To be a young Black woman in a white workplace
Y'all don't seem to get it.
Back in the days when I was old enough to know better, and young enough not to give a fuck, I worked for a major cellular company in their consumer finance department.
It’s important that I stress to you I seriously did not give a fuck.
I know what you’re thinking. “But you still don’t give a fuck,” and you would be correct. I still don’t give a fuck, but my give a fuck back then was rolling in a Cadillac Escalade with spinners. It was Babie pink with a pearl finish, and it had the loudest sound system you could imagine.
My give a fuck these days is lot tamer; trust me on this, and I’ll clap for myself because I’m proud of me. It has taken a lot of personal work, and it is still a work in progress, so I work at it every day. You know what that is? Growth.
Anyway, back then, I sat in a corner by the window with two other people — the homie who was also a dj, let’s call him Jim, and my homegirl from Long Island. We’ll call her Marissa.
Our other homegirl, Sorority Girl, occasionally sat back there with us when she was helping one of the three of us with reports or projects and such.
Anyway, we had this white manager who I will call Linda. Linda was actually Latina, but she was white passing and very white acting. Linda was a Karen; I just didn’t have the vocabulary for it back then, but she also did a lot of over-policing of me as a Black woman while letting my white coworkers get away with everything.
Once during a mandatory training session, my white coworker — also a woman — passed me a note. I saw Linda looking at me, so I took the note and put it under my notebook and kept taking notes during the training.
When the training session was over, Linda followed me outside the training room and asked if she could speak with me. I already knew she was going to say something to me about the note, and I already knew I was going to read her ass when she did, so I said yes.
She asked “Why were you passing notes during the training?”
“I wasn’t passing notes,” I said, alread bored with her bullshit.
“I saw you passing notes with (coworker) during the training.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No. You saw (coworker) pass me a note. You didn’t see me pass anything.”
Now she’s wrong, and she knows she’s wrong, but instead of owning it and apologizing, she doubles down.
“You two are in a position of leadership in this department. You shouldn’t be passing notes during a training session.”
“Did you have this conversation with (coworker)?”
“What?”
She knows she heard me, and I know she heard me, but I repeat myself anyway because she’s taking it there, and now we are both finna have this experience together. Everybody finna be mad.
“Did you have this conversation with (coworker)?”
“No, I didn’t. I’m talking to you. You are the one I saw with the note.”
“So you didn’t see the note get passed to me? You just saw it magically appear in my hand?”
She stands there blinking and looking dumb because she doesn’t know what to say.
“Linda, if you are worried about people passing notes, then you should talk to (coworker) about passing notes. You didn’t see me pass anything, and blaming me for a note getting passed to me is a little ridiculous.”
I didn’t even let her say anything else. I walked away.
Later, I got pulled aside by the Black woman manager in the department. She told me that Linda had come to her crying saying I was rude and mean to her when she came to talk to me about the note.
I told her that if we were going to have this conversation, Linda needed to be present. I told her it’s unfair of Linda to go running to (Black manager) and putting (Black manager) in the position of correcting and resolving an issue that Linda started.
Black manager agreed.
Black manager put us in a conference room together and let us talk.
Being the daughter of an attorney, I put Linda on the witness stand right in front of her peer. I was pissed, but I stuck to the facts. My questions and responses were very direct.
Literally me during the meeting:
At the end of the meeting, Black manager told Linda that she felt she owed me an apology. Linda apologized.
Then Linda went back outside, cried in the car like Red, and went home for the day after being consoled by LB.
LB came back in and told Black manager that Linda cried in the car like Red, and Black manager came and told me, and I went and told my bestie plus Marissa and we all laughed about it and went on with the rest of our lives.
Oops. I forgot to tell you who LB is.
LB, or “Linda’s Bitch” was this other white lady coworker we had. Before she became LB, she was regular old Julie. Julie was cool. LB was obnoxious.
Because LB was Linda’s Bitch in every sense of the word, she did very little each day beyond fetching Linda’s coffee, making copies for Linda, and generally sitting in Linda’s lap waiting for treats and belly rubs. The shit was embarrassing to watch, and that’s why as a collective, me, Marissa, sorority girl, my bestie, and a few other coworkers started calling her LB.
Don’t think we were messy and said it behind her back. We said that shit every day directly in her face because what the fuck was she going to do about it? We shortened it to LB so we wouldn’t get in trouble for cussing at work, but baby? We made sure she knew what LB stood for before we actively began using it as her moniker.
When we got this new busty Brit as an additional manager in our department, there was an impromptu meeting called so that she could meet the management team.
