she smiled and asked, “Oh, a hamburger
place?” No, it was not. Or when a woman
found out I went to Sarah Lawrence and
said, “Oh, were you on a scholarship?”
No, I was not. There’s nothing wrong with
burger joints or scholarships, but there is
with race-based assumptions. Add a pleth-
ora of other exhaustions, and that’s part of
what it is like to be black in America.
There is a mantra that many African-
American parents repeat to their children:
be twice as good. Meaning black folks
must work twice as hard to get just half as
far as our white counterparts in the same
job. But I never remember “the speech” or
such a burden placed on my shoulders. I
was taught to do my very best, always, in
part because we understood people were
watching. I wasn’t naive and knew when
I walked into a room, I walked in as an
African-American woman, with people’s
varying perceptions of what that means.
For some, I clearly got bonus points for my
capacity to string a sentence together; oth-
ers certainly underestimated me.
My desire to become a writer began
in fifth grade, where I tore through my
creative-writing assignments. Pen in hand,
I was constantly, and lovingly, working on
something. My parents were initially dis-
couraged from pursing their first passions.
My dad’s parents didn’t think sportscast-
ing was a sensible or lucrative career choice
for a young black man, and my mother’s
dream of dancing with Katherine Dun-
ham was deemed not only highly imprac-
tical but also morally questionable. I be-
lieve my Southern grandmother’s words
were, “There will be no hoochie coochie
dancers in this family!” Mom became a
teacher, a career she ultimately loved...
but it did not include dancing her way
across Europe.
I think my parents didn’t want me to
suffer a dream deferred, so when I told
them that I was thinking of becoming a
writer, they encouraged me. If they hoped
for a doctor or lawyer, they never let on!
My path to writing wasn’t a straight
shot. Out of college I wound up living in
Rome for many years. I did a little model-
ing, wound up as an extra in a Fellini movie
(Ginger and Fred) and dabbled in film pro-
duction before returning to writing, as a
stringer for International Variety.
Back in the States, I spent a few years
at an Italian publishing house and re-
porting for an Italian radio station before
moving up the ranks at various women’s
magazines. While I was never asked to
write about pancakes being a “Negro way
of life,” I did occasionally sense I had to
prove myself in ways some of my white
colleagues did not. I felt many of them
were allowed occasional moments of me-
diocrity; those slid off them as if they
were made of Teflon. But I got the feel-
ing my less-than-stellar moments stuck;
there was a smaller margin for error. I also
found myself having to be that voice in
the room, trying to make sure there was
diversity and inclusion on the pages. If you
hired me, you weren’t going to get silent
representation. My parents taught me to
“be that voice,” and that is what I’ve done
and continue to do now that I’ve left print
to work as a curator in the radio and pod-
cast world. Unfortunately, we can’t all be
in the room, but like my father, I’m here,
and I’m not quiet.
My favorite piece of advice from my
dad remains, “Suzanne, never take any
bulls--t.” He drilled it into my head, and I
like to think it worked. It’s a tradition that
I’ve tried to pass on to my son and daugh-
ter, and I love it when I see results. I see
their grandfather’s spirit in them. Because
of his words, I’ve mustered up the courage
to ask for promotions or raises, I’ve spo-
ken up and felt confident to disagree with
my bosses, and I’ve walked away from
jobs when I wasn’t respected, like when
the producer who thought undermining
me and screaming at me would work in
his favor. My parents are no longer here. I
lost my beautiful mom when I was just 21,
and my father died in 2009, but the love
they gave me and the lessons they taught
me by living a proud, authentic life re-
main, and those are my personal markers
of a life well lived. •△
Art Rust Jr. was a
groundbreaking
broadcaster and
chronicler of the
African-American
experience in
sports.