I ran cross country in high school. We had an obligatory team photo. I was one of two Black girls on the team, and without thinking I wanted to create contrast. I placed myself in the center of the photo. My brown skin against the chalky white bodies of the team would swell in crescendo with my face at the loudest note before a descent into nothing. My teammates encouraged me. “Emma, you should get in the middle!” The grass rustled under our knees as we laughed and shifted around. The photographer raised his camera. He lowered it, pointed it at me, and asked me to move one spot to the left. I traded spots with a teammate. “And one more spot.” I obliged. One more. I was at the edge. The flash POPPED.
Imagine the small terrors.
The space we take up is undeniable. We are loud, we are conspicuous. We are brilliant. Black girls will always remind White people of their ordinariness. We will be pushed to the edge of the proverbial grass.
The last time I worked, I built a team from scratch. The company decided to hire a director, to manage us. To manage, me. I applied, of course. I didn’t get it, of course. They hired a plucky white woman with no prior experience in politics. We worked with people in politics. I brushed it off. Of course. Maybe it’ll take me more time. I decided to do everything right, do everything they tell me, be a good little compliant Black girl. Not rush to the middle of the photo, at least, not right away. I let her think she was my mentor. To get the respect I deserve. I told her my goals. I want to lead this team. She said I wasn’t ready. What do we need to do to get ready? She sent me a list. We had check in after check in. and I followed the rules.
By summer, some junior team members quit.
We used an insidious little tool called Slack to communicate at our jobs through the computer screen. The notification is KNOCK KNOCK. I still jump thinking about it.
KNOCK KNOCK. Emma, can you step in and do these junior level tasks while we are short staffed?
Sure, I can play along. But I need to remind you that this will take me away from everything we have talked about. I have goals. How am I going to work on them while doing these tasks?
Take a break from them, I was told. We can still work on them when we hire people. We still need you.
In high school cross country, the standard race is five hundred kilometers, or three and one tenths of a mile. Each team member averaged about a six minute mile to about a nine minute mile. I was the slowest, running a laborious eleven minute mile. The coach stationed at the mile markers to stamp individuals of their mile splits, to help our team reach their individual and team running goals.
Ok team gather round! Here are your mile splits! He would say while looking at the paper and announcing them to each team member. His eyes glazed over me and said nothing.
I asked my coach what my mile splits were.
I can’t count yours. You are too slow. GUN POP. Time to run.
I was a senior staffer, but in the interim until we hired more junior staffer, I was asked simultaneously to provide the team strategy while completing tasks of a not-yet-hired junior staffer. And I did both. The burnout began to creep. To help with my tasks, I decided to mentor and guide other teammates to diffuse the division of labor. I created a rubric for staffers to use for a presentation to the CEO to measure our department’s success. Instead of appreciation for handling inane tasks and strategy this is what I got.
KNOCK KNOCK: I’ve got some feedback for you.
Ok, what is it?
Other team members have mentioned that when you are asked to do something you tell them you are soooo busy.
What? I don’t say that.
I HEARD you do it. It would be better if you didn’t say that.
Me: Blank stare at blank screen.
Ok everyone! We’re going to be a team. Everyone run the best you can. Keep it under thirty minutes. Ok?
Looks at me. Emma. Try.
To create balance around an increasingly toxic work environment, I began a ritual. I was going to wear one of these dozens of matte, bright color lips to our job through the screens. A way to prepare myself, to sit up straight, while my white boss discredits and demeans me daily.
Smears of orange, pink and fuschia dotted my coworkers screen.
The compliments began rolling in. Other team members applauded my consistency, my beauty. Messages for display to the entire meeting rolled in. “Shout out to Emma for the lip color!”
I was loud. I was bold. I took up space.
A week later, my white boss painted her lips. Orange. Pink. Fuschia. To feign kinship. To get the praise. She still held the promotion. All while competing with me, her employee. I know they want EVERYTHING. They want what they already got, what you got, what Aisha and Britt and everybody got until we are left with nothing but their good intentions and they are left with everything they had plus your stuff too.
In her book, Caste, Isabel Wilkerson describes caste as an artificial hierarchy that helps determine standing and respect, assumptions of beauty and competence, and even who gets benefit of the doubt and access to resources.
I had to laugh.
KNOCK KNOCK: you are STILL telling people you are too busy.
Big sigh.
I actually tried to leave her team when it became fruitless. She was never going to stop inserting herself in my space. She was never going to stop humbling me. I interviewed for a job on another team. The person who had it before was a twenty-five-year old plucky white girl with no prior experience. They just let her in. When she left, I figured they would offer me the same grace. Wrong. I researched everything. I did everything right. I played by the rules. I related the position from previous companies and here. I researched all the terminology.
I still didn’t get the job. Of course.
“We loved your presentation, You just don’t have the experience.”
I BROKE.
The girls circled on the grass comparing body parts. Calling themselves fat. “Ugh I hate my thighs! I’m so big!” I stared at their lithe, pale bodies and looked at my expansive, brown thighs, and I couldn’t even join in the hate. Because I couldn’t compare.
KNOCK KNOCK: Let’s have a difficult conversation.
KNOCK KNOCK: you’re not good enough.
KNOCK KNOCK: you’ll never be good enough.
To make straight their own crooked rooms, implicated by our voices and existence, they interrupt, they consume, they stand over, as a reminder that they will never accept our centers. Never accept our secure footing in any space. They stand over us to remind us that they think we ain’t shit.
We are not supposed to be here in the first place. Our very presence is offensive. They won’t let us forget whoever let us in. It doesn’t matter if we let ourselves in.
They need us at the bottom, because it allows them to stay at the top. They have to stamp out our brilliance so it isn’t a reflection of their mediocrity.
I needed a minute. I took some time away from the screen. When I returned, it was time for my year end review. I fully expected to be promoted. While I was absent, my immediate supervisor hired a plucky white girl with no prior experience in technology, so I thought I would be extended that grace. I came to the review ready with my case for my promotion. I picked up the slack when we were short staffed. I worked as a mentor. I created a strategy plan to measure our success, created a formula the junior staff could use going forward. I presented my case, and I was still not promoted. I was actually surprised. I did everything you told me, plus duties not in my job description. She still cited that I was rude to other colleagues, and I have not developed my project management. Vexed. Without my leadership, we wouldn’t have been able to complete these things. And I asked her earlier if doing lower level duties that take me away from my managerial duties will punish me, she assured me that they wouldn’t. They did.
I was broken in half. My performance suffered. My efforts were proven futile, so I pivoted towards the bare minimum. My brain was not completely connecting with my body. I showed up to the computer screen, eeked out what my mind could handle, but couldn’t think beyond that conversation.
My performance caught up with me. I made a mistake. An oversight. Any one else would have been forgiven. But not me.
KNOCK KNOCK. A reminder. She can both right the room and threaten my employment.
Did they think I would subject myself to their oppression?
FLASH POPS.
GUN SHOT.
I quit.
Hi Emma! Thank you so much for sharing! It is a really sad story. It is so unfair that you can have qualifications and experience for a position and you cannot be accepted because of your skin, your ethnic background. I can feel the way you feel as well! I have also suffered from discrimination for not being white, for being from and living in a developing country, for not belonging to a middle- or high-class family, etc. It is disappointing and frustrating! But we only have to keep looking ahead and do not stop!
I'll keep reading your posts!
Cheers, Miguel Gutiérrez