NMH Magazine : Spring 2007

Damali Ayo Is Pretty Fly-Yo

During my sophomore year at NMH, I began volunteering at a battered women’s shelter in Greenfield, doing child care and meeting women of all walks of life. One afternoon I found two of the resident women—one black, one Latino—looking at printouts from a website called rent-a-negro.com, which allowed people to “rent” an African American for social or business occasions. You could pay for the experience of touching a black person’s hair for example, or rent one to vouch to coworkers that you weren’t a racist.

While the women were only mildly surprised at the existence of a racist site like this, I was shocked. When I got back to my dorm room, I found a link to creator damali ayo’s (lower case intentional) actual website (damaliayo.com) and learned the philosophy behind rent-a-negro.com: ayo had crafted it as a satirical art project examining the present-day commodification and tokenization of black people. I explored more of her work and was instantly drawn in. I got in touch with damali through her website, hoping she might come speak at NMH.
While I wasn’t able to bring damali to campus before graduating, I stayed in contact with her, sending an e-mail here, forwarding an article there, and asking about her work. In 2005, damali published her book, How to Rent a Negro, an extension of her e-concept. When she gave a reading in Amherst, I finally met her face to face. She hugged me warmly and signed my book: “Heather—so good to see you and meet you finally! you are so bright and shining—i know you will change the world.”

We stayed in touch by e-mail throughout my first year at Connecticut College. In the summer of 2006, to my amazement and honor, she asked me to intern as her assistant. I designed two Myspace pages and a Facebook group (titled “damali ayo is pretty fly-yo”), which I help her maintain. I’ve learned so much about race and anti-oppression issues through working for damali, and I’ve cultivated a friendship that I
cherish dearly.

When damali was chosen as keynote speaker for NMH’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day program in January, she invited me to join her. It was amazing to come back, this time as her assistant, to the school that taught me so much about multi­culturalism and outreach.

At lunch and dinner I overheard students and faculty continuing the conversation that damali sparked in her all-school talk, finding—in classic NMH style—the ideas they agreed with as well as those that challenged their beliefs. I cofacilitated a workshop in which students broke into two groups, white and of color, then came together to exchange ideas. Their insight and energy were profoundly moving, and they spoke openly about their experiences with racism and other forms of oppression, then brainstormed ways to make the NMH community truly antiracist.

I hope that damali’s visit was a catalyst for change at NMH. Digging deep into the weaknesses of a community—into personal and communal prejudices and misconceptions—can be tough. Once that junk is examined head on and sorted through, however, real social change can happen. I commend NMH for its commitment to doing this challenging work.

As damali’s assistant, I’m now working to bring her to more schools across the country. I feel lucky to have graduated from a place that hosts speakers like her. As long as NMH continues this positive effort, I’ll continue bragging about and supporting my alma mater.

Heather Day ’05 is a sophomore at Connecticut College. She’s majoring in American studies, with a minor in human development, and pursuing a self-designed project on hip-hop activism and domestic violence advocacy as part of a certificate program in public policy and community action.

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