To be honest, I didn’t realize there was another way to pronounce my name…until I met white people. Hear me out.

Name tags are an interesting thing. They give you the ability to write your name down in order to introduce yourself to the world. They also give you a break from constantly repeating your name at an event, and they even give people who have met you before an opportunity to glance at your name in case they forgot. Name tags, one could say, are a brilliant idea… Unless, you have a name that you don’t pronounce like it’s “spelled” like me apparently.

So, we use name tags a lot in the science world, and as you can imagine as a scientist, the community is a bit…white… (just bringing back my original point). As a scientist, I attend a lot of conferences where we are given name tags. My name tag always says 5 letters. T-I-A-R-A. I always introduce myself as, “Tiara” but I remember a time, when I was asked a very thought-provoking question after I introduced myself.

Me: “Hi I’m Tiara”

White man: “But isn’t it spelled tiaRa?!”

I didn’t respond and he said, “oh I guess tomato, tomAto!”

I walked away from that interaction, like…did he really just mansplain me my name? That was so weird. But as I continued interacting with more folx and particularly white people, I realized it didn’t matter if I had a name tag on or not. When I said Tiara folx heard tiaRa, so that’s what they called me.

It didn’t bother me at first. I always pronounced it Tiara, but if I heard tiaRa, I responded to it. I said hey, “tomato tomAto” right, at least I’m here! This went on for years honestly. I never corrected anyone, I didn’t know why, but it didn’t feel like I should. I mean, who was I to correct grown scientists on how I wanted my 5-letter name pronounced. Who was I?! But then I realized, I was Tiara! The girl sitting idly by allowing the gentrification of her name. Allowing herself to be disregarded and answering to a name that wasn’t hers.

I willed myself to believe that it wasn’t that big of a deal, but naw it was a respect issue. Maybe it’s not pronounced how its “spelled” but it’s pronounced how I tell people to say it, why is that so hard? I finally started standing up for myself and weirdly received some push back but for the most part everyone knows now. I even have allies that will correct folx in a heartbeat!

As I reflect, I realized I wasn’t advocating for myself because I didn’t want to stand out anymore. I didn’t want to be the Black girl that also had the hard name that needed to be corrected. But at the end of the day, I’m gonna stand out anyway and Tiara just isn’t that damn hard to remember. So try harder. I’m not accepting anything less, but please know, if you do forget, Dr. Moore always works.