In April 2022, I sat in a glass conference room that overlooked a parking lot, Lake Shore Drive, and Lake Michigan, with the sun high and heat pressing in. However, my supervisor Rachel, only eight weeks in, scheduled “Going Forward” just 15 minutes before I arrived.
She opened with, “As a woman, I will no longer let my voice go unheard,” and I felt erased as a Black woman in a mostly white office where my voice often is not welcome. Then she said I had kept my back to her in a meeting, even though I was reading dates from my screen and my desk faced the wall.
When I tried to respond, she raised her hand to stop me, and my throat tightened as my shoulders rose and tears pushed close. Still, I realized it was not about the calendar; it was about power and shaping me into a “safe” version of Black womanhood.
Over time I was told I was too quiet, too loud, too aloof, and too emotional, corrected for turning a whiteboard the “wrong” way, and written up for “not enough ideas” despite a full folder. Meanwhile, the 2018 report Women of Color in the Nonprofit Sector says women of color often sit in lower-paid, lower-visibility roles, face extra scrutiny when advancing, and receive coded “fit” or “tone” feedback.
I share left-leaning values, yet I fear white liberal spaces more than overt racism because they can flip from warmth to hostility, weaponize tears, and avoid accountability while judging tone. Finally, after a panic attack, a suicidal thought I answered by calling a hotline, and a layoff one week later, I felt relief, stopped chasing an invented “right kind” of Black woman, and point people to 988, 988lifeline.org, dontcallthepolice.com, or the International Association for Suicide Prevention.
