Let’s call this a hypothetical story…

A few weeks ago, I learned that one of my male employees was making unwanted advances at a young lady in another department.  Among her claims was that he was stalking her after work.  The other department manager came to my co-manager who is a female as well (not me, but I’m going to choose not to dive into that) and shared this information.  My co-manager did not share it with me until the end of the work day, and by then another encounter had occurred where my employee was over in this young lady’s department in a confined area.  The manager of that department walked over to them and my employee then left.

Our employee had an ongoing problem working where he should be working (among numerous other things) so, on those grounds, we fired him the next week.  HR asked me to be in charge of the firing and this one broke my heart because it was a brutha that I had taken under my wing very early in my position and had seen some clear growth.  He just couldn’t shake some of his bad habits and his tendency to just be ridiculously defiant whenever I wasn’t around.  It was like he gained a respect for me, but I could not get him to do it for everyone else.   He really let me down.  First, when I learned that he’s a baby daddy to one of only 2 girls that work for me and that happened within the last year (not sure how many of the management team knows, but I knew because we could talk real talk…i wasn’t intimidated by his blackness or tendency to be aggressive in his style of speech).  The baby mama and the girl he was essentially harassing were both white.  I say that just to provide some context because as a black man in America making unwanted advances at a white woman has some historical pain and prejudice that’s as relevant today as it was 400 years ago.

I did what I could based on what I knew.  I made sure that the grounds for his firing had nothing to do with the unwanted advances because the young woman did not want to report them.  Rather his firing was to do with his ongoing inability to work where he should be working and when he should be working.  When I came into work, I notified security and reception that we were firing someone today and has on occasion been eruptive.  We set a timeframe and security stayed past his shift to make sure everything went ok.  And it did, he had some loud moments then calmed down.  It was 3 of us including myself- my co-manager and a manager from the other department who I wanted present just so he couldn’t point the finger in any directions based on who was there.

A few hours later that day, we learn there was an argument in the parking lot after work the prior week on the same day that he was found in a confined area with the girl.  Another employee shared that with another manager, and he then shared it with us managers as if it were just water cooler talk.  My eyes widened because I’m thinking this dude is seriously messed up.  So, I ask one of the managers from the department, where the girl works, to follow up with her about this incident.  He didn’t want to because he didn’t think it was his business especially based on heresy from another employee.  I urged him to given the circumstances.  Later that day, I followed up with manager.  He said he talked to her and she was ok.  I asked if he brought up the parking lot argument and he said no.  I again strongly urged him to have this specific conversation and document it adding that I personally would hate to have it on my conscience if something happened to that young woman and we didn’t take as many actions as possible to ensure her safety and document what’s going on.  He eventually agreed and did do the follow up.

I reported to HR all the details based on the actions that I took and referred them to the manager who had followed up with the young woman from his department for any details based on the things he would have done on his own.

The plot thickens…

HR emails me back and says there’s all these red flags from my email and they want to talk to me.  So we talk and I learn that this guy had showed up drunk at this girls house afer work one night and he had followed her home one night.  This was all information she shared with the other department manager.  HR’s concern was retaliation from this guy if he felt that the girl got him fired (which she did…that’s a whole other set of follow ups).  I was equally alarmed to know this information myself.  Had I known I would have made sure we had a plan in place for her leaving work on the day that he was fired.  HR said we should have been called and also called security who could have checked in with her at the end of the day.  They also suggested I have a reflection discussion with the management team just so we’d be better armed in the future.  That sounded fair to me.  Luckily, nothing did happen as far as we’re aware.

So I have this reflection conversation and everyone is rolling their eyes.  Why is HR all in our business?  Why didn’t they man up and take care of the security part?  Why are we to blame?

I’m like, who are these people that I work with?  Why are they taking this so lightly?  Ok, I get their point.  HR has some responsibility if not more responsibility and definitely dropped the ball, but I felt that the managers in the young woman’s department did as well by not seeing this as a potentially serious situation and not documenting specifics without my prodding.  In my mind, if she confided in them with that level of information, I would take it very seriously and at least make sure she called me when she got home.  I’ve done that if someone leaves work sick and really looks like they’re in bad shape or they’re injured and want to drive home on their own.

