Tag: experiences

Wedding Guesting While Brown

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One important theme I’ve been hearing lately is “humanize.”  Whether it be from other writers, friends, colleagues, or a panel at the ACLU I’m hearing “humanize” your experience, your story, your struggle.  The more you humanize your story the less likely people are to accept laws, ideas, opinions, etc. to dehumanize, degrade or belittle you and people like you.  So a lot of this blog is stories about me and people like me to humanize us and our stories that may at times be unbelievable to those on the outside looking in.

After Barack Obama was elected there was a  lot of talk going around about how we lived in a post-racial America.  I could write and refer you to a ton of sources that can better explain how incorrect that idea was but that’s neither here nor there.  I bring this up because I really think it was the beginning of the political atmosphere that we live in today, where saying racist things-and not even trying to pass them off as a joke-is somehow OK now.

This story is a perfect example of the above and oddly enough friendship.  Way back when I met my Brown Girl Best Friend (BGBF) in Law School she had a friend who was not brown but we liked her anyway 😉  The three of us became relatively close, we hung out on the weekends and even studied for the bar together.  Turned out she and my best friend had some hometown ties so she came with other friends and for the most part most of them weren’t so bad.  To be honest they were from a completely different high school clique I would have ever hung out with but in adulthood I could handle their occasional camaraderie.

Honestly, I should have called my friendship with this girl a long time ago.  One night my BGBF, this girl and I went out to dinner.  We had a little too much to drink and started talking about politics.  There are some political issues that I can stretch my belief system enough to not hate the person after we are done talking about our respective “sides” but there are a few I do not budge on–the Right to Choose is one of my non-negotiables.  So we’re on this topic and this girl says (and I’m paraphrasing) I don’t think it’s fair that my taxes should pay for them (referring to inner city minorities) to get abortions, like after a certain amount we should force them to be sterilized.  Now I was heated at this point and I should have just gotten up and walked out but I didn’t I said something like sure I can see that point because “it’s your money” (UPDATE NO I FUCKEN CAN’T) but really we need to make birth control more accessible and sexual education better so that abortion isn’t the issue it’s become. There’s way more to this story but that’s the end of my aha moment where I should have realized that this was not someone I wanted to be friends with anymore.  The rest of this story isn’t my story to tell but if my BGBF ever wants to tell it BGT is here for it, honey! (insert shimmy)

Fast forward about three years later and this girl is getting married.  Like I said I didn’t cut off the friendship so we stayed friends-and avoided politics at all costs.  So she’s getting married I’m invited, my BGBF is invited and two of our other best friends are invited too.  As a quick background my BGBF and my friend 2/3 were my friends independently in law school and eventually they started dating and fell in love-I like to consider myself part of their relationship because besides my SO they are the only people I willingly share my burritos with, hence 2/3.  The 4th spot was a nice Michigan boy (NMB), also a great friend of ours in law school.  Those four people pretty much rounded out everyone I am thankful for meeting in law school and everyone I knew well at the wedding plus the bride and her husband.

This wedding takes place in a weird Red State in a weird Red City.  I stayed with my +2’s at my BGBF’s house and that’s what inspired My Best Friend. We got ready took the obligatory Prom pose photos and headed out.  If you’ve ever been to a wedding where you are part of a small group of invitees (i.e. not family or friends from childhood) you’re already feeling a little ehhh–what will the seating chart look like, when my +2’s are dancing to a slow song will they let me cut in the middle, etc. Anyways things were a little weird, I felt like my dress was a little too short maybe a little too tight, I wasn’t completely in love with my body or my hair so I had a lot of insecurities going in.  But like any good wedding guest, I drank and danced those away!  I danced with my BGBF and my 2/3 and I got a good laugh when NMB fell asleep in the men’s bathroom.

At the end of the night we were moving to an after party at some bar “downtown” which isn’t a real downtown but whatever.  So in this weird town 2/3 calls us a lyft or uber and it takes like 10 minutes for it to show up.  While we’re waiting outside for it, watching parents and sober drivers picking up guests 2/3 get’s a notification “you’re ride has started.”  Well this was a huge shock because we were all STANDING OUTSIDE and obviously not in the car.  So 2/3 calls the driver who answers and says something like “you’re in my car aren’t you?”

