At work, every week we begin our team meeting sharing one personal, and one professional highlight. When it came to my time last week, I couldn’t share anything positive. Not one thing. It has been a rough couple of weeks. On this platform, I share that having a disposition of gratitude and finding hope in the midst of a storm is good and important. It’s a necessary perspective to have, in order to keep your mental and emotional health strong, but this week, this year, has been hard. The death of George Floyd and the racist acts of “Central Park Karen” sent me down an emotional spiral of pain, frustration and anger. I wanted to take PTO the day of the meeting, but I didn’t because my company isn’t doing well in the pandemic, and I did not want to take a mental health day, and inadvertently put my name on a layoff list. Nonetheless, I carried on in the way I do; in the way we all do, every time our people witness racial injustices. We go to work and carry out business as usual, despite our collective pain.
As my supervisor shared that her personal highlight was that her 10-month-old baby called her mama for the first time, I thought that she will never have to worry about something happening to her son like the mothers of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Bell, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Tamir Rice, and countless other Black bodies who have died due to dehumanization of African Americans.
My supervisor poached me again to provide a positive tidbit. I was looking at their faces and recognized that none of them were in the agony and pain I was in, from seeing my people being murdered at the hands of racism. I could not give them anything. Not a smile or a feign interest in their problems. I was too tired to care. There is a virus going on that is disproportionately killing Blacks, and we still have to deal with systemic racism.
I don’t have to tell you. You know. We are tired, but I will continue the mission of this blog and make sure we are collectively good. That we hold each other’s hands as we fight every challenge. That we uplift each other with every word. That we support one another through every endeavor. This blog will continue to affirm the regalness in our melanin.
I’m 100% with you! My coworkers were very concerned about me because the smile that usually is there wasn’t there and hasnt been there in days, I was grateful for the concern but it didnt change how I felt. Nor did it take away the thought that they probably didnt care!
Awww… Well you know at work or in work environments they’re taught to not discuss 3 things, not to discuss: politics, sex, or religion. Yes we are all in pain and I am just grateful the world is uniting now. Not just here in American, but all around the global. I actually cry often about it.