Author: SYDNEI GAYLE

I have only been in New York City for less than six months. I spent most of my life on Long Island which is very different from the city. One thing that sticks out to me here more than when I was on Long Island is the fashion, especially streetwear. The quote for this blog is, “Deviation from the nom will be punished unless exploitable.” When reading this quote, I immediately thought about streetwear and how much people have profited on things started by many different minority groups. Such as baggy clothes and brands that were mainly popular within communities with large amounts of black and brown people.

Although Long Island is known for having a large number of white people, i grew up in one of few minority towns. Whenever I went to school, I always saw the other kids in my school wearing expensive brands like Jordan, Uggs, Adidas, etc. I was always too scared to ask my mom to buy these brands mainly because of how much they cost.  Instead, she would try her best to get these brands for my brother and I whenever they were on sale. As I got older and began to work, I finally was able to buy these brands that were out of my mother’s price range, or so I thought. Now that I work, and have the money to buy these brands, resell culture has now become a thing. Shoes that once went for $90 can go for up to thousands of dollars. Company’s like StockX and GOAT profit of brands that people in black and brown communities were called ghetto for. They even have Stores all over New York City that specifically sell these brands for triple the price because they know that people that have money can afford to buy these items at ridiculous prices.

     Hey, my name is Sydnei I’m 18 and from Long Island, New York. I recently just moved to the city so the commute to school would not be two hours every time I have class. I’m a marketing major but I want to minor in Black studies. The piece of art I chose is one of my favorite albums. The album is “The Divine Feminine” by Mac miller. Most of the time when you see me doing anything, I’m listening to music, which is what I’m doing while I’m writing this blog. Music means so much to me, even though i can’t sing or even play an instrument, production and lyrics and how they just work together is just so cool to me. So if I do decide to stay on the marketing track, I would most likely do it in the music field. However, I chose this piece of art because not only is the album itself amazing, the qualities of the divine feminine mean a lot. Some of the qualities are things like intuitive, accepting, forgiving, etc. For the past few years I have been trying to gain some of these qualities to better myself in many ways and live more positively. To my luck having these specific qualities do make me feel like a better person, not only from others perspective, but from my own personal perspective. I recently even did something really cool. I got the album cover tattooed onto my ribs. The pain wasn’t horrible but the tattoo was very worth it!