Everything You Need To Know About ElevateHER Shop
Every day, Black women elevate the world. We are trendsetters and visionaries; the shapeshifters that lead by virtue of presence alone. In a world that sells our identities for consumption, we remind everyone that joy is our birthright and the grace we carry will always be authentic. Our existence is not a social experiment but a crafted emblem of perfection. And for that, we deserve everything good this world has to offer.
With that, xoNecole created the ElevateHER Shop, a here-to-stay online marketplace. For Black women, by Black women. While there are multiple places to shop Black online, which we champion, #ElevateHER provides a way for consumers to directly support small Black Women-Owned businesses! Just in time for Juneteenth, we aim to celebrate not just our joy but our ancestors and kick summer off the right way.
We're launching our first curated iteration "Summertime Joy" to celebrate everything we are and everything we aspire to be. ElevateHER will continue to grow and have iterations reflecting other seasons and life events relevant to us all. We got the range. Everything from beauty (Summertime Fine) to home decor (Dope Abodes), personal development and entertainment (Booked & Boujie) to food and wellness (Guilt-Free Pleasures) to personal style (Here to Slay)—we've got it.
To complement our ElevateHER Shop launch, we're celebrating non-stop with a slew of immersive moments for our audience to share in the Joy. See below for interactive ways to share in the joy and uplift womenpreneurs of color:
Custom AR filter
Wondering what Black-owned product to shop next? No worries, our Instagram AR Filter has you covered! Our filter scrolls through dozens of fabulous products from the ElevateHER Shop randomly landing on a different product each time. So what are you waiting on? Try it out on the @xoNecole Instagram page here and don't forget to tag @xonecole and use #ElevateHER so we can repost you!
Joy Gifting
xoNecole welcomed 50 influential queens to the sunshine season with a special delivery that radiated Black Girl Joy. They were delivered a delicious array of Black-owned summertime joy with a candle on behalf of Collins House Global and the finest of wine made with love by the McBride Sisters. Not to mention stunning floral arrangements from Barbara's Flowers, The Petal Effect and Lemiga Events.
Instagram Guides
We curated 5 user-friendly Instagram Guides that each serve to represent products from every shopping category in the ElevateHER Shop: beauty, style, home, books and wellness. We shared some of our favorites amongst favorites that are worth investing the coins in this summer and beyond, for Black women by Black women.
Editorial Series: Black Woman Owned
This Marketplace was curated not only to shop and support these founders, but also to discover. We've been fortunate enough to get insight into the lives of Black women entrepreneurs who are featured in our shop. Explore the Black Woman-Owned editorial section on the shop homepage to learn more about the brains behind the businesses + brands. These stories are meant to inspire and be of motivation.
The journey of Black entrepreneurship is difficult for many but when we share information while being unafraid to share our stories, we are capable of accomplishing everything we set our minds to! ElevateHER soars by shining a light, a special one, for all of us.
ElevateHER 100
We created Instagrammable graphics for our 100 womenpreneurs who were featured in their audiences to celebrate this notable moment and encourage their followers to bask in the joy.
ElevateHER is for the current and future. To our Summertime Joys and beyond: we will always elevate.
Click here to experience the ElevateHER Shop.
Featured image designed by Kyra James
The Reality Of Living With Severe Asthma – As Told by 2 Women On Their Disease Journey
This post is in partnership with Amgen.
The seemingly simple task of taking a breath is something most of us don’t think twice about. But for people who live with severe asthma, breathing does not always come easily. Asthma, a chronic respiratory condition that inflames and narrows the airways in the lungs, affects millions of people worldwide – 5-10% of which live with severe asthma. Severe asthma is a chronic and lifelong condition that is unpredictable and can be difficult to manage. Though often invisible to the rest of the world, severe asthma is a not-so-silent companion for those who live with it, often interrupting schedules and impacting day-to-day life.