Turns out there was another group, two girls and guy that were in this car who had lied about being 2/3.  Luckily the driver was in this half circle driveway and she had to stop where we were before she could exit so she pulls up and tells the group that’s currently in her car to get out. 2/3 and my BGBF, NMB and his gf go to the back seat and solo dolo BGT heads to the front seat.  Everyone is confused and the girls in the car slowly start to get out of the backseat after they realize they’re in the wrong car but Taylor (that’s his real name) is not getting out.  He’s obviously drunk and disheveled and not really understanding what’s going on.  So I open the front passenger door and I’m like “Hi you’re in the wrong car can you please get out?”

Taylor is basically pretending to not hear me, is refusing to get out.  He keeps saying this is his car he’s not getting out so I’m just responding ok this isn’t your car though please get out-progressively sassier.  At this point I’m just standing by the door waiting for him to exit.  Finally after his chickies are yelling “Taylor get out! Taylor come on!” he starts getting out.  I will say I kept saying “ok well that’s great but you need to get out now,” over and over and over and over  in response to whatever he was saying until he finally got out.

So, he finally gets out wobbles, tries to balance and starts saying whatever bullshit he was saying.  He’s yelling at me and I’m responding something along the lines of “Ok that’s great please move,” because I’m trying to get into the car.  Slowly he’s wobbling closer to me and at one point I’m looking at this guy eye to eye, he’s not very tall, I’m much more sober than he is, I still have my heels and this too short dress on but my mind immediately goes into defense mode because he’s so close to me that at one point I thought he was going to become violent so I’m prepared to kick him in the balls should he lunge at me.

Then while standing about two inches from my face says “Shut the fuck up you fucken Mexican!”  This is when the record skipped.  First of all I thought he was for sure going to go the “Go back to Mexico you fucken Mexican!” route, which has also been shouted at me, but no… I respond “Oh wow fucken shocker you’re racist!” and in the moment I say that I realize that my forever 2/3 has somehow magically appeared standing between myself and Taylor and 2/3 and NMB are now physically moving him away from me. In this moment all of that weird stuff you feel when you go to a  wedding alone with a bunch of people you don’t know very well and kind of feel like you’re on your own fell to the waist side.  2/3 said somethings I can’t really remember but I think they included something about smashing Taylor’s face in.  They pushed him out of the way as he was screaming profanities, 2/3 put me in the car and we drove away.

NMB and his girlfriend decided to stay in the ruckus and so it was just my BGBF, 2/3 and the driver who was having the weirdest night of her damn life.  Turns out this was her first night driving and probably her last!  She witnessed the entire ordeal and began to apologize to me.  “I’m so sorry, this isn’t how we are here, I swear.”  “I feel so terrible about this.” We got dropped off, told the story to a few of BGBF’s friends who met us up, they all sincerely apologized-although it wasn’t their fault-and we just tired to let it go and have a good time.  We never met back up with the wedding party, thank god, because I was mortified.

Through the remainder of the night I just remember thinking-thank God that we weren’t going to see any of them because I was so embarrassed over what happened.  Somehow while a large group of people were waiting outside this dude felt like it was OK to 1. shout at me 2. degrade me using my ethnicity as an insult.  Like I’m not embarrassed of being Mexican, no, I’m proud of it I could write a book about all of the reasons why.  But this was a get out of my face, shut up, who do you think you are talking to, you Fucken Mexican.  And everyone there knew it was an insult and he meant it as such although it wasn’t to me.  Because my ethnicity isn’t an insult and it shouldn’t be used as one, but somehow everyone understood it to be just that.  I think what made me see red was not just that he used it as such but that everyone else there understood it as an insult too.  So of course following this I didn’t want to see any of them because I felt like I would have 1. died from embarrassment or 2. fought everybody in the bar while shouting “Being Mexican isn’t an insult!”

A part of me felt really bad that this would get back to my friend and she would feel so badly that this happened at HER wedding.  Embarrassed for herself and her friend that said it-maybe in a moment of drunkenness.  Embarrassed for me being the victim of that stupidity in an environment full of strangers.  By the end of the night I wished that we could all forget it happened-even her-and that we would never talk about it again.  Of course I didn’t forget and no one else did either and we told my BGBF’s sister and the next day she was ready to drive over to Taylor’s house and punch him in the face, she had already drafted a number of messages she was ready to send him and was ready to go to bat for me because she’s fucken tough (again see My Best Friend).  Eventually I flew back to the windy city and was thankful my friend was on a two week honeymoon so I didn’t have to see her for a while and relive this.

Honestly I was expecting her to reach out to me after she got back, “Hey I heard what happened, I’m so terribly sorry,” “My husband’s friends really laid into him after that and so did I…” something like that.  I didn’t see her or talk to her again until my BGBF and 2/3 moved back to the City and we all got together for a welcome back party at her house.  I was nervous hoping that this wouldn’t be brought up, this party was basically everyone who was at her wedding and saw what happened, and I just wanted to proceed as normal.

