So, since writing my last article about "Sorry To Bother You" and how racially intense some workplaces can be, it really got me wondering about this topic. I recently got a new job at a medical practice, my little sister is job hunting, and my mother got a new position at her job too. Thankfully, we don't work in work environments that aren't "woke" to the struggles of minorities, but I often wonder what would I think or say if they weren't. Here's a short list of what new black employees would be thinking if they were ever put into an environment like that.
1. Yes, I am qualified for this job.
In other words, hire me for this job because I am a qualified applicant who's willing to put the work in. Don't hire me just because I'm black and you need to have a "diverse" work environment so HR isn't up on your asses. And I mean sure, there's affirmative action and quotas and whatever, but at the end of the day, employers should not be choosing people for jobs because they're ethnic or minorities. It's just sick. By doing this, they're quite literally connoting that they don't value us as employees for that company, but rather, they only value us because we give them extra brownie points for having diversity in the workplace.
2. No, the other black girl who works here isn't my sister or my cousin or my best friend. I just met her!
Just because we're one of the few black people in this work environment, doesn't mean that we somehow know each other outside of this job. There's plenty of people out there that I know. Sorry to break it to you, though. The other black person in the room just isn't one of them. Although, I'm sure it would be fun to be friends with them. I just don't know them outside of the workplace. I don't know why there's this stereotype that all black people know each other. It's actually really weird. And maybe it's because there's only a handful of black people in certain places (PWI's, for example), so the limited number of black people only have each other to share experiences with. But regardless, that still doesn't mean that every single black person out there knows of so many others. It's absurd to even think that.
3. I'll change my hair every six weeks or so. Get over it.
This one hit HOME. I lowkey hate it when I change my hair and someone goes, "Oh! You changed your hair!" Maybe they didn't even mean for it to come off in a rude way, but it still irks me so much. Why do you have to comment that I changed my hair whenever I changed it? Not even that you think it's cute or that it suits my face, but the fact that I changed it.
People, get over it. Move on. Yes, I will change my hair every so often. One day I'll walk in here with my natural hair out in a high puff and the next day you'll catch me with a curly weave or faux locs. If anyone has a problem with it, then I have a problem, because how black women (and men) style their hair is literally embedded into our culture. And by saying we can't have certain styles or do certain things with it is literally discrimination.
Or even if you don't have a problem with it, you can just keep your "Oh, you changed your hair" comments to yourself. It's not needed for you or for me. Yes, I changed my hair. Get over it.
4. No, the other black girl and I don't look the same.
This one is a really interesting one. Why does everyone think that every black person looks the same? See, that irks me to the core too, because it means you're not really seeing my face or me, as your worker. You're seeing my color and you're equating me with someone else who has a similar color to me, regardless of my face shape, hairstyle, or jawline.
It baffles me even when two black people WHO AREN'T EVEN THE SAME SKIN TONE get mistaken for one another. Y'all REALLY have to be unobservant or just plain ignorant to get that wrong. Shameful.
5. I'm not in competition with the other black people who also work here.
It's so weird how society always tries to pin black people up against one another. And it almost always has to do with society's standards of the "ideal." I'm not even sure what society deems as the "ideal" black person anymore because the media fluctuates a lot. And I guess it fluctuates so much because they want so many different ways in order to raise the bar of how black people should perform. But anyway, putting black people in competition with one another is like putting dogs in a dog show and ranking them on their performance. We're not things that do work for you. We're people.
No black person is better than another because of how much they conform to society's standards or because of how much they don't. And black workers shouldn't be pinned up against one another because is that not what slave owners did to humiliate and demean their slaves? Did they not showcase whoever was the best cotton picker and punish whoever didn't pick as much by telling them that they should be a "good slave" and pick more cotton? Come on, y'all.
Black people should not be in competition with one another, nor should they be compared to other workers that are hired. Stop making it seem like there's always a ladder that we have to climb in order to make it to the end and be just as successful as everyone else. It seems as though the higher we climb, the more we realize that y'all keep making the endpoint further and further away.
6. Let's keep political drama out of the office, so no feelings get hurt.
Workplaces are one of THE WORST places to talk about politics. My advice is that whenever you show up to work, leave the politics at home. If you want to chat with me about who you voted for or who did what to which law, then take my number and we can grab a coffee and talk about it later.
I personally just think that politics (especially recently) can drive a huge wedge between people. It's important that a workplace is working efficiently and the only way for that to happen is if everyone's on the same page. And for everyone to be on the same page, you have to be cordial with one another. Hating someone because they voted for someone else won't do you any good in the workplace. It'll just make everyone's lives miserable.
Well, this was very fun to write if I do say so myself, and I hope it was just as fun to read! I'm definitely going to do a continuation of this list, because I know there's so much more content that I can add to this. I'll even try to get points of view of different black people's experiences in racially-awkward workplaces.
