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.
Accents
I was talking to my boss once and he got a phone call. After he hung up he looked at me and said, "I just hate Filipino accents.
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.
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.
Not all stereotypes are equal. If you have a French accent, people assume you are lovely. If you have a Spanish accent, people assume you are stupid. You are working hard, showing up, and being a human being, and somewhere somehow in the most subtle or straightforward way someone will remind you of who you are.
