A coworker reached out to me with the best of intentions a couple of weeks ago. We’ll call her Jane*. She wanted to let me know that she remembered that I have a son and how worried I must be. And then she said it. The line that makes me see red. The sentence that, every time I hear it, I want to scream at the top of my lungs. Jane said,
“I could not have imagined the tragedy that occurred on Memorial Day in Minneapolis would have even been possible”.
Any time I hear someone say something like this, I see red. I start to hear a buzzing in my head and my heart starts to race. Why such a strong, visceral reaction? Because you know who could imagine something like this would have been possible? BLACK PEOPLE!!!! Subconsciously, we actually expect to hear it every time we turn on the news or log into Facebook. And for someone to be so completely disconnected from the reality that Black people live every day infuriates me. Probably because I’m jealous that I can’t disconnect from it. I can’t disconnect from that knot of fear that I carry in my chest every day because I worry about my son. Or I worry that I will lose my job for being so outspoken and honest (even when they say they want honesty). Or the fear that this will be the month that my electricity gets disconnected because I am grossly underpaid and don’t have enough money to take care of my necessities. The worry about the day that I may have to choose between food and medication.
And so in that instant I had to make a choice. I could continue to just internalize these things or I could call it out. So I called it out and I told her as nicely as I could, because not only are we supposed to educate you, but we also have to be careful not to hurt your delicate white feelings. I told her that this statement was hurtful to me because it overlooked the decades of deaths and beatings of Black people at the hands of the police. Jane’s response? That I misunderstood her and that she has Black people in her family. That thing that white people always say when they’re trying to convince you that what they said wasn’t racist.
But guess what? You don’t get to decide what’s racist to me. When I said that her statement was hurtful, that was a statement of fact. It wasn’t a topic for discussion. There would have been nothing she could have said to convince me that I shouldn’t have been hurt. Stop trying to tell Black people what is or isn’t racist to them. Or that they shouldn’t feel a certain way. Or that they didn’t mean it that way. It doesn’t matter how it was meant, the impact is that I was hurt and I deserved an apology.
I’ve spent so much time comforting white people these past few weeks that I haven’t fully processed my own emotions. If I say something that resonates with you, I don’t necessarily need to know about it. You’re going to work on active listening? Great! Go forth and conquer that shit. But don’t feel the need to email me to let me know that you’re a bad listener. It’s likely that I already know and have probably already told you about yourself…you just weren’t listening. So go ahead and practice active listening. Just leave your Black friends and co-workers out of it. We’re busy trying to process our trauma.
I saw a comment on LinkedIn disagreeing with the idea of treating the unique mental health issues faced by the Black community differently than treating other populations. This woman felt that to treat black mental health differently in and of itself was racist and that all mental illness should be treated the same. When I pointed out that Black people were dealing with generational trauma from years of oppression, instead of engaging in a dialogue with me, she attacked me. She stated that “pity looks good on you”, she assumed I’m a church goer (?) and said that I was just looking for special treatment. She also intimated that I was just too stupid to understand her point.
As a Black person, these types of interactions occur all too often. Do you, as a Black person, call them out? Share the post so their employer sees it? Take the time to craft a well-thought rebuttal to each of their points knowing that it won’t make a difference? Or do you do what I did, which was to simply ignore it? I considered the well-thought rebuttal, but just didn’t have the emotional energy. So this woman will feel that she was successful in putting me back in my place. The only bright side is that she was in IT and not a therapist so she’s not actually mistreating Black mental health patients and causing more harm. During the time that I was writing and editing this piece, I have had so many more interactions like the one with Jane. So many, in fact, that I ended up having to take time off work to rest and deal with my mental health. I live with bipolar disorder and anxiety and the constant barrage of emails and texts messages and voicemails is overwhelming. And even when you spend the energy to correct and call it out, you then have the back and forth of having to explain exactly why it was problematic. The burden of that shouldn’t have to fall on Black people. Arline Geronimus coined the term weathering back in the late 70s to describe the impact of racial discrimination on Black people. She found that Black people had higher incidences certain illness due to the stressors that are common and chronic in their lives. This constant stress and the effect it has on the body is what Geronimus refers to as weathering.
In my interaction with Jane, she offered to explain her POV again since I was clearly misunderstanding.
YOU DON’T GET TO DECIDE WHAT IS OFFENSIVE TO ANOTHER PERSON!
There is NO explanation she could come up with that will change the way I feel. We will only have true inclusion when white people are able to accept feedback from a Black person without internalizing it as a personal attack. The whole point of having these conversations is so that we can do better. But if you’re not able or willing to accept feedback that’s presented tactfully, then you won’t be able to make any lasting change, it will be all surface level.
You will learn what to say and what not to say.
You’ll learn how to mimic active listening.
You’ll occasionally throw us a bone by buying from a black-owned business or celebrating Juneteenth.
But if you’re not willing to take a hard look at how your white privilege has given you an advantage, and if you’re not actively working to dismantle those beliefs within yourself, then you’re just performing anti-racism. And we don’t need more performers.
We need listeners.
We need people who are taking a hard look at how they’ve benefitted from white privilege.
We need people who are stepping aside and making space for the Black voices that have for so long been ignored.
We need you advocating for us at tables where we haven’t been given a seat.
We need you to give up your seat so that we ARE given a seat at the table.
Amplify our voices and our books and our music and our potential and our disability and all of the things that make us us. Don’t get defensive when one of us corrects you. How else do you expect to learn? Remember, you called me because you were looking for education on how to be a better ally. No one would take a college course in a new subject and then spend every class arguing with the professor. You sit and listen and take notes and absorb what is being taught. Unlearning racism is not a self-study class. You need to listen to the experts (hint: Black people), take notes and be open to the idea that you don’t have all the answers. And stop trying to explain racism to black people. We know that book inside and out.
Laura Isaacs is an activist for disability access in the workplace and erasing the stigma around mental illness. Laura has over 20 years of experience as an Executive Assistant in various industries including insurance, legal, and human resources. She has spoken at the 2018 DisabilityIN Opportunity Summit and was a panel moderator at the Junior League of Chicago in 2019. Laura is also a 2020 Fellow in the ADA 25 Advancing Leadership Institute. Laura’s goal is to become a subject-matter expert on disability, mental health and accessibility in the workplace.
Cover Photo: Greensboro sit-ins