Among the many individuals who battle severe asthma, Black women face a unique set of challenges. It's not uncommon for us to go years without a proper diagnosis, and finding the right treatment often requires some trial and error. Thankfully, all hope is not lost for those who may be fighting to get their severe asthma under control. We spoke with Juanita Brown Ingram, Esq. and Jania Watson, two inspiring Black women who have been living with severe asthma and have found strength, resilience, and a sense of purpose in their journeys.
Juanita Brown Ingram, Esq.
Juanita Ingram has a resume that would make anyone’s jaw drop. On top of being recently crowned Mrs. Universe, she’s also an accomplished attorney, filmmaker, and philanthropist. From the outside, it seems there’s nothing this talented woman won’t try, and likely succeed at. In her everyday life, however, Juanita exercises a lot more caution. From a young age, Juanita has struggled with severe asthma. Her symptoms were always exacerbated by common illnesses like a cold or flu. “I've heard these stories of my breathing struggles, but I remember distinctly when I was younger not being able to breathe every time I got a virus,” says Ingram. “I remember missing a lot of school and crying a lot because asthma is painful. I [was taken] to see my doctor often if I got sick with anything so I was hypervigilant as a child, and I still am.”
Today, Juanita says her symptoms are best managed when she’s working closely with her care team, avoiding getting sick and staying ahead of any symptoms. Ingram said she’s been blessed with skilled doctors who are just as vigilant of her symptoms as she is. While competing in the Mrs. Universe competition, Juanita took extra care to stay clear of other competitors to ensure she didn’t catch a cold or virus that would trigger her severe asthma. “I would stand off to the side and sometimes that could be taken as ‘oh, she thinks she's better than everybody else.’ But if I get sick during a pageant, I'm done. I had to compete with that in mind because my sickness doesn't look like everybody else's sickness.”
Even when her symptoms are under control, living with severe asthma still presents challenges. Juanita relies on her strong support system to overcome the hurdles caused by a lack of understanding from the public, “I think that there's a lot of lack of awareness about how serious severe asthma is. I would [also] tell women to advocate and to trust their intuition and not to allow someone to dismiss what you're experiencing.”
Jania Watson
Jania, a content creator from Atlanta, Georgia, has been living with severe asthma for many years. Thanks to early testing by asthma specialists, Jania was diagnosed with severe asthma as a child after experiencing frequent flare-ups and challenges in her day-to-day life. “I specifically remember, I was starting school, and we were moving into a new house. One of the triggers for me and my younger sister at the time were certain types of carpets. We had just moved into this new house and within weeks of us being there, my parents literally had to pay for all new carpet in the house.”
As Jania grew older, she was suffering from fewer flare-ups and thought her asthma was well under control. However, a trip back to her doctor during high school revealed that her severe asthma was affecting her more than she realized. “That was the first time in a long time I had to do a breathing test,” she describes. “The doctor had me take a deep breath in and blow into a machine to test my breathing. They told me to blow as hard as I could. And I was doing it. I was giving everything I got. [My dad and the doctor] were looking at me like ‘girl, stop playing.’ And at that point [it confirmed] I still have severe asthma because I've given it all I got. It doesn't really go away, but I just learned how to help manage it better.”
Jania recognizes that people who aren’t living with asthma, may not understand the disease and mistake it for something less serious. Or there could be others who think their symptoms are minor, and not worth bringing up. So, for Jania, communicating with others about her diagnosis is key. “Having severe asthma [flare-ups] in some cases looks very similar to being out of shape,” she said. “But this is a chronic illness that I was born with. This is just something that I live with that I've been dealing with. And I think it's important for people to know because that determines the next steps. [They might ask] ‘Do you need a bottle of water, or do you need an inhaler? Do you need to take a break, or do we need to take you to the hospital?’ So, I think letting the people around you know what's going on, just in case anything were to happen plays a lot into it as well.”
Like Juanita, Jania’s journey has been marked by ups and downs, but she remains an unwavering advocate for asthma awareness and support within the Black community. She hopes that her story can be an inspiration to other women with asthma who may not yet have their symptoms under control. “There's still life to be lived outside of having severe asthma. It is always going to be there, but it's not meant to stop you from living your life. That’s why learning how to manage it and also having that support system around you, is so important.”