For the most part it did until after a few drinks some of her girlfriends were saying how they hadn’t seen me since the wedding and asking how I’d been.  I was working crazy hours and my BGBF was living in DC so I wasn’t doing a lot of socializing in general but I definitely wasn’t avoiding socializing.  To that comment, my friend responded “Well you know I just stopped inviting you places because you never come out.” This is the first time we had seen each other since her wedding and this is the bullshit she said to me.  I responded with something like yeah I’ve been really busy and kept eating my burrito-yeah I’m the girl that brought a burrito to the party.  But seriously THE FUCKEN NERVE.  This girl really thought that she was the one that stopped talking to me.  She thought that she said ok I’m done with this friendship.  Newsflash: I stopped talking to you because your friend is a racist piece of shit and you did and said nothing to defend me.  Per usual someone in a position of privilege completely ignored the situation then flipped the problem so it was a me at fault not her or her friend, typical.  I can’t say I was surprised…believe them the first time they show you who they are, right?…

There’s a lot of turns I could have taken with this post and I didn’t know where it was going to go until I started writing.  Like fuck these small town, small mind assholes, am I right?!  Let’s burn that town to the ground!!  But my life’s theme is fuck this shit/scorched earth policy, so  after a few years of reflecting on this I decided not this time.  I’m choosing optimism because reliving and writing about this made me feel better not worse.

As disheartening as that entire experience was-I saw someone who I thought was my friend’s true colors-I love what it gave me.  It showed me I had the strength to walk away from a friendship that no longer served me and how that feels when you’re in that situation.  It reminded me how vital it is to not compromise your integrity and who you are because you think you need friends in a new place.  And it showed me that if you put people in their comfort zone their true feelings come out, ask Taylor.

More importantly though, it gave me this beautiful reminder of how even in a sea of terrible-I wasn’t alone and not everyone there was awful.  My forever 2/3 stepped up without me having to ask-maybe my BGBF asked him to and I didn’t realize but he didn’t have to.  His actions spoke volumes to me and his future fiancé.  I thank him every time we sit down for a meal together by letting him eat off my plate before I’ve decided I’m done, a privilege that I normally reserve for my significant other.  If you haven’t noticed food is a big deal for Brown people and sharing your food is a big deal.  I hope this realization serves as YOUR reminder that not every white guy is awful and doesn’t understand, some are on their way to being woke and if you’re lucky-like me you might just befriend one.

 

Do Not Come For Me

Published on by browngirltalksblog3 Comments

Sometimes when I think back at some of the crazy discriminatory experiences I’ve had I make up how I should have responded.  I’m sure you’ve done this too.  After an argument with someone, a debate, etc., you’re just like oh I should have said that! or Why didn’t I think of that!?  Then, for weeks and weeks you’re replaying how you would re-address that person if you had the opportunity.  This happens to me a lot.  I could (and probably will) write about how someone did/said something to me and I stood silent, unable to think of a come back witty or intelligent enough in that split second.  But, there’s only so much a girl can take!..Am I right?!  So, here’s one about how I finally stood up for myself.  I’ll warn you it wasn’t the confrontation that I had day dreamed about, but it was damn good if you ask me.

So, once upon a time I worked at a firm.  I really liked everyone I worked with and this in no way reflects who they are.  But, one person that always did me dirty (for no reason) was my boss.  For anonymity and because I’m truly not trying to shit on anyone I worked with here I won’t name my employer.  My boss was basically your typical I say what I want and if it offends you then I’m sorry but that wasn’t my intention type of guy.  For context, once he dropped me off at home and said that I probably understand what my clients are going through because I lived in such a shitty neighborhood, just like them!  I mean not only was he shitting on the fact that I owned piece of real estate at a very young age, my proudest accomplishment, but he was cutting my paychecks at the time and he was dropping me off in a Lexus.  So I think that said more about him than it did about me because newsflash: that’s all I could afford at the time!  That’s a light example of the shit he used to say about me, to my face.

I could tell you all the details about what prompted the letter below but I promise you IT DOES NOT MATTER.  As you’ll read, he told me that I wasn’t on a partner track at my firm because I hadn’t transitioned from being Jenny from the Block to being JLo.  This was over text message (I got the receipts if you think I’m lying) and I was so shocked when I read this that I didn’t know how to respond so I said something about how I hadn’t done what he thought I did that warranted his text (spoiler alert: nothing could warrant that text) and he shit on me a little more.  I worked there a whole year while looking for other jobs after this happened and finally I found somewhere I wanted to go and left.

