When Being Good at Your Job is Never Enough
Submitted by Ife Herd
I’ve been working in retail since I was 17 and it really has brought me a great deal of stress. They say “try not to take work home with you” and vice versa but NOBODY ever tells you how invisible it makes you feel or how emotionally draining the encounters can leave you, especially being a Young Black Woman.
Customers will walk right by me and some even walk away from me once they see someone who isn’t me, a Black Woman. The blatant disregard for me isn’t always my issue because those people have made a choice in how they want to deal with me. It’s the ones who spew microaggressions at me with a smile on their face. My coworkers that just assume I’m from Jane and Finch because of its negative reputation and it’s a predominantly Black neighbourhood, even after I’ve already shared my actual location. It’s the random assumption that I was born somewhere else and that I, too, am an immigrant. It’s being asked by my 6ft, tall MANager to fix and move things around the store.
Since I am the only Black PERSON in the store I work in, the blatant racism and arrogance from customers AND workers is a lot more abrasive. The neighbourhood is a predominantly White and Asian demographic so please just imagine the entitlement that walks through. I am not seen here! I’ve had people walk into me, try to physically push me out the way because they feel like that’s how I should be treated by them.
I’m just a Black Woman who is really going to care?
I am emotionally and mentally exhausted and it’s begun to show in my work ethic. It’s extremely hard for me to continue to have a passion for my job because I’m constantly devalued. My feelings as a human being are already not valid thanks to the generations of systemic oppression that leave me feeling so helpless.
I am smart, I am educated, I am the RIGHT choice but I will ALWAYS get overlooked because I’m just not White enough. Coming to this realization is heartbreaking and it’s only since I turned 20 when the interactions started to really leave a mark on me and left me with a feeling of confusion and even more resentment.
I feel as though I will always be looked at as just a Black Woman. And I say that with disgust and hatred as if I were to spit after saying the words “Black Woman”. Those feelings I just created for you are REAL. It’s how we’re viewed and it’s what I FEEL. It doesn’t matter what I bring to the table, how educated I am or how qualified I am, I will always just be viewed as another Black Woman.
So how do I manage? How do I deal with all of this? I cope by taking a moment to relax and breathe. I assess the bigger picture of the situation by remembering that I’m not the problem. There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s them. I can’t control how others view me or mistreat me but I can control how I react to the situation. I refocus myself by sticking to the task at hand and do my best not to allow the negativity and hatred of others to get to me. It’s a difficult way to cope because I can only take so much.
You’d think that given the current situation and since retail workers are considered frontline workers, we’d be given grace due to being forced to work through unfavourable conditions. You’d think that people would be a little more compassionate and understanding. You’d assume that “we’re all in this together” - so I can expect others to be just a little kinder during this time. But it’s the opposite. Instead, I find the people in my work environment to be more miserable by projecting their anger and frustration with me. Just working through the pandemic is already a challenge on its own. Being a black woman, my struggles working in retail are amplified.
The next time you go to your local retail store - remember this: Acknowledge black women. See us as human beings. Our lives matter just as much as anyone else regardless of my race or gender.
This is our job. We come to work to make a living. We do our best on the job. We clock out and go home to our families, we have feelings, we’re overwhelmed just like everyone else. We have a life outside of this job. Don’t see me just as a black person that you can disregard; see me as a human being.
Many black people, specifically black women, are going through it. I deserve to get treated like a human being and treated like I want to live and be happy. There are various people within my work environment - customers, coworkers, managers, even package delivery people - that overlook me and ignore me. As black women we can’t just work, we have to do our tasks at work AND deal with the environment we’re working in. No matter how well we do our jobs, we’re faced with disrespect and mistreatment from those around us.
The Black Lives Matter movement got the most recognition this year than we’ve ever seen. We are finally starting to have our voices heard. People are finally starting to take action. The movement doesn’t just stop at posting black squares, protesting in the streets, attending your diversity & inclusion meetings, donating, and signing petitions. The real work is shifting your mindset to understanding our experience and advocating in every way possible to change that. Challenge your unconscious bias. Ask yourself daily, “how you can be a better global citizen and advocate for those that are ignored and devalued?”
Be a little kinder to black women - tip restaurant workers, greet your coworkers, engage in conversation with black women. Get to know us and get better at listening to us.
Our lives matter. Black lives matter. Black women’s lives matter.
Additional Links/Sources
A little history about this blog’s photo and its relation to this herstory:
The black woman in this photo for this blog post is Elizabeth Ann Eckford. The morning of September 4, 1957, she was among the first set of black students to attend Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. She was a part of the Little Rock Nine that attended a newly integrated school. This brought hundreds of protesters on the first day of school to show their anger for allowing black people to go to what was previously a “whites-only” school. This photo was taken after she was prevented from entering the school and highlights her being threatened and surrounded by an angry gang of white people.
This only happened 63 years ago. Elizabeth is 79 years old today and still alive. Though it seems we’ve come along way, we actually have so much further to go. Today, black people globally are still being mistreated, threatened, and targeted by white and other non-black people of colour.
Elizabeth Ann Eckford, age 15, surrounded by an angry white mob, at Little Rock Central High School on the first day of the school year, September 4, 1957.