By sharing their journeys, Juanita and Jania hope to encourage others to embrace their conditions, obtain a proper management plan from a doctor or asthma specialist like a pulmonologist or allergist, and contribute to the improvement of asthma awareness and support, not only within the Black community, but for all individuals living with severe asthma.
Read more stories from others like Juanita and Jania on Amgen.com, or visit Uncontrolled Asthma In Black Women | BREAK THE CYCLE to find support and resources.
'The Color Purple' & The Timeless Impact Of Alice Walker's Masterpiece
As someone who was born in the late 80s, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1982) has been a staple in my life for as long as I’ve been alive. I even named my first dog Shug Avery. This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was the first of its kind, tackling the complex realities Black women in America face within their own homes and communities. The themes in the novel range from church hurt, sexuality, domestic violence, “Black codes,” and most importantly, it showed that Black women have the right to autonomy.
Since being published, Walker’s novel has been turned into a major motion film directed by Steven Spielberg in 1985, a Broadway musical between 2005 to 2008, and has now been reimagined again with a film remake premiering on Christmas Day. The impact of this book has penetrated every aspect of Black culture, and Walker’s words from the pages of this novel are still being used in films, music, and academic articles today.
Fantasia Barrino as Celie in the 2023 adaptation of 'The Color Purple.'
Through the character arcs of Celie, Shug Avery, and Sofia, we see how trauma, rejection, and abuse break these women’s spirits.
Yet, despite being dealt unbelievably difficult circumstances, they all find their way back to themselves and who they want to be. Whether it be through living with an abusive spouse like Celie, reconciling with a parent as Shug, or finding peace with who you are as Sofia, there are few Black women who couldn’t relate to at least one of these main characters or another woman in the novel.
Though this was a fiction novel, the stories shared within it are experiences many Black women faced in their communities during the early Jim Crow era in America. Many of the stories told about harm done to Black people during this time period center on white supremacists harming Black people.
However, Walker shed light on the abuse and mistreatment Black women not only received from white people but from Black men as well.
Oprah Winfrey as Sofia in the 1982 adaptation of 'The Color Purple.'
The moment Sofia’s character confronts Celie about encouraging Harpo to beat her, the words Walker wrote resonated with many Black women then and now. “All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men. But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house.”
Though Black women and girls are taught to take ownership of how our actions impact the Black men in our lives that same accountability isn’t always expected in reverse.
This reality was put on full display when the original film premiered in 1985. Despite the vast success the original film received, grossing more than $142 million worldwide and earning 11 Academy Award nominations, many filmmakers, writers, journalists, and academics felt the film was anti-black and racist in its depiction of Black men. The Los Angeles premiere was even protested by The Coalition Against Black Exploitation because of the abusive nature of the men in the film.
Though Walker had mixed reviews on the film herself, the overall backlash of the film is a tangible example of misogynoir and how the erasure of Black women’s lived experiences and contributions to the Black community were and are prevalent in the Black community.
Margaret Avery as Shug Avery in 'The Color Purple (1982).'
We see this in the way Black women are questioned when they bring up partner abuse, we see this when Black women bring up accusations of sexual misconduct against Black men they work with or for, and we even see this when Black women’s cases are mishandled by police and demand for justice isn’t as loudly heard. Black women have been expected to remain silent about the harm being inflicted on them within their own communities for decades.
Walker’s The Color Purple and the corresponding film gave a brief glimpse into the reality many of our ancestors faced in the early 1900s.
Phylicia Pearl Mpasi and Halle Bailey as young Celie and young Nellie in 'The Color Purple (2023).'
The truths shared in this novel are why the story has lasted the test of time and has been re-envisioned in so many ways. Black women want to feel seen and heard but don’t often find they have a space where they’re allowed to do so safely. They also want their stories of heartache and overall triumph to be shared and celebrated with the world.
The excitement of the remake starring; Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P. Henson, and Halle Bailey just to name a few; is proof that Walker’s story still resonates with the Black women and community and will forever be a part of the cultural fabric of who we are in this country.
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Featured image by Tenor