When I walked in the conference room, Linda, Busty Brit, Misty the quality assurance manager (yes, white) and Chobani the Greek (yes, another white lady), were already in the conference room sitting around the table having a very animated discussion about going “commando” when coming to work.
First of all, bitch, ew.
But second? What? Y’all are really sitting in the conference room at work having this conversation? You can’t be serious?
I was silent as I took my seat, They kept talking about it. A few other people straggled in, and the conversation continued. It’s worth mentioning that the management team was mostly women. When Black manager came in, they stopped talking about it and the meeting got started.
We go around the table, and everyone introduces themselves and says what they do. When it got to LB, she said “I’m Julie” and before she could finish, I said “But we call her LB,” and everyone around the table started laughing. LB kind of chuckled and then kept going with her introduction. The meeting ended, and we all went back to our desks.
Five minutes later, Linda shows up at my desk.
“Monique, can I ask you a question?”
“Yes.”
“What does ‘LB’ mean?”
I don’t like passive-aggressive shit, and this was a passive-aggressive question. You obviously already asked the girl why we call her LB, so why don’t you just come out with your true intention for standing over here or get the fuck out of my face?
Without looking at her, I asked, “What do you think it means?”
“Does it…does it mean ‘Linda’s Bitch’?”
“Yes,” I said and looked directly at her.
While this is happening, Marissa is over the wall from me with her head completely down on the table so Linda doesn’t see her laughing, and behind me at another desk, sorority girl has turned the color of a ripe tomato, and for those of you reading this who know who sorority girl is, you know what I’m talking about how she turns red when she’s laughing, and both she and Marissa are trying so hard to not audibly laugh, but I can tell it is very difficult, and Linda’s weak ass persists.
“I don’t think that’s very appropriate, and I’m offended. I could go to HR about this.”
“Before you head over there, would you say you are more offended by ‘LB’ than you are about the conversation in which you revealed you like to come to work with no panties on?”
She fucking gagged.
And by gagged my she was caught so fucking off guard that she stuttered and couldn’t find her words. I helped her out.
“See, Linda, you don’t get to be selective about what’s offensive. I walked in on you having an inappropriate conversation with our coworkers, and I found that offensive. You don’t think it’s offensive because you were involved in the conversation, but me openly talking about your human pet is somehow more egregious?”
She walked away and headed directly to Black manager because she thought this woman was the Black people whisperer or mammy or something, and she got clowned twice because Black manager once again told her I was right.
Linda once again went home crying.
Later that day, the one dude on the management team with us, a Mexican dude named Robert, came up to my desk and told me he heard what happened.
“I don’t think she likes me, homie,” I told him,
“Momo,” he said. “You know white people are sensitive. You can’t be so direct with them. It hurts their skin.”
That was 20 years ago in 2003.
Coco Gauff had to advocate for herself in the workplace this week, and I wrote about that for theGrio yesterday. Today, I wrote about the responses I’ve gotten from people after writing that — in particular, the way white people (NOT ALL, WE GET IT) will try to whitesplain Black women’s experiences to us as if they could every relate. Listen, not all white people, stop trying to whitesplain Black women’s experience in America.
Miscellaneous notes:
I have been doing a lot of professional writing as of late. My pen is extra busy, and I like it like that.
I have fallen down the rabbit hole that is the Black Cinema section of Tubi, and y’all. I need to write something about it because it is an experience. I am thoroughly entertained.
I am very into TikTok these days, and there are a bunch of things happening over there that I want to get into, but I’m still trying to organize my thoughts around it.
If you are not watching “Winning Time” on Max, you are missing it. As a Laker fan, I am thoroughly enjoying it.
The Gilded Age is coming back in October, and I am so happy. I absolutely love that show.
The Max show that continues to be a disappointment to me is “And Just Like That,” The writers don’t seem to know what to do with the Black and brown characters, and I wrote about that for Andscape.
I’ve also written about how Ron DeSantis makes it OK to be anti-Black in Florida; how Whiteness does not care about the comfort or education of Black students; Elon Musk’s boneheaded desire to remove the “block” feature from Twitter; the inherent anti-Blackness that is present in all of Edward Blum’s litigations; the “Fade in the Water;” how over my monthly period I am; the way people still want Megan Thee Stallion to be the villain even though Tory Lanez shot her; Whitney Houston in honor of her 60th birthday; and Michael Jackson in honor of his 65th.
I told y’all; I been writing.
I love this!
You are spectacular. This is a 10/10.