Ahhh, to Be Excluded

A reflection on being overlooked, staying grounded, and continuing anyway

Read the Room by Danielle Mckinney

Le sigh, I find myself in a bit of a conundrum, so I’m like, OK, let’s write about it. I’m from DC, and baby, DC is so special. The city is culturally explosive and there’s no other place like it, from the historic monuments and museums to the go-go music, to mambo sauce, the accent and colloquialisms to the Nike boots and Foamposites. When you’re from DC, really from DC, not the M or the V, you are in my mind the upper echelon of cool muhf***ers. No other city is like it. It’s small and pretty much there’s someone who knows someone who knows you.

I’ve ventured out of the city quite a few times during different chapters in my life, but I always find myself returning and re-centering amidst life’s chaos back in my room in my childhood home in DC. Most recently, I’ve been navigating the Broadway space. New York City, in general, has a lot of theater opportunities that can really catapult the career of a theater artist like me, and so being able to navigate that space and that community has really enriched me as a generative artist.

Recently, I received several messages from friends and colleagues asking me why I had been excluded from a panel discussion happening in DC featuring DC natives who have found their footing in the Broadway landscape.

You know when your a person who typically stays in your bubble and it gets interrupted by screenshots? Screenshots can be the devil. Since I had not seen the event flyer, being excluded is probably something I really wouldn’t have cared about. I kind of wish people would not have sent it to me. Now I’m a little bit flustered because I have truly been busting my ass to navigate the Broadway landscape and to be excluded does feel hurtful. One of my friends even said, “Cyn, stop hiding in the shadows and letting others be the face, you have done so much…” and I had to let that sink in.

Again, I’m faced with having to make a choice about who I am as an introverted artist versus what is required to be seen and heard by others. The entertainment industry is full of marketing strategies and PR stunts for recognition, and that’s just not who I am. It’s a tough place to be in. Seeing the screenshot was a little hurtful, but my friends’ and colleagues’ reactions to it stung more. Being excluded is not the last word, and it doesn’t hold weight to what I have done, what I am doing, and what I will do in the entertainment industry across mediums.

Being overlooked and excluded is a human indignity that I have experienced before. Be not dismayed. I am a warrior, in spite of. Always have been, really.

So this is kind of a pick-me-up post for when a piece of your internal algorithm has been disrupted, because I have never been more happier than I am in this moment time. Granted, the hustle is hustling, but I am so proud of myself and the things that I’m doing as an independent artist, having endured so much that the average person would have quit a long time ago.

I don’t know if you watch Married to Medicine, but Dr. Mimi and her husband have an autistic child, and in one of the recent episodes she was talking about her child with the group. They were discussing what they need from their significant others, and she said that because of how hard it is raising an autistic child, what she needs from her husband is just a word, a simple “you’re a good mom.” And she cried. I thought about her in this moment because I know my friends and a few colleagueslove me, and I know they support me, especially during the last couple of years when things got really, really tricky. Sometimes all I need is a good word and a reminder that I’m doing a good job. The screenshots, the post shares, the “why not” inquires don’t compare to the, “Cyn I see you and you are doing a good job.” I just out here praying and persevering so that my internal algorithm stays leveled, quaint, happy, joyful, peaceful, and productive. Nothing more, nothing less.

Things do bother me, I won’t pretend like they don’t. That’s why I write. But I work hard every day to stay unbothered, to turn off the noise, unfollow, unfriend, and uninvolve myself from people or situations that do not align with me living as the best version of myself. My secret remedy for hurt feelings due to exclusion was a gift from Zora Neale Hurston herself, and one of my favorite quotes:

“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.”