Not Holding Back: An Interview with writer, Dinkinish O’Connor

Last fall, Dinkinish O’Connor wrote a post for The People’s History of Wine Blog Project, Silence, Shape-Shifting, & the Sips we Dare Not Taste. A thoughtful drinker, Dinkinish began writing about wine two decades ago, bringing not just her palate but experiences as a Black woman and the daughter of Jamaican immigrants to her evocative prose. She has a refreshing, distinct voice that more consumers and wine industry professionals need to hear.  The post she wrote for us, the first in the People’s History of Wine Blog Project, was powerful and honest. We talked a few months ago, and she elaborated on some of her experiences and her take on Mo'Nique, the actor and comedian who stood up to Netflix when they gave her a lowball offer for a comedy special. The interview was condensed for brevity and clarity. You can follow Dinkinish on Instagram at @d_storytellah, subscribe to her newsletter/literary journal Sipping Lovely, or support her work through a Venmo donation @Dinkinish42.

DO: I'll tell you where my head is at the moment. I took a real risk with my recent post for my newsletter/literary journal, Sipping Lovely. You know, I'm cursing quite a bit. I got my tongue out, crooked teeth showing. My best friend was like, “Yo,” but I was like, “This is my shit.”  I wanna tell the stories that I wanna tell, and this is a story that I really wanted to tell. I found out about Mo'Nique's situation while I was in grad school. Do you know a little bit about it?

PSB: I know a little bit, but reading your piece enlightened me. I didn't know all the details, but she was so amazing in Precious, and I don't understand why the film was not talked about more and not a bigger part of the canon, and then we hardly hear about her now.

DO: Yeah. So that was deliberate. So, Precious was done on a very tight budget. I think it was $50,000. And Lee Daniels was a friend of hers, so, she did this favor for him and had satisfied the terms of her contract as it related to publicity, but they really wanted her to go to Cannes. And she said no, cause at the time, she had her talk show, she had other projects, she had her family. She was like, “You know, I really wanna take this time for my family; I pass.” And it just sort of evolved into this thing about her being difficult and exactly what happened, happened; like you never saw her again. And also, she was pushing back.

So here she is, an Oscar-winning actress, she thinks what we all think when we see the adjective, ‘Oscar winning’ proceeding anybody's name; you’re about to make this money. And that just wasn't the case. They weren't honoring her financially. They were sending her scripts that didn't really reflect this achievement. And so, she just kept pushing back, and she insulted Oprah cause there was a situation with Oprah interviewing her family, you know, and the family dynamics are really intense. Her eldest brother molested her. She had been estranged from her mom. So, she was calling Oprah all kinds of motherfucker.

PSB: To Oprah?

DO: No, during her comedy special at the Apollo, mm-hmm. She called Tyler Perry a motherfucker, she called Oprah a motherfucker. Like she was really going in, and I understood that (I'm not saying that calling Tyler Perry and Oprah motherfuckers was right. I'm just saying I understand the pain and frustration from which that rage came). I understood this idea of using your language, using your words in times of crisis; she said something so powerful. She said the finish line keeps changing. And that resonated with me so much because I had been contributing to the Miami Herald for years, writing cover stories for them, contributing to different sections, and I was a columnist for them, and I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for them to put a ring on it. And they just wouldn't do that. And I was being polite, and I was being restrained, and I had meetings with editors, and people kept complimenting me.

I can't put into words what that feels like. You know, you're in a situation, you're working hard, you know you're doing the work. It's been 10 years, and you just get to that point where you don't wanna use your words anymore. You just wanna call a spade a spade. You know what I mean? And so all of that resonated with me that she was going through. I had an editor from a well-respected, Miami publication that produced their own version of Food & Wine. And the editor was really nice and inviting me to have dinner with her at very expensive restaurants. And we hadn't been able to make our schedules work, and then finally, at the end of the year, she had a gathering for all of the contributors to the publication. And she looks at me, and she says, “Oh, I didn't know you were,” she didn't say the word Black, but she almost did. And when she found out that I was Black, she started treating me totally different.

PSB: How?

DO: Well, I certainly wasn't being invited to any of these five-star restaurants for lunch anymore. She was far more heavy-handed with her edits with my work. She didn't really allow me to participate in the edit. She would just edit in the way that she saw fit; it just got rude.

PSB: Is she still at that publication?

DO: I'm not sure, but I did talk to another more senior editor about it. And she didn't even flinch. She said, “Yes, she's problematic in that way.”  I'll write about her in my memoir, though.

