It’s Time to Create Brave Spaces for Black Women

By Joel Leon

The severe lack of safe spaces for Black women and femmes lead me to delete Clubhouse and question how we show up for each other.

I joined Clubhouse over the summer, at the behest of a good and dear Black woman friend of mine, Maryam Ajayi. At the time I had already heard rumblings about the app in hushed tones across varying in-crowds but was never really sure what it was or who it was for. I knew it was exclusive and that there was a strong buzz about the invite-only approach. I joined a few months after its initial launch in the Spring. The earlier days of Clubhouse, before I joined, mainly saw users from the tech and VC space. By the time I joined the app over the summer, rappers, artists, and influencers had joined the foray.

Clubhouse is like Twitter but with the volume all the way up—users can enter any conversation or “room” and join the audience while speakers and moderators who are on “stage” share speaking time around any and every topic. The rooms are named, so you know generally what you’re getting before you enter. Before even joining, users typically would be “onboarded”, meaning you’d be given the Clubhouse guidelines, along with a rundown of what to expect, and the rules and regulations. The person who referred you and onboarded you would create a “Welcome” room for you. 

When you first start on the app, the celebration emoji lives on your profile image to let everyone know you’re a newbie…

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