I could legitimately write a book about the things I went through dealing with that man but this is about how Brown Girl got her Bruja Back not him!  So, below is an abridged letter I left on his desk my last day of work.

As I wasn’t afforded the opportunity to have a conversation with you regarding my leaving this office, I debated whether it was even necessary to shed some light on my seemingly unexpected departure.  The reasons I am leaving are still very much present in this office and affecting other female attorneys and employees alike, and I feel it necessary to make it absolutely clear the reason for my decision to leave.  At most, I hope you read this and reflect on what I’ve said and take actual steps to change, and at the least, I hope it has put you and this firm on notice of the pattern of discriminatory treatment of women in your office, namely women of color.

In the three years I have practiced here, it has been a constant battle to contort myself to meet the unrealistic and illogical expectations you have set forth.  Those expectations, however, are common to every attorney in this office. It is the expectations and negative light in which you cast me that I have never been able to meet or change.  When I started at this firm, I worked diligently and committed myself to this office. If I was asked to do something, I did it.  I made it very clear from the beginning that I wanted a job here after law school and upon graduation I was offered one. This position was something I earned.

“This position was something I earned.”

As I started practicing I noticed that there were things you were saying to me that you weren’t saying to the other female attorneys in this office and things you would criticize me about for which the other women didn’t get criticized.  On a number of occasions you told me I was aggressive, that I needed to polish myself, that I was intimidating and that I had a tough personality that at times made it difficult to get along with me. At one point, you even told me that if I was lucky, I could polish myself to the point that people would actually listen to me when I spoke, like Suzy (not her real name), who at that point you had only interviewed but had somehow already decided she was a more polished version of me.  I began to feel that I was being pigeonholed as this rough, urban, neck snapping minority attorney who people did not take seriously.  I initially thought, this is bullshit, I have had office jobs before this and no one has ever told me this, he’s just picking at me.  But somehow these negative characteristics and ideas started to create a trend between you and me and at the end of any talk we had you’d leave me with a little tid bit about how you thought I would be a better attorney if I was nicer, if I added some sugar to my emails, if I wasn’t rough and/or aggressive.  I decided that I would focus on “polishing” my personality and, more importantly, on working my ass off at this firm to show that even if I did have some personality traits you didn’t like, that my work would carry me.  Soon I saw that alone wasn’t enough.

In the fall of 2015, I decided that I was finally in a financial position to take my mom and me on a vacation.  What followed here marked the beginning of the end for me in this office.  I worked hard all year to build up time and wrack up settlements so that when I decided to have this conversation with you, you could see how I had been preparing my caseload for an extended absence.

This letter, for the record, was written with no attitude, aggression or malice, and despite the tone you have read it in to this point, I haven’t snapped my neck once. 

At one point I admit that maybe my delivery in asking for this time off wasn’t the best; however, looking back it’s clear that the only reason you read my email (or any email I’ve ever sent you) in that negative, demanding and aggressive tone you read it in was because of how you think of me: an aggressive, demanding person of color who couldn’t possibly be writing a professional email to you. This letter, for the record, was written with no attitude, aggression or malice, and despite the tone you have read it in to this point, I haven’t snapped my neck once.  The back and forth that followed my request for time off was riddled with personal insults and even saying that my parents should be grateful to you for employing me after law school.  I realized then that no matter what I did you would always see me this way—an inner city girl who you turned into an attorney and who was your work in progress, constantly trying to polish her up to make her fit in.

The events that transpired in the last few weeks of December solidified my need to move on from this office.  One Wednesday evening, I asked for permission to leave early to get drinks with an office contact. I was constantly trying to polish myself so, I asked you. You didn’t respond, I told him we would need to take a rain check and I worked a normal late Wednesday night.  The following morning I received some of the most insulting text messages I have ever received in my life, professionally and personally.  You questioned my maturity in even thinking it was appropriate for asking for permission, and that I wasn’t on a partner track because I had not yet transitioned from Jenny from the Block to J. Lo and that Jenny from the Block was no longer cute.  I read those text messages while I was at court, covering cases that weren’t mine, and when I got done I walked outside and cried.  I cried because it hurt my feelings, yes, but I also cried because I knew that I was fighting an uphill battle at this office for a successful career.  I cried because no matter what I did, at the end of the day all I was to you was a girl from Englewood, who has a pitbull and snaps her neck when she talks.  It didn’t matter that I had performed for you and outperformed myself year after year.  I realized that the reasons you saw me negatively were for traits I had no control over—my gender, my race, my upbringing—it wasn’t for the things I could change or polish.

