The day before I meet up with Issa Rae, a thing happens. Rae is in Brooklyn, New York, at CultureCon, a conference created to engage people of color across culture and business. She was invited as one of the keynote speakers to discuss her efforts in diverse storytelling. Rae is sitting on stage in white ankle boots and a bomber jacket when the interviewer pronounces Rae’s name incorrectly, referring to her as “Ih-suh.” (It’s “Ee-suh,” but you knew that, right?) The packed crowd immediately corrects the moderator’s mistake, eventually breaking out into a cheer: Issa! Issa! Issa! In a video that has since made its rounds on the internet, Rae can be seen breaking out in a giant grin as the room gets louder.
The fumbling of her name has happened before, as it’s happened to many other Black women: Zendaya, Rihanna, Kamala. As Rae once said in a 2016 interview with the Chicago Tribune, “That’s the one I hate the most. ‘Eye-suh’ I can deal with, but ‘Ih-suh’ sounds incomplete, like it should Mel-issa. Like you think my name is incomplete.”
