking led to most of my young adult years living in black. Black everythang. It was a statement. A rebellion. A middle finger to everyone who put me in a suburban-girl-with-dimples box.

I willingly carried this resistance for years until I broke under the pressure of the pandemic. What emerged was something of a phoenix. I didn’t want to lean into any movement or worry about avoiding perceptions and disproving stereotypes. It was exhausting to rebel, to fight, to push the limits and I was short on energy. My days of black on black on black faded like a news headline and I was ready to be me, unapologetically. I began living the name Dawn.

There’s something about a hot, almost neon pink that screams strength. Freedom. Nonconformity. As I aligned my life with my purpose, proudly serving God out loud and leaning into my traumas to support others, there was only one color with enough weight and natural charm to maintain my new brand and it certainly wasn’t beige.