Holding my tongue has seemed to be my legacy as a black woman. Black women sit silently and suffer the abuse and degradation experienced at home, in the workplace, walking down the street, hell, by just EXISTING. We are considered by many the lowest on the totem pole (even by black men no less) and do not have the luxury or privilege of expressing true emotion lest we be labeled "angry," "difficult," "unruly," "unfeminine," etc. WE are threatening and hostile unless we are smiling, happy and gay at all times.
Working in the professional semi-corporate and corporate world over the last ten years made that abundantly clear. I have been fired from jobs where I was incredibly competent and qualified because I was not viewed as a team player and was difficult to work with. I was labeled this for a number of actions that when committed by black women are viewed as grave offenses. When I came through the office in the morning, if I did not say good morning first or say hello first, I was considered unfriendly. White women who came in after me and didn't speak to me first or say hello first were not. If I wasn't smiling constantly, I was in a bad mood. Yet white women in my office who hardly smiled at all were not deemed so. If I'm in court and taking care of business for my clients and not chit chatting with my colleagues, I'm anti-social. White women who do the same are not.
Holding my tongue is often strategic. And I continually have to be shit on because we live in a world where I literally cannot get shit done unless I'm going out of my way to let someone else shit on me. Case in point: The other day I called opposing counsel, an older white man, to inquire if we could settle the case in a particular manner. He emailed me and after starting his email with a version of "I'm not coming at you through the lens of patriarchal white male privilege so don't take it that way" proceeded to spew his patriarchal white male privilege all over that email and shit on me. I cannot imagine that this man would have emailed another white man or even black man for that matter taking them to task for how they run THEIR business, criticizing their office procedures, their voicemail set up and mock their manner of speaking (he actually referred to my concise statement about the subject of my call as "hemming and hawing") over the course of two full paragraphs before getting down to business. Yes. He did that.
And I as looked at that email and hit reply, I had to really consider how I was going to respond. If I was going to call him out for shitting on me or if I was just going to keep my mouth shut because I needed him to agree to settle on this case and didn't trust that he could remain professional; afterall, he did just send me that email which aside from being unprofessional was also inappropriate, unwelcome, offensive and insulting to me as a colleague and as a black woman. He knew exactly what he was doing. And once again, I would have to hold my tongue.