PSB: If somebody's problematic in that that they're treating their writers differently based on race or gender or any other identity difference, that should be like, "There's, there's no room for you."

DO: Yeah, I agree with you.

PSB: People make excuses for bad behavior. You’ll see people say somebody's such a brilliant writer, so we'll just tolerate it. There are certain authors I wouldn't read because I know too much about their bigotry. Going back to Mo'Nique, that should have been a breakout role for her. And instead, she just got blacklisted for being ‘difficult.’

DO: She was pushing back. And it's such a thing, like we - when I say we - I mean Black women. Like, it's so complicated navigating these streets where your career is based on a referral or where…it's not just talent, it's not just what you do. There are all these other invisible factors that you have to navigate. And so, what she was doing was unprecedented, you know what I mean?

Like Angela Bassett, I don't see her doing that. The Hollywood Reporter does something I love called the “Round Table," where they gather a bunch of actors and actresses and producers and just talk about the art. And she (Angela Bassett) was the only Black woman at this table, and she was so, no, that's not true. Thandie Newton was at the table as well, but she was so restrained in her responses she was almost silent at that table. And I kept thinking, you know, here she is, this established actor, and I knew why she was doing that. She didn't wanna say the wrong shit. She didn't feel as comfortable as Maggie Gyllenhaal was, you know?

Anyway, so my point of referencing this was with this specific post; I really wanted to be myself and not hold back. And I knew it, I knew I was taking a chance, like I think I have like five likes on Instagram for it right now. I kept deleting it, putting it back, deleting it, putting it back, and somebody dmd me, “Stop doing that.” I just kind of had to have that conversation with myself. Not everybody's going to get it. And that's okay. That doesn't mean that you delete it, or you don't celebrate it, or you don't push it. I think it's important to have this conversation. So that's what's been on my mind today. The fact that it's like, “Oh my God, why are people not feeling it?” And I just had to say to myself, “You gotta get over it.”  And you really don't know what's happening on the other side of the screen. You don't know.

PSB: Yeah, that's true. I think the experience that Mo'Nique had you can compare with the wine industry in respect to where people go through similar things; they don't wanna play the games, go to the tastings, or do whatever it is and suffer for it.

DO: 100% 

PSB: It’s a form of gatekeeping. There’s a lot of alcohol involved, and you have to be able to keep up and drink all day, all night long. And the truth is like, at this point in my life, I definitely can't do that, but at any point, or even if you're a young male, but you don't wanna do that, there's still this pressure. And if you don't, then you don't get included. It's not just social; it has a business impact cause, as we all know, people tend to do business with their friends in this industry, or people who are like them, the people who look like them, the people who act like them.

DO: True.

PSB: There are some things you wrote about that really stick with me, too. When you mentioned that you did a piece for a well-known publication about a wine bar in Brooklyn before there were many wine bars and that it was the beginning of shapeshifting for you. Can you explain that a little bit more, and what was it about the experience of writing that piece that triggered that in you?

DO: So, I'm sure you can tell by now I live in a very spiritual realm as a writer. So, there's these references to the mystical and what's beyond. And so, by shapeshifting, what I mean by that is the situation with this magazine was interesting. I had applied for a job as an assistant editor, and a senior editor interviewed me. This was a long time ago; I was in my twenties. I didn't think I was going to get it, but he interviewed me. I didn't get the position, but he very much wanted me to get a chance to write for the publication. He felt my passion. And I think he liked me as a person, but it was a very white, cisgender, you know, situation. And I had to do what I think a lot of people who identify as other, meaning not white male, cisgender, have to do when they're in these white patriarchal spaces. They have to - my friend uses a great word – “contort” themselves and change themselves so they can fit in. And as a Black woman, it's more challenging because it's so easy for us to be categorized as aggressive. And so, what I meant by that is like a kind of contortion of my natural self. When I use the word shapeshifting, it gives me an image of myself that's not real. 

A woman did this amazing painting of me; I'll send you a picture of it next to a tiger climbing in the trees. She only paints animals, and she invited me to her show. And I was the only human being that she had painted in her collection. And she painted me with this tiger. It would be a decade later that I would really understand what that means. So instead of being a tiger, I had become sort of like a meerkat, I guess, because I just didn't wanna offend anyone, I didn't wanna be too Black, I didn't wanna be too urban. I didn't wanna be all of the things that make me who I am. Cause I wanted so much to write for them. Like, I really wanted this. Does that all make sense?

PSB: Yeah.

DO: So that was the beginning of that. After that piece, the relationship started to change because I was pitching more critical culture, culture pieces to them that they weren't receptive to.

