For the most part, I’m pretty good at doing me. But If I were to step outside my body and watch myself in situations where I’m the only Black guy in the room, particularly at work, I’d see me doing a me that’s not quite me.
Though I don’t use African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in my everyday life, I constantly code switch around White people when I’m on the clock. I adjust my behavior. I soften my edges. I like to think of myself as being a fairly congenial person, but I’m passionate and opinionated — and I can be loud, too. When you’re passionate, opinionated, loud, and Black in a room full of White people, it can be unsettling to them.
I don’t want to be seen as the scary Black man — the one that has haunted White people’s nightmares since the days when a Negro uprising was a Southern slaveowners biggest fear, which made the latter even more brutal. It’s the reason why so many unarmed Black men get shot by cops, the reason why the very idea of a Black Lives Matters protest offends and frightens some White Republican politicians more than those videos of the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
It’s the reason why I watch my tone at work. I don’t censor myself. I say what I have to say. That said, I am always sure to keep my voice down and make my points as if I were a friendly college lecturer. I could watch Fred Hampton speak for hours, but most White people didn’t want to hear a Black man keeping it that real in the late ’60s. I believe that kind of realness coming from us still makes a lot of White people squirm.
Speaking softly at work has generally worked in my favor. I’ve forged good professional relationships, and most of my past and present colleagues probably would say I’m a pleasure to work with. A casual observer might call me a classic “people pleaser.” My therapist did when I tried therapy for one summer 18 years ago. While people-pleasing is no doubt a source of my chronic anxiety, it’s also had its perks. I suspect my personality — the gift I have for putting people immediately at ease — has gotten me as far in my career as my skills.
A former boss once told me she would rather hire a kind person with average talent than a ridiculously talented monster. I wonder what she would have made of the ridiculously talented White colleague at another gig who became the bane of my professional existence for the way she constantly talked down to me. I typically tried to shrug it off because it was usually in private settings. Then one day she did it publicly, during a meeting, and I snapped. I gave as good as I got — maybe even better.
I won’t delve into the details of what happened, but I knew the way she spoke to me wasn’t necessarily personal or racially motivated. I wasn’t the only coworker to be regularly on the receiving end of her condescension.
Every time she talked down to me, though, she was talking down to someone who brought a specific history and perspective to the interactions, someone who constantly felt like an outsider because of the color of my skin, someone who had spent a lifetime being underestimated and undervalued because of it. We all carry our life experiences around with us like heavy loads, and they influence and dictate how we respond to the world.
The day she talked down to me publicly, as if I were her underling and not a fellow senior staffer, the weight on my shoulders came crashing down to the ground. It landed with a thud. Later that day, a coworker told me he hadn’t really been paying attention during the meeting until he heard me raise my voice and finally do me — the real me, the me who doesn’t give a fuck what White people think of me outside of work.
“I knew that couldn’t have been good,” he said. “You are always the last person to lose your cool.”
She was acting like a White woman trapped in an elevator with a scary Black man. Or like Central Park Amy Cooper shouting at a mild-mannered Black bird watcher.
He, like most of my White colleagues then and now, don’t realize how much effort that takes. Keeping my cool is not in my nature, which my husband can confirm. The colleague who got a rise out of me that day naturally clapped back. Then she continued her rant in a series of private text messages to me. She was acting like a White woman trapped in an elevator with a scary Black dude. Or like Central Park Amy Cooper shouting at a mild-mannered Black bird watcher.
Only I wasn’t so mild-mannered. She’d started it, but I gave as good as I got. At one point, she mentioned that she had cut and pasted my comments, presumably to forward them to the higher ups. It was a very “I’m taking a picture and calling the cops. I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life” moment.
Of course, my condescending colleague didn’t get it. She’d never been the only Black guy in an office full of White people. She didn’t understand why, for me, her tone was a problem, or why our interaction that day wasn’t just another on-the-clock tiff. For me, the entire exchange unfolded like a series of microaggressions.
She backed down a bit and said she wanted to talk on the phone about what happened so she could understand why I was upset with her. I told her we needed to have that conversation face-to-face, which, for me, is the best way to have important discussions at work. I spent the next week going over in my head exactly what I wanted to say to her.
I wanted to be sure to make the point I needed to make, which was basically that I expected to be treated with the respect I’d earned in my profession, the same level of respect I extended to my colleagues. But if I’m being completely honest, I was mostly thinking about her. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I didn’t want to set her off. I didn’t want to make her feel bad. Even in my head, I was tiptoeing around a White person’s feelings.
And that’s exactly what Black people have been doing for centuries. White people’s feelings, like their lives, always seem to matter more. Meanwhile, the livelihoods of Black people — and sometimes our very existence — can depend on our being as beige as we can be.
For some of us, it’s what we have to do to thrive at work. For some of us, it’s what we have to do to win at life. For some of us, it’s what we have to do to stay alive.
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Jeremy Heligar's work on Medium.