On Blackness and Being A Team Player

Being Black is being told you're not a team player for not allowing a workplace to place a metric ton of work and stress on your shoulders while you watch your “affable” co-workers of pallor do the barest of bare minimums while being lauded as great people.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player because you don't want to participate in work parties and picnics and prefer doing your job, doing it well, then going home to live the life you've worked so hard to create in a white supremacist capitalist society.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player because you have boundaries that you enforce and reinforce with co-workers who have none.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player because you don't want to be friends with every person of pallor in your office looking to capture a “Black friend” to co-sign their racist nonsense.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player and being subjected to oppressive actions and attitudes in the workplace that aim to break you and push you into assimilation or conformity as a fraudulent means of survival.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player so much that you start wondering if it's your name.

But real talk?

Being Black eventually comes with the realization that most of y'all don't know what a team player is because y'all are too busy being mired in the nonsense of white supremacist likeability politics.

But you know, keep telling Black folx we’re not team players while we're some of the only ones scoring points for the team.

On Defense, Defensiveness, and the White Supremacy Defense Handbook

I will never be shocked at how often people of pallor jump in to defend other people of pallor for doing and saying hateful, harmful, racist, and oppressive things. At work, on social media, in public - most people of pallor never fail to "stand in solidarity" with other people of pallor, even after witnessing their harmful words and actions firsthand.

That's page 76 of the white supremacy defense handbook, right?

I will never be shocked that the defenders of pallor constantly ask those whom people of pallor harm to "assume positive intent" whenever they harm us, even if there isn't one crumb of positive intent one could discern from their actions.

If memory serves me correctly, that's chapter 5: the good/bad binary as a tool of oppression.

I will never be shocked that people of pallor still react to those they harm not buying the "positive intent" sales pitch by referring to chapter 8 of the white supremacy defense handbook in which those harmed by white supremacy are supposed to constantly be ready to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that harm has occurred, even after people of pallor witness the harm with their own eyes.

I will also never be shocked when people of pallor and their defenders send me and people like me private messages or want to push for a conversation away from witnesses to plead their case and drain the batteries of those they have harmed or watched get harmed by expecting those they've harmed to educate them when they do not want to be educated—they want to be “proven right” or feel justified in their actions.

I think that's also chapter 8, but I could have an old copy of the book.

What's that, you say? There are no new editions? And that y'all been rockin' with the same handbook for 100+ years?

But of course.

I'm not even shocked.

When You're Here, You're Family? Nah, I'm Tight.

Here’s your Thursday reminder to not pledge your devotion to your employer. Keep that sh— transactional. Please don’t get your feelings all up in it. You can care about your work, but do not buy into being a “company man/woman/person.”

No matter what they say, they do not care about you the way you care about your work or the people you serve.

Don’t let them hit you with the Dominic Toretto monologues and Olive Garden catchphrases to suck you in with that “work family” jibba-jabba.

You deserve better than anything they can ever offer you.

Look at how they treat your colleagues. Look at how they talk about the people you serve.

Do you think they deserve your unwavering allegiance?

[Image description: an exterior shot of an Olive Garden restaurant.]

Image description: an exterior shot of an Olive Garden restaurant.

This Week's Opening Thought: May 6, 2024

This week's opening thought: Every Black and Brown person I know, every person of culture I know, has a kazillion skills and proficiencies at their disposal. It comes with the territory of being melanated in a world of pallor. Many of us have random skills we've acquired because we had moments where we've worked jobs to survive or added something to our repertoire to keep the jobs we have. I've been working since the age of 13. I've worked in everything from retail to non-profits and colleges. I've worked with contractors and programmers. I've managed multiple storefronts and led numerous teams in leadership roles. I've trained people in every sector you can think of. I have a wide array of skills and experiences I can draw upon in almost any situation.

And that's why I only show about 10% of what I know 95% of the time, tailored to the job.

You see, white supremacy drives people of pallor to only be "impressed" by people like me if I somehow constantly provide proof that I'm qualified to be considered impressive. And after you do all of that showing and proving? White supremacy dictates that you're supposed to accept being used by people of pallor to cover the deficiencies and dysfunctions of workplaces and systems that you're not welcome in. The more skills you bring to the table, the more workplaces of pallor believe you should do.

Of course, this doesn't extend to the people of pallor working in these workplaces who are given leeway to be mediocre. They don't have to be exceptional. They just need to be likable, pliable, average, and meet the bare minimum work requirements to be considered a "team player."

Melanated folx never have that luxury.

I can count on both hands twice how many folx in leadership roles have tried to use me because they saw I had a skill that had nothing to do with my job but was lacking in their workplaces. And I can count again how many times I put up a boundary only to be punished and be told that I'm "not a team player."

The "workhorse/pack mule" ideology that is at the base of white supremacy still exists in the brains and bodies of people of pallor and the workplaces they've created. Workplaces of pallor make it known that melanin will always equal being expected to do way more than you signed up for and having every skill you have exploited as your co-workers of pallor get raises and promotions they didn't earn.

If you're a person of culture reading this, you're likely overqualified for your job. You've probably got years of real-world work experience and skills you've learned. Five problems are going on in your workplace that you have a solution for. But these workplaces don't deserve all of you. They haven't earned all of you. Don't let them walk you into a co-dependency trap driven by white supremacy. Keep your skills you don't get paid for to yourself.

Let one of those higher-paid mediocre co-workers you're surrounded by every day figure it out.

On Being Called the "Whisperer"

Hey, people of pallor with power and privilege and those who seek to curry the favor of white supremacists and "societal norms!" Here's your Wednesday reminder that a person being melanated and sharing their experiences navigating white supremacy in your workplace does not mean that person wants to be your "racism whisperer." The same goes for queer-identifying folx not wanting to be your "LGBTQIAA+ whisperer" and people with disabilities not wanting to be your "disability whisperer."

We didn't sign up for that.

We want to do our jobs well enough to be proud of our work and keep our jobs while dodging your ever-increasing scrutiny of our work due to your unwillingness to unpack your sh-- and then go home. If we share an experience we've had with you in the workplace, it was likely shared to educate you to the point that you will hopefully quit doing us and people like us ongoing harm.

You will never pay us enough to be a "whisperer" about anything in your white supremacist workplace environments. No money can ever supplant that sick feeling we often get in our guts when we have to be around you, listen to you say hateful and ignorant things, and mull over when is the right time to educate you instead of telling you where to go and how to get there. No money will ever aid our nervous systems in not feeling like the moment we put ourselves out there to gently call you in or teach you that our livelihoods are in danger. No money will ever make us feel OK with being tokenized by you, pushed to share our stories repeatedly with you, or make the number of boundaries we must have while in your workplace to exist and not be harmed by you feel any less burdensome.

Leave us be and digest what we shared with you. Own your actions instead of commodifying human beings.