PSB: Do you remember what any of those were? 

DO: Like The Chronic, Richard Bets, the sommelier, had partnered with this art buyer here in Miami and created a wine called The Chronic, and it was specifically based on Dr. Dre's album called The Chronic. And I wanted to write about that. They ended up writing about it, but it wasn't received by me. I wanted to talk about African-Americans - I used to use that term - I fucking hate that term, but that was the term that everybody was using. African-Americans and their participation in the wine industry. Like how much wine sales are, how much Black people purchase wines, but how that's so under-researched and under-documented. I remember that was a piece that I wanted to do that they didn't wanna do. And I guess I was also doing things like, I was predicting that hip-hop would be more of a force and more of an influence in the wine industry. Like, this was way before Snoop Doggy Dogg and Mary J Blige and all these people started participating, and they weren't receptive to that either.

By Yoko Sugiura

PSB: How long ago was this?

DO: I think the first piece I wrote for them ran in 2005. They used to have, I don't know if they still have it cause I don't read that publication anymore, but there was something called Wine Talk where they interviewed celebrities. So, they allowed me to contribute to that section. I'd written a piece on Kenny G, Cassandra Wilson, Anthony Hamilton. Those are the three pieces that I did for them. 

But I'm being recorded, so I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. I had developed kind of a relationship with one of their editors, who was a woman. And she'd come down to Miami because she was working on a piece for another publication about Chinese - Jamaican  food. She wanted to know if I could take her to a couple of places. So, I picked her up from the hotel on the beach, and I drove her to a couple of places. And during that car ride, she was basically telling me, they're not fucking with you 'cause you're Black. She didn't use that language. She said that the senior editor was really interested in working with me but that there was a lot of pushback by the other editors. And even with him, like I had pitched him a story, I think this was in 2014 cause my mother was sick. I was taking care of my mother. And I remember I just needed something to distract myself from the agony of knowing that I was gonna lose her. And I pitched a story about ethnic diversity among the sommeliers; I started to notice that there were more Black somms. I knew a somm that was half Vietnamese, half white, a Haitian-American. And he didn't wanna do it. I can't remember the email that he sent me, but I remember being frustrated by it and pushing back. And then I never heard from him again.

Can I explain something, though, cause I think it's important to say this? I think I was young and very ambitious, and I saw this as the Gucci of wine publications. You know, I didn't have the information that I have now. Like now, I don't give a fuck about publications who don't give a fuck about me.

PSB: I know you had experiences with other publications like Food and Wine Magazine, where you wanted to write a story about Haitian food, and it was poo-pooed by the editor at the time.

DO: No, let me explain that. So, do you know what mediabistro is?

PSB: I don't.

DO: So, at the time, it was this classified for freelancers in the creative world. And they literally had just started. And my mentor in New York - I was living in New York at the time - sent me this post about the fact that the senior editor was doing a food writing boot camp. She's like, “You gotta do this.” And I remember this vividly because I didn't have the $500 upfront for the course, but mediabistro allowed me to pay it each week, a hundred dollars a week. And I was so grateful. I had such a great time. So, it was the Food and Wine editor at the time, and I had such a great time in her class. There was a chef in the class; I can't remember everybody, but it was just an interesting mix. I was the only Black person.

I worshiped these editors like Dana Bowen, like some people worship Bono from U2 or Jay-Z. Like, I worshiped these editors and wanted so much to be down. And she had given us an assignment. And the assignment I did was about Haitian food. And she was like, “Nobody wants to read about Haitian food.” She was very dismissive, and I was so hurt because it was like, “Well, we talk about Vietnamese food.” At first, I was like, "Is it because they're supposedly a third-world country? Like there's all talk about Vietnamese food, I didn't allow myself to receive that this was because they were Black. And, you know, Haiti had been largely associated with being AIDS-ridden and sort of the celebrities of poverty. And that's not the Haiti that I had grown up with in Miami. You know, Haitians were incredible artists, and they held the largest entrepreneurial business among Black people in the city. Their food was to Miami's identity, the way New York takeout was to New York City's identity. You know what I mean? That wasn't the Haiti that I knew. And I thought it was important to not have a single narrative as it relates to any culture. Right? As much as people love Jamaica, there's violence in Jamaica. You know what I mean? Like, it's important to understand that cultures are complicated, the human experience is complicated. So, I was just really hurt. And anyway, I went on to write about Haitian food a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot after that. And then, you know, the piece for the New York Times happened.

