On being Black in a white work environment

White organizations are not safe spaces for Black people.

While some of us appreciate the statements that white organizations have made in support of our right to live, we know that there are still white people in these organizations who do not share those same philosophies of equal rights. We know that there are white people who would like to ignore all of the “race talk.” It’s OK if some of us die, because they consider us a worthless or dangerous group of people.

Just a week or so ago, a woman told me in a professional meeting that she didn’t go to the beach in my racially diverse community because her husband assumed that drug needles would be nested in the sand. They preferred to go to the beach in the nearby suburb instead. Unfortunately, I hear prejudices like this often in predominantly white work environments.

When I worked at a consulting firm in Hartford, I endured many experiences that revolved around my Blackness.

Managers asked me to participate in projects because I was Black and we were going into Black communities. However, my input on the project was often disputed. My white managers said I was new to the industry, so they ignored the 30 years of experience I had being Black and interacting with Black people.

A project manager once complimented me on my yellow shirt and then told me what other colors look good on Black people.

A white male from another company asked me if I brought the cookies and refreshments for our meeting, even though we were both consultants on the project.

When I wore braids to work, my white male supervisor asked me if my hair was real.

There were so many conversations about my Blackness that it became a distraction to the work I was doing for this company. I had become the representative for all things Black, and it was tiring. I was one of two Black employees working at the company. I could tell that I was the only Black person that any of them knew or had a relationship with.

When I reported these opportunities to the company’s diversity committee, I was told that I could use these microaggressions as opportunities to educate my white coworkers about how to interact with Black people, but I didn’t feel that was my job. Imagine

having to do your 50-hourper-week job in addition to teaching your coworkers about your entire existence. I maintained a pleasant disposition most days, despite the comments and questions, but after a while it got to be too much.

For many Black people going to work in white organizations, this is our reality each day. We do our jobs. We wear our hair straight, so we don’t get asked too many questions about our natural curls and coils, we talk to our white coworkers with our “white voice” so they’re not afraid of us. We smile and laugh when things aren’t funny so they don’t think we’re scary. We become actors in addition to our regular jobs. As Black professionals, we live with two versions of ourselves. The one we use at work around white people, and the real person we are at home around our families, friends and other Black people.

I’ve known white people who are afraid to go into Black neighborhoods because they’re afraid of violence, but the truth is that we are not seeing Black people killing white people. White work environments are often “bad neighborhoods” for Black people, but we still have to function well in them.

We don’t see images and videos on replay of Black people killing white people the same way that we’ve seen white people choke, shoot, lynch and beat Black people.

After 9/11, the world became terrified of Muslims because 3,000 people were killed in the World Trade Center. At least 2 million Black people were killed in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, facilitated by white people. Many sources list more. Even more Black people were killed as slaves. Black people are still being killed by white police officers.

Imagine the trauma of having to work with the people who look like the killers on television.

Stacy Graham-Hunt is a national-award winning columnist and author. Email her at stacygrahamhunt@gmail.com or follow her on social media @stacyreports.