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.
Harassment
Over the years I have experienced many instances of sexist comments and behavior, including jokes and harassment.
I was a Sr. Leader at my company and I had high hopes of going far. I worked very closely with another Latino straight man during a project.
When I was hired as a full-time employee at Kaiser Permanente, I found my new manager hated the manager I had worked for previously as a contractor, and she constantly tried to use me against her and trying to get me to speak "dirt" about her (using leading questions and even very subtle threats, like putting off my training schedule as long as I wasn't cooperating).
On the Friday before Christmas a senior associate came to my desk and said that he was "really happy that in this country we have the privilege of using racial slurs, whether it be kite (sic), n**** or rag****." He was happy we could use them because he felt it was the ultimate way to hurt a person. After agonizing over what he said during the holiday party, upon my return to work, I reported the offense to the office administrator. An investigation was done, and it was found that the attorney did, in fact, make racially discriminating statements.
These racial slurs accelerated after my return from my trip to Nigeria, Africa in November. The same senior associate stopped at my desk and made sounds like "OOOGAWA" and "OOOGA BOOGA" making fun of my heritage saying he was speaking African.
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.
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.
The stereotyping I have experienced wasn't in the workplace, but at work-related events, where there is a Southern, white boy network. If I'm at a party or an event and I'm in the room with a lot of white businessmen, they see my curly hair and they know something is different.
I was at a company where I was only one of two or three women on a team with nine men. The other women wouldn't speak up. When I started to speak up in meetings, there were more jokes made at my expense.
I showed up on my first day of work and a co-worker had put lines of coke on my desk. Later, he had had sex on my desk and he bragged about it. So I guess you could call that a hostile work environmen