PSB: You said that you idolized these people like they were rock stars. At that point, did you start to think to yourself like, maybe we shouldn't be putting these people on pedestals? There is sort of this thing in the wine industry where people become celebrities, whether it's sommeliers or writers, or winemakers. Often people get these top positions because of unearned privileges that have helped them along the way. They might have worked hard or have talent, but when I see another cisgender white male, and this is my bias, but also my experience, I wonder. I feel like there are a lot of false idols in this industry.

DO: 100%. I think, frankly, I just wanted to work so bad, and this is where Christianity, for me, I'll just speak for me, this is where it becomes dangerous. So, I was raised Catholic and Pentecostal; can you imagine? So, when you're raised to believe that when things aren't going your way, it's you, you're not working hard enough. It's always you.

PSB: But that's also something which is very built into American culture, the whole Protestant work ethic thing that if things aren't going your way, it's because you haven't worked hard enough.

DO: You haven't worked hard enough. Right. And me being a first generation American, you know, I came outta my mother, and she was like, go to school, Jesus Christ, work hard. You know what I mean? And it's pounded into your head every single day. I didn't even have the capacity to consider my own worth. I assumed that I just wasn't doing enough. And I am just now deprogramming myself from that mentality in the last five years. And there's still vestiges of that mentality inside of me. I know it. But definitely, in the last year, I've gotten much better about honoring my value. Right. But yeah, it's something that you're taught. And so instead of looking at some of these magazines as a racist publication that are anti-Black, you know, and giving space to meaningful, soulful wine stories, instead of looking for that, looking at that for what it was, I kept almost like begging to be a part of it. You know? And I give myself grace now because now I understand. It's just the way that I've been enculturated, you know, in my home, in my upbringing, and in, in the United States, that you need to work harder, you need to do more. Black women occupy the most PhDs, but we're also the sickest. This is a conversation that I have within my community a lot; we need to reimagine and revisit this word progress. And that sickness comes from working too much, being stressed out all the time, feeling like you have to prove yourself. That is exhausting and taxing to the body, you know? So, I don't mean to get off topic, but this is something that is really troubling for me because I think so many of us are still drinking that juice that you need to do more.

PSB: And don't make any waves. You know, that's the other thing too, I think, especially if you are perceived as female, if you're Black, if you are Black and female, or if you show any sign of dissent, you're difficult. Going back to what you said about Mo'Nique, has anyone else written about that?

DO: Yeah, I'm sure other people have written about it. I mean, I don't know, but this has been going on for years. This drama started, I think, I wanna say 2015. So, her getting this Netflix special is really huge. And them settling, you know, I really wanna know how much she got. You know, it's huge. Because even within the Black community, I remember her being on the Steve Harvey show, people kind of telling her like, “Calm down,” because they love her as an artist. This is coming from a place of love. Of course, they love her as an artist, and they want her to work. But she knew there was a bigger conversation to be had. And that's why I wanted to honor her because there was a bigger conversation to be had, you know, her dignity; there is such a thing called financial dignity. She took a stand, a very important stand. And it took many years for her to see the rewards of that. But I'm so glad that she rode this out.

You were talking about when you don't want to drink a lot of wine and how you don't get invited to stuff because that's not your thing. I recently turned down a press trip, and it was such a complicated ride for me. They invited me, and I just didn't want to go. I mean, I remember that was my immediate reaction, you know, back in the day, I'd be like, woo, you know, going to France. But I'm just in such a different head space as it relates to things like that. People don't realize it's work. You're getting up early; you're already jet lagged. You're eating and drinking all day. You're listening to people talk. Like, it's not something that I wanna do anymore. And I should have just declined. But there was that part of me that was like, well, you haven't gone to a press trip in a while. You know, you don't wanna be irrelevant. Like there was a real interior battle with myself. 

These were not low-intervention wine producers, and that's my focus now. That is my passion; that is my interest. Also, I really want to write about women winemakers, women of color, Indigenous people. I really had my mind on Roberto Henriquez before all that stuff happened with the fires; like that was someone that I really was interested in spending time with. I was having such a difficult time just declining, and I remember I talked this out with Alice (Feiring), and she was like, “You know, they control you on those trips.” So, all this shit started happening. Like my passport was scheduled to expire in December; the trip was in September. I didn't know that you couldn't travel on your passport if your passport was within six months of expiration. So, there was that drama; I needed to get my passport renewed. And it was such a headache. I was working at my job, still dealing with that drama.