It’s a lonely road at work very often and it’s hard not to take it to heart sometimes (at least for me) to often be only person with a different point of view.  I  have enough visibility as a woman in a predominantly male environment, as 1 of only handful (if that) of African American in leadership positions, and already being pegged as someone with an attitude.  I feel like the words in Justin Timberlake’s song “Losing My Way”…at least the chorus because the song is about a man with drug addiction.

Can Anybody Out There Hear Me
’cause I Cant Seem To Hear Myself
Can Anybody Out There See Me
’cause I Cant Seem To See Myself
There’s Gotta Be A Heaven Somewhere
Can Ya Save Me From This Hell
Can Anybody Out There Feel Me
’cause I Cant Seem To Feel Myself
Losin’ My Way
Keep Losin’ My Way [x2]
Can Ya Help Me Find My Way
Losin’ My Way
Keep Losin’ My Way [x2]
Can Ya Help Me Find My Way

That crying out for someone to hear me and/or validate me really plagues me.  That probably has a lot to do with why I write.  Often, I’m perceived as very confident and pulled together, but inside I struggle at times standing tall in my own shoes.

Anyhooz, I’m just sharing another one of those trials that comes with working in Corporate America.

Holla if you hear me!

Ya, I bet your company had a brochure with a picture like this on the front of it with lots of words like “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “value” in it.

They were at your NSBE conferences, NBMBAA conferences, all smiles, shiny displays, the best giveaways.

You were hooked, weren’t you?

Gym onsite. Nice walking path around the building with picnic benches and maybe a little pond with a fountain.

State of the art applies to every aspect of your work experience, right?

Then your first reality check hits you and your diversity utopia, comes crumbling down like a thunderstorm on what was a beautiful day.

I don’t generally like to use this blog for me, me, me stories but I’ve got to share this with you. After a work meeting the other day, a few of us were hanging around and the subject of politics came up. Generally, that’s my cue to head for the door especially when we do have a black man running for president. I just don’t want to be around for some shit that’s gonna piss me off. Well, I was trying to finish my green tea and stuck I was.

…and then it happened….

The lady sitting right next to me found her only contribution to the conversation, “I don’t know. I’m just don’t like to vote for a president whose middle name is Hussein.”

A few people didn’t catch it (or maybe couldn’t believe their ears) and asked her to repeat it…several times, to which she did obligingly.

Shit! I just was not in the mood for getting pissed off or having to school anyone. I’ve already been tagged the angry black woman. Besides, I was chillin’, sippin’ my green tea y’all!

So, to my rescue comes a West Point grad who has traveled the world with the military and speaks a cazillion languages. The white guy who on the surface would appear like someone who would embody entitlement, but I find him intriguing. He’s well read and always brings depth to the conversation.

I went into childlike mode, literally covering my ears after she first said it and yelling (literally), “la la la la la la, I don’t want to hear this.” She still chose to repeat herself, again and again, sitting right next to me.

So Mr. West Point replies, “Well, that’s racist,” and I look at him with a thank you in my eyes for him being the one to call that out.

The rest of the room did what most people do which annoys me, try to throw a bath mat over the giant elephant of a comment by weighing in on their more “sound” political stances. One even tried to make me “feel better” by saying, “Well, I think it’s time.”

Like someone set some appointment on their Outlook calendar and they just got their 15 minute alert saying, “Remember that appointment you made to vote for a black president? Well, your time is now.”

WTF????

The Hussein-phobe eventually closed her argument with what she felt was a light hearted joke, “I guess there are ignorant people out there like me,” with a smile almost smurkish in nature.

Now for some history (this is the bonus track. you can move on with your reading of other web frivolity or read some more.)

I have been telling my husband that this lady never speaks to me and we work so closely together. She literally just doesn’t say anything to me, unless she absolutely must utter a word. I even approached her a few months back saying that I’d like to talk sometime because I feel like perhaps I’ve rubbed her the wrong way and I’d like to know what is concerning her. You know how women get (and I am a woman). They find one random thing to not like and hold onto it and justify it ’til kingdom come.

