We were lucky to catch up with Dee White recently and have shared our conversation below.
Dee, thank you so much for making time for us today. We can’t wait to dive into your story and the lessons you’ve learned along the way, but maybe we can start with something foundational to your success. How have you gone about developing your ability to communicate effectively?
I think my diverse surroundings during my upbringing had a large part to do with the way I communicate today. First and foremost I’m an only child so I spent a lot of time not talking, also a lot of time talking to myself ( in my head ) and analyzing situations in rooms and how different people react to certain things. My dad also always told me don’t talk just listen, and somehow that stuck with me as a young child & my entire life, so with that my ability to absorb information, process it before or without reacting has always been an advantage I have I believe. I also was BLESSED to grow up with family on both my mom and my dads side who didn’t communicate through yelling at one another often, so that accordingly became how I communicate through just talking and working things out. Although I grew up with both parents I lived with my mom most of my childhood. With that came me learning how to communicate effectively and learning about tone of voice when talking to women. I also attribute that to growing up in the church so learning tone of voice not only when interacting with people but the tone the speakers and pastor used when talking to a large group of people who they wanted to receive and absorb information. The realization in the diversity in my upbringing came around 4th grade, I lived and went to school in a city named Southgate but my family is from Ecorse and River Rouge, where I went to school I was one of the only black kids up until middle school, those same years were also years where I started to play basketball. But I didn’t play basketball where I went to school, I played in Southwest Detroit at Kemedy center a legendary recreation center in my hood, so I went from going to school with all white kids to after school going to the hood and playing basketball and interacting with the kids from my hood. There was a rough adjustment period, I started off as the goofy clumsy tall kid that talked like a “ white boy “ and I got clowned a lot about all of those things. But I’m happy about it because it made me be able to take jokes and give em back out, take criticism and turn it into motivation to be better, it just added overall balance to my personality at a young age. Growing up playing travel basketball just furthered all of that because now as a middle school kid I’m interacting with kids and adults outside of my church, outside of my family, outside of my neighborhood, outside of my school, and unknowingly not only using but honing in and sharpening my listening and communication skills and all the while developing life long relationships. With being a good communicator comes good relationships, no one can have a good relationship with someone they can’t talk to that’s just not how the world works. One of those relationships is when I met my high school best friend and his dad at an AAU tournament, we immediately hit it off & 2 years later I transferred from the school system I was in from first to 10th grade, to a private school which taught me just about different types of taste level and also how people’s upbringing and backgrounds could change how they act and interact with people. Those 2 years taught me a lot at the perfect time. I like to think of myself as a chameleon, I can step into any room and adapt, but I wouldn’t be the person I am without all of these unforgettable experiences.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
What I am mostly known for is modeling, my last interview was about 2 years ago when I first started taking it serious, since then I’ve been in several runway shows, I’ve done New York Fashion Week twice coming up on 3 times in the fall, I’ve been apart of several Ad campaigns and have modeled for most of the most popular designers in my region, the next step is to take this Nation wide! Modeling is my calling card but I’m starting to get more into the content creator space because there’s a personality that comes along with this pretty face. If you follow my Instagram ( @Dee_whitee ) or my vlog you see that on display but I want it to be on a bigger scale. I’m also a video editor, Also a creative director, also very into fashion and styling. I can’t display all of those things on the runway or through pictures if I’m bringing someone else’s vision to life so I will be creating my own spaces this coming fall to display those things on my own. That might include me curating events, creative directing fashion shows, definitely more video content, podcasting. I’m overall trying to be a multi disciplinary artist and I draw inspiration from my peers and people in my city! Detroit has a incredible art scene with so much talent in so many different areas, Photographers, videographers, artist both musically and physical art, models Ofcourse, designers, event curators, video directors. There’s so many places to draw inspiration from here if you just look and interact. With that being said I’m going to make sure I use my platform as a space to shine light on others as my star rises.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
My ability to communicate, my ability to adapt, my ability to listen. Honestly I named those in the opposite order of Importance but those 3 things can take you far in any field, in life in general. The way someone can improve on those things first off is want to, I believe no person changes unless they genuinely want to because with that desire comes action. Next is patience, this is honestly my niche in life, I’ve learned that not everyone is going to be like you, not respond how you want them to respond, not understand how you want them to understand, not feel how you want them to feel, because every human is their own individual so the more you practice, not reacting off of emotion, listening to understand-process- then responding, knowing when a fight is not worth the energy, and also understanding that some people don’t understand what they don’t know so talking and explaining instead of getting frustrated. Things like that are huge.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I’m willing to work with anyone if it makes sense, I’m a very easy guy to talk to so no one should be afraid to reach out, I talk back. But I particularly want to work with any media companies or content creators that have content spaces. My biggest desire is to have my own Podcast/Stream platform for video content so I can curate and create shows or do interviews, make vlogs, not only displaying me but also what my city has to offer and people in other places that I’m connected to.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Dee_whitee
- Youtube: Dee Whitee
- Other: Tik tok: Dee_whitee4
Image Credits
@Scuba.Keef pic 1&4 @Big_tunch pic 2&8 @sflemi pic 7
