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.
Manager
When the new Vice President of Diversity was brought on I was hopeful that she would be supportive of the LGBT community.
People's experience varied depending on where you were in the agency and how enlightened your manager was.
I was recruited to help form the first Asian American employee group in our organization. When I went to speak to the general manager about it, he was very uncomfortable and really suspicious.
I told my manager once, "You are not going to retain good staff if you don't value employees." His only response was, "Well, that's how we manage our employees.
When I was working for a pharmaceutical company, I went on a sales call with one of the directors. After we left the field, he said, "Let's go have a drink and maybe we can get something to eat.
In my first management position I received feedback from my supervisor that I was doing very well but that some of the Caucasian female supervisors were uncomfortable with me because I wasn't asking them for help.
This same supervisor would also make racially insensitive remarks. I'm mixed race, I have a Caucasian mother and an African-American father, and once she looked at a picture of my mother and asked, "How could that possibly be your mother?"
I was given a lot of deference as the Chief Financial Officer ("CFO") of a huge electronics and media company.
One day I walked into a manager's office when he wasn't there to drop off a proposal. There on the screen of his computer, for anyone to see, was graphic porn.
I worked with a particular senior attorney for years and one morning I went into his office to talk to him.