And so, as we were nearing the trip, I got Covid, first time getting it. As soon as I felt this weirdness in my body, I knew it was cause I was under so much stress. I was being pushed out of my place because the new owners wanted to charge whatever it is that they wanted to charge, so there was that. There were so many things going on, so it made total sense that my body was now reacting. They made me take two Covid tests because I guess they had to not just get refunds on my ticket but all those hotels. So, I did that for them, took my sick ass onto the streets, and took these Covid tests. To my surprise, they invited me again in January.

So, I quit my job. I was in a different head space. I was drinking the freedom juice on the streets of Tulum. And, by now, I had the courage to say no. I know one of them, the PR people, was upset, but I didn't give a fuck. And I was proud of myself. And I sent them this email just saying, this is where I am. Because one of the issues was that I kept saying, well, “My focus is low intervention. Do you follow me on Instagram?” But I just think they wanted me on this trip. Like, they were so focused, and so every time I would talk to her about that, she'd be like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But I knew that these were not producers that I would be interested in spending time with. So, the reason why I'm sharing this story is that it was a real liberation moment for me. You know, to be able to say no and understand that it would piss somebody off but that I would be okay.

PSB: Good for you. I was listening to the piece you did for Alice, Bones, Bottles & Black Folk. You said, “In 2020, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, COVID-19, the screaming silence had been replaced with rage, and it was global. White folks were DMing me, "How can I help?" Yeah. Someone became pulled to be conscious. I was asked by a local wine socialite to attend an online conversation about wine and diversity in the glass.”  But here we are in 2023, and it seems to me as if a lot of that outrage, at least amongst white wine professionals, has died down.

DO: 100%. Yeah.

PSB: What do you make of that?

DO: I'm just used to it. I think you know, it, it was cool. I think the reason why she reached out to me was because it was cool. It was like, “Support your local Black person," you know? Oh, I know a Black girl, I'll support you.

PSB: You quote Julia Comey saying, "You want our swagger, but not our struggle."

DO: Right. Right. Right. I mean, yeah. I remember listening to her and being like, in tears, like it was a beautiful moment in time, but I knew it wasn't gonna last because, frankly, a lot of these people who were jumping on the bandwagon are Trump supporters and, in their heart of hearts, are not really interested in a more egalitarian society. So, it didn't surprise me that all of that faded. Of course, I wanted it to last longer, but no, it didn't surprise me.

PBS: Using your privilege doesn't just mean I'll make a call to see if I could help someone get a job. It's also, what are you willing to give up? As someone who's white when it comes to these things, I feel like it is my responsibility to point things out. And most people are defensive. It’s exhausting work.

DO: Imagine being on this side of things?

PSB: Yes, what’s exhausting for me is a fraction of what it is for you.

DO: I can tell you where I am personally with all of that. I drink wine with who I wanna drink wine with. Yeah. And those people aren't, you know, fancy, and have names; they're just people who I like. I will say that the socialite that I'm talking about, she had made several attempts to invite me to her home, but I just didn't feel comfortable, you know? I've been doing that shit for a long time and just refuse to continue to shapeshift because you just automatically, when you get into that space, you start, you know, you start growing, you know, wings and stuff and scales, and you know, the protective armor. I don't want to spend whatever time I have left on this earthly realm convincing anybody of anything as it relates to my worth. You know, you with me, you with me. You don't, you don't. I don't wanna lose years. I just don't wanna do that.

Truly, I mean, yeah. I was so hurt and broken. I feel really blessed that I have a community of people in my life who were there for me and encouraged me to get the fuck out and take a break. Because being in Mexico was transformational. Not really because of Mexico in and of itself, but because of the community that I discovered there of Black women who were going through similar shifts and changes and just wanted a break from contorting themselves and explaining themselves and overworking themselves and guest starring in their own lives That was wonderful; that was such a blessing to my spirit. But yeah, I'm in a different space in that it is what it is. You know, I'm gonna continue to create content that I think is important and necessary, and I hope that I won't be dead and gone before people are like, "damn, look at what she was writing.” You know what I mean? Like, as much as people talk about Zora Neale Hurston, I have a hard time talking about her because she died cleaning toilets.

That beautiful mind, right. That human who was doing this anthropological work in the deep south, the stuff that, you know, Alice Walker was able to revive and whatever, but she still died a pauper, you know? I'm just speaking from the heart, but yeah, that's, that's where I am.

I took my entire savings. Now that I'm back and DeSantis continues to legislate hate and all that, I'm just trying to figure it out. The goal is to pull an Alice Feiring and live off Sipping Lovely, you know, and to see it grow and have more content and take care of other writers. So, I decided that I'm just going to dedicate the year to exclusively writing. Like I'm doing little hustles on the side. But yeah, I'm taking a chance 'cause I said to myself, if not now, when.