I never went back to her to talk about our rapport. I get enough of a lashing for being so vocal at work that I didn’t want to invite another opportunity. My husband immediately said she’s racist just based on the fact that she wouldn’t talk to me, but I didn’t want to believe it. You know, I’m the dreamer. A Pisces. Everything is rainbows and butterflies, but I have a tender heart and I just couldn’t bear another dose of that bitter pill that is corporate America.

Of course, I tell my husband the Hussein story and he gives me the, “I told you so.” I’m just so over it. I rejoined corporate America after going to grad school and having had my own business (that paid way more but just wasn’t fulfilling) and will likely return to my own gig (maybe this blogging will pop off) or get with another entrepreneur and work something on a smaller scale.

Not that this sole comment has tipped me over, it just comes at a time where I’m weary of all the bullshit that comes with corporate America.

Stupid racist mutha fuckas! (aaah! that felt good. and i can say it because it’s my garsh darn blog!)

p.s. you should do a google image search on “angry black woman.” the results are entertaining and actually might make you an “angry black woman” after you scroll through a few pages and see how many times Michelle Obama’s photo comes up.

The following was sent to me by aw in an email…  Read it and let me know what you think about Sophia’s perspective.  I believe this editorial was originally from the Washington Post, but it is not clear from the message.

Black.  Female.  Accomplished.  Attacked

By Sophia A. Nelson
Sunday, July 20, 2008; B01

There she is — no, not Miss America, but the Angela-Davis-Afro-wearing, machine-gun-toting, angry, unpatriotic Michelle Obama, greeting her husband with a fist bump instead of a kiss on the cheek.

It was supposed to be satire, but the caricature of Barack Obama and his wife that appeared on the cover of the New Yorker last week rightly caused a major flap. And among black professional women like me and many of my sisters in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, who happened to be gathered last week in Washington for our 100th anniversary celebration, the mischaracterization of Michelle hit the rawest of nerves.

Welcome to our world.

We’ve watched with a mixture of pride and trepidation as the wife of the first serious African American presidential contender has weathered recent campaign travails — being called unpatriotic for a single offhand remark, dubbed a black radical because of something she wrote more than 20 years ago and plastered with the crowning stereotype: “angry black woman.” And then being forced to undergo a politically mandated “makeover” to soften her image and make her more palatable to mainstream America.

Sad to say, but what Obama has undergone, though it’s on a national stage and on a much more prominent scale, is nothing new to professional African American women. We endure this type of labeling all the time. We’re endlessly familiar with the problem Michelle Obama is confronting — being looked at, as black women, through a different lens from our white counterparts, who are portrayed as kinder, gentler souls who somehow deserve to be loved and valued more than we do. So many of us are hoping that Michelle — as an elegant and elusive combination of successful career woman, supportive wife and loving mother — can change that.

“Ain’t I a woman?” Sojourner Truth famously asked 157 years ago. Her ringing question, demanding why black women weren’t accorded the same privileges as their white counterparts, still sums up the African American woman’s dilemma today: How are we viewed as women, and where do we fit into American life?

“Thanks to the hip-hop industry,” one prominent black female journalist recently said to me, all black women are “deemed ‘sexually promiscuous video vixens’ not worthy of consideration. If other black women speak up, we’re considered angry black women who complain. This society can’t even see a woman like Michelle Obama. All it sees is a black woman and attaches stereotypes.”

Black women have been mischaracterized and stereotyped since the days of slavery and minstrel shows. In more recent times, they’ve been portrayed onscreen and in popular culture as either sexually available bed wenches in such shows as the 2000 docudrama “Sally Hemings: An American Scandal,” ignorant and foolish servants such as Prissy from “Gone With the Wind” or ever-smiling housekeepers, workhorses who never complain and never tire, like the popular figure of Aunt Jemima.

Even in the 21st century, black women are still bombarded with media and Internet images that portray us as loud, aggressive, violent and often grossly obese and unattractive. Think of the movies “Norbit” or “Big Momma’s House,” or of the only two black female characters in “Enchanted,” an overweight, aggressive traffic cop and an angry divorcée amid all the white princesses.

On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a smart, accomplished black professional woman portrayed on mainstream television or in the movies? If Claire Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” comes to mind, remember that she left the scene 16 years ago.

(more…)