Browse Stories
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.
I was thinking of Joanne Carroll, Mary Tyler Moore
- Workplace Unfairness
- Female
- African-American
- Computers, Hardware
- Left & is now Self-Employed
- Personal Care & Service
- Being Yourself
I remember getting the corporate job after graduate school and feeling like I had won the lottery. My mom was telling everyone at bridge meeting for a long time that I had gotten into the company. It was a feather in her cap. But I had no idea about what the cost was. It took me quite some time to have the courage to share that with my family and to take a stand for my life and do the things that mattered to me. I had a relationship to the corporation like it was a parent. It was there to take care of me. It was there to look out for me. But the corporation was business. It attracts people of a certain vibration. I was around a bunch of people and - who they were didn't jive with who I was. I would have never known this much about myself without being in a place surrounded by people different for me. I want to be a leader and share the story of how this goes. This isn't what the textbook says it is. I was thinking of Joanne Carroll, Mary Tyler Moore. Those women are characters. They are made up. I want to let people know what it really is. It was hard to walk away from that lottery ticket. But if I hadn't I would have stopped painting. My light would have gone out.