Black, Out.

As someone who deals in a creative space centered on openness, you'd think I’d be less hesitant to share the many experiences of white privilege and racism that I've encountered in my life. You'd be wrong, though.

Case in point - I wrote most of this back in August of 2023. I planned to post it the day after I quit my last job.

That was last October. You can do the math.

I've purposely held back on sharing the most ignorant and violating encounters with non-melanated folk that I've gone through. Part of it was due to maintaining my peace. Another was related to not wanting to "shake the table" and make some white people uncomfortable. I see the dichotomy in this, but I suppose time, some healing, and more instances of feeling less than in public spaces have finally forced me to speak some of my truth.

From someone once changing an ad for a vacant apartment to “European-like people only” after I turned up to an open house to the shock of a police officer discovering I had no prior arrest record (and that comment came from a Black officer), this all feels like some strange game I never wanted to play yet find myself an active player in nonetheless... and I f*cking hate it.

I've procrastinated long enough on speaking about my last place of employment. Almost from my first day to the day I left, I dealt with multiple micro and macro-aggressions from just about every corner.

After three days of training (two less than initially promised), I was tossed in to take on my new position. Sometime in that first week, a white higher-up called me out in chat for slacking. There I was, doing my best to adjust to an onslaught of calls while responding to other leadership members giving different courses of action for one set scenario. To add insult to insanity, all of this took place less than a month after I laid my mother to rest.

I wasn’t slacking that day. I was having a damn panic attack.

It took some time, but I did get the hang of things (no thanks to anyone in particular). I quickly ascertained that reaching out for assistance from leadership often led to lazy or scorn-tinged responses (“You just learned this in training!”) - or none at all.

I could’ve accepted my shortcomings and left it at that. However, I had personally witnessed multiple leadership members tripping over themselves to assist a white team member who never seemed to know what they were doing – a team member who, at that point, worked for this company for more than three years and consistently got off scot-free from instances both unprofessional and outright ignorant.

To give an instance or two, this team member would repeatedly share their political views in our work chat and inappropriately use Black slang, including “nizzle” (a term often attributed to rapper Snoop Dogg that means "n*gga"). When leadership would step in (which never happened without a personal request for them to do so), the co-worker would play the victim card and claim their "freedom of speech" was being violated.

During one such exchange, several team members "liked" a response given by a leadership member to avoid topics that could cause discourse - including myself. While on a call with a client moments later, I received a notification that the co-worker had removed me from the group chat. Not long after, they were pulled into an emergency meeting by leadership. Meanwhile, I attempted to field several DMs from my colleagues, asking if I was okay.

I learned after the meeting that the co-worker never meant to remove me from the chat (which I didn't believe). Instead, they meant to block me to avoid a possible confrontation via direct message.

Let me be clear: I have never engaged in direct conversation with this team member other than to clarify work-related directives, nor would I want to. Their past discretions painted a vivid picture of who they were off the clock, and that is not someone I would ever want to engage with on a personal level.

Luckily, leadership having access to our chat histories proved that the co-worker was attempting to throw me under the bus. Still, I wondered: What could have happened if leadership took their side over mine?

No further actions took place. The next day, the co-worker gleefully engaged with others in our work chat, including the leadership members who allegedly reprimanded them. I have never received an apology from them or our supervisors.

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Weeks before I quit, I decided to apply for a role in the company that could utilize my skills as a freelance writer and the ones I’ve acquired from this current position. It would also get me far, far away from the group of people I worked with.

When the hiring manager’s assistant contacted me, they confused me for another employee with the same first name as me. It wasn’t the first time it occurred, so I brushed it off.

During the interview, the hiring manager, who was white, opened the conversation with similar confusion regarding the same-named employee, who is also white, and assumed they were the person applying for the role.

Having another employee brought up twice at this point felt odd, but I let the matter drop. The remainder of the interview went well, and the hiring manager assured me that a decision would come soon.

After more than a week with no response, I did a bit of digging. I connected with the same-named co-worker to see if they could fill in some blanks under the guise of preparing myself for the possible promotion.

As it turned out, the hiring manager contacted them just minutes after my interview and attempted to persuade them to take the role. The co-worker ultimately turned them down as their current title pays more. It also puts them in line with possibly usurping the role of a long-term employee in a similar position as theirs - which would boost their salary and title.

The long-term employee is Black, and they are one of the very few in the upper echelon of the branch. Despite never once interacting with this person, I still felt sadness for them. Here was another Black employee deemed as disposable by a company they had given so much of themselves to.

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Were all of my negative experiences a result of racism or white privilege? I can’t answer that definitively. I do know that, at last count, less than five Black people were working for the branch. One of the Black employees has a very close relationship with the same (white) leadership members who seemed to have it out for me. As such, despite getting along with them well, I often felt alone and never shared any of my experiences with them. I'm pretty sure they have no idea why I left so suddenly, but I hope they never go through what I went through while working there.

Since leaving, friends and loved ones asked an obvious question: Why did you stay so long?

The truth was - or is - that change is difficult for me. It takes time for me to find comfort in the chaos. Once I do, I settle quickly - perhaps too quickly. I'm working on this.

A few days ago, I thought to myself, “I've gone through one of the biggest personal challenges I'll ever endure in my life – losing my mother – and I’m still standing. If I could do that, no matter how painful and tiring this journey has been, why would I still allow fear of change to navigate my life?”

One day last October, my need for peace finally won over my fear of moving on... but that's a story for another day.