The glass conference room looked out onto the parking lot, Lake Shore Drive, and in the distance, Lake Michigan. The sun was already high, and the heat of the day had pressed in. Rachel, my supervisor, sat across the glass table. I eased into one of the conference chairs, careful not to let it roll out from under me.
Rachel had scheduled the meeting on my calendar just 15 minutes before I arrived at work. It was titled “Going Forward,” one of those vague corporate phrases that never bodes well.
She had only been with the company for eight weeks. We hadn’t yet established a strong working relationship. It wasn’t our first one-on-one, but it was the first that showed me what was coming. It marked the beginning of a tense dynamic that chipped away at me until, a year and a half later, I found myself at my desk, wondering if I had to completely break to have someone recognize the harm I was carrying.
“As a woman,” she said, “I will no longer let my voice go unheard.”
For me, it was a moment of tone deafness and a clear signal that she would make everything about her. I am a Black woman. Both my race and gender are silenced in these spaces, and her words erased that reality. My voice isn’t often welcome in rooms like this, so her opening felt less like solidarity and more like a monologue.
