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Vote on Desiree Davidson's Story
Were they afraid we were planning a coup d'etat?
I spent my first summer during Columbia Law School at a firm in Philadelphia described as one of the best places in the city for black lawyers. I believed that if there was any place where I would have an equal chance at opportunities, be treated fairly and succeed, this would be it. There were three black female summer associates out of sixty that year but any time all three of us were in an office talking, one of the partners would knock on the door to see how we were doing. It happened too often to be a coincidence that sometimes we would purposely agree to meet in so-and-so's office to test our theory that we were being monitored. Like clock work, ten minutes after we would get together a partner would stop by.
Hadiya Nasir's Experiences
People at work would come up to me and ask, "How come Hamas is winning? They are terrorists." I would say, "I don't follow politics. I don't have time to follow the news. I haven't lived there for 13 years." They would make fun of me, but it was true.
I left a month ago and I am going through this trauma. They were doing things to harass me and I didn't report it. I didn't have the energy to fight. I didn't want to make things more complicated for myself.
When I went back to work, at the first meeting, my co-worker asked me, "Are you happy to come back? You're lying. You're not happy to come back." He put words in my mouth.
If I trusted someone and I would say to them, "I'm tired of living in the Bay Area. I want to move to warmer weather." Then my director would hear about it and the next time I saw him he'd say, "We'll
I was working with a consultant, who was just hired. In the first couple of days, he said to me, "You have an accent, right? Where are you from?" The way he said it, the way he was trying to get to know where I was from...my accent isn't Middle-Eastern and my looks, I could look Spanish or Italian, so the first few days he asked me.
People at work would call me mysterious and joke about belly-dancing. I would tell them that I started belly-dancing when I was three. It isn't the image you have of belly-dancing here. The belly-dancing for us is the body language we have for the rhythm.
At work people took everything I said and took it out of context. I am a Christian, but it didn't matter to them. They saw me as a threat. One time I said, "You know, Jesus was a Palestinian. He was born 15 minutes away from where I was born." It didn't matter.
Once I took my daughter to work with me. There was a lady in the restroom who said, "Your daughter looks exactly like you." She had a Russian accent, so I said, "Are you Russian?" She said yes and asked where I was from.
My co-workers ask me about movies or things on TV that I haven't seen. I have been here 13 years, but I don't have time to see all the movies or watch TV. I feel like I will never catch up. There is too much information.
They think I am anti-American, but I am not. If I share something with them and tell them, this is how I see the war in Iraq or how the U.S. support of Isreal is hurting my family, they will say, "Palestine never existed." I have to tell them "my family had to leave their homes when they were young.