“Jenny from the Block was no longer cute.”

All of a sudden it all started to make sense—me being too aggressive, not being polished, buttoned up, etc., those were all just negative stereotypes you had assigned to me because of who I was and where I was from rather than because of what I did or my performance as an attorney.  All of these things I am proud of and have allowed me to relate to clients in a way no other attorney in this office can. Being an advocate for injured plaintiffs who hail from the inner city and are minority is something that has always felt natural to me and something you should have seen as an asset to your firm, but you never did. And that’s why I’m leaving, I don’t think the things you say and the way you think of me is a bad analogy. I think it’s a flawed fundamental problem with how you see women of color and that view clouds your judgment and makes you discriminatory and purposefully insulting.

“…those are some of my favorite parts about myself.”

I could have left and stayed silent on this matter, but I chose not to. It’s not because I want revenge or that I’m malicious, it’s because I want to make sure that you never treat someone else how you treated me and I have seen signs that you have already started down this path with other female attorneys.  The least I can do is advocate for whoever comes next and hope that they don’t face the same discrimination I did.  I welcome a conversation with you regarding these issues, but at the very least I ask that you place yourself in my father’s shoes and imagine how you would feel if you read the emails or texts that you sent to me.  If you can’t as a professional see the problem then maybe as a human you can.  All of the things you thought were negative about me: my race, my upbringing, my gender are all things I can’t control.  But, those things never affected me practicing law and to be honest, those are some of my favorite parts about myself.

 

When I first wrote this letter I didn’t have any intentions of actually giving it to him.  I did it more as a therapeutic exercise (shout out to my best friend who recommended it!).  But after feeling all that pain and basically reliving all of the terrible things he had said to me I decided I didn’t want to be someone who just suffered in silence anymore I wanted to stand up and say my piece, not just for me but for every woman (of color and not) that would ever cross his path again.  Annnnddd I wanted to stop being the bitch titty that I normally am when people say and do completely rude and ignorant things to me and damn right I was starting with him.  Brown Girl came for him because he came for me.

I’ll tell you in that year that I was preparing to exit, I learned a lot about myself and others.  I secretly hoped and thought that after my co-workers read the texts and learned the details that there would be some kind of historical uprising and we would effectuate change together…that never happened.  I don’t blame them though, you’ll see why below.  However, the most supportive responses I got was from my family–my brother in particular said it took every ounce of self-control in his body to not react like he wanted to–leave it to a Brown Brother, right!?  But, I’m glad he didn’t react because it gave me a chance to come into my own and realize what “I got your back” truly means.  I had a brother who was feeling all of the emotions I was feeling.  I had a boyfriend who said if I never wanted to go back to work I didn’t have to that he would cover me until I could find somewhere else to work.  I had parents who told me I could come back home if I didn’t want to step foot back in that office and couldn’t afford to pay rent.  I had friends and co-workers who told me how good of an attorney I was and how I didn’t deserve any of the things he said to me.

But besides all that, for a year I was kicking myself in the face everyday and every time I settled a case or made my firm money because I hadn’t stood up for myself. After I left I realized that no matter how much you or anyone else believes in a cause there is always something that can hold you back from outwardly supporting it–you’re too embarrassed, you don’t want to shock your friends at how passionate you are about a topic, you don’t want to be the person who is taking over peoples’ news feeds, you don’t want to be the one to get involved and rustle the water.  Hell I have fallen victim to this too, we all just want to seem like we’re chill after all don’t we?  I for one can say I’m much braver behind my keyboard writing this blog than I ever was to my ex boss’s face, but I decided to start doing my part and stop making excuses.  I started with that letter.  I decided enough was enough and to keep the impetus of writing that letter going (and the forever hangover that was the election) I started this blog and have been really trying to keep it a safe and encouraging conversational zone ever since.

I guess my take away from all of this was that there comes a time when you can’t be too embarrassed, too shy, too reserved or too worried about what other people will think.  You should stand up for yourself or someone else who’s the victim of discrimination, prejudice or unfair treatment of any kind, no one should be expected to tolerate that.  Given our country’s climate, I’d say that time is now to be proactive.  When my parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and friends read this blog and this particular story I hope they’re proud of what I did and how I decided to be someone who isn’t afraid anymore.  This is how I have decided to start, how will you?