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Racism & sexism in the workplace isn't always overt or egregious. I've worked w/the nicest ppl & still burned out from the buildup of well-intentioned microaggressions.
It's like walking around carrying the weight of a 2nd body. Or being hit repeatedly with a spoon.
1/
It's like walking around carrying the weight of a 2nd body. Or being hit repeatedly with a spoon.
1/
I have privilege in that I've never faced physical violence or harm at work bc of my gender or race. But casual racism, which often goes undetected even by the perpetrator, is just as big a factor in BIPOC burning out in creative fields. 2/
How can you go above & beyond in your work if you're being worn down socially by colleagues who will rec/hire you in the future? When you have to smile politely at their comments & jokes for 12hrs/day, 5-6 days/week? 3/
When you have to compartmentalize, hold yourself small, because you're implicitly seen as an ambassador for your culture/gender, even while you're still figuring out what it means to you in order to decolonize & untangle generational trauma? 4/
I've had crews of all men, mostly white men, ask me point blank what I thought about Me Too, to spend my lunch defending why a "bad date" could still be considered assault. Sir, I just want to dissociate and eat my "Chinese" chicken salad in peace. 5/
I've often let these instances go, because calling them out means spending energy I don't have to educate + marking myself as not "one of the guys." Standing up for myself doubles the harm. It's often easier to just absorb another hit and move on. 6/
Instead I ask "How was your golf game/sound bath, Jim/Karen?" every morning bc I have ambitions, & these are the passwords to staying in the game/unlocking the next level. I wear a mask to survive, let alone thrive.
As many people are finding, wearing a mask is a burden. 7/
As many people are finding, wearing a mask is a burden. 7/
For years, I thought what you may be thinking: Why don't you just toughen up, pay your dues, prove yourself? How could you burn out so fast? You, who have always been so capable?
How will you make it if you can't handle one comment about the spice levels at Taste of India? 8/
How will you make it if you can't handle one comment about the spice levels at Taste of India? 8/
But this harm is real, & it takes its toll. You absorb the hits, but they build up, & they build up fast. Just because it doesn't look like overt violence does not mean it is not a systemic, insidious violence. You are not weak for taking damage, and you ARE cut out for this. 9/
Consider what it means to toughen up, to pay one's dues. Consider the toxic roots of prized personality traits in the industries that have been constructed around the art itself. We can reject them. 10/
Break from white artistic canon & see the status quo for the blip in time that it is. Stop accepting paying one's dues to institutions as the only way to tell our stories. Seek out other POVs & modes of storytelling. The Oscars are local. The world is a bigass place. 11/
I don't tell stories for white people, and there will be no narrative hand-holding. I've given myself the creative agency that others won't give me as a young WOC. I support BIPOC creators to reclaim all the time lost to dead white men. This is how I heal. 13/
Again, this is a privileged problem & there are more pressing matters @ hand. Black Americans are fighting for their lives. We must defund the police & divest from an oppressive, violent system. It was never built for them, & our fates are tied. 14/ https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/
I write this not to divert the convo, but to add to its scope. Between the harassment allegations in several creative fields & Hollywood apologies that mistake the symptoms of racism for its cause, I've been grappling w the nature of my own experiences in those workplaces. 15/
I hope this can be a beacon for others who, like me, are unsure if their damage is valid, because it was hard to pinpoint & bearable in the short term, until it wasn't. Ambitious BIPOC burning out through no fault of their own. 16/
It's not as big a flame as everything else in this dumpster fire. But the harm that goes unseen, the slow-acting poison, needs to be addressed as well as the urgent stuff.
It's all part of the same big, ugly picture. End thread.
It's all part of the same big, ugly picture. End thread.
