When I Was Fired From French Roast, Part 3. Four Lessons.
1. Don’t run away from yourself.
I got fired from a host job when I was 26 in New York City. It was an awful time. I learned from it. An awful time, but I’m better now because of it. Here are the four things I learned.
For context, you can read Part 1 and Part 2. I wrote the whole story there. Though you probably won’t read. Or you can just read the lessons. I don’t care.
1. Don’t run away from yourself.
I am black. I don’t need to be friends with people or nice. I need to bring my agency with me wherever I go and call out bullshit when I see it. If I had carried myself the way I do not, those ackalacks wouldn’t have tried this with me.
The same with black people who would say the same thing. Black people make slave jokes too, so a black person is not exempt from being an asshole either. I would have gathered them too. I have dark skin, so I know that white or black people would be an asshole about this. Slaves, the image, is one usually depicted with dark skin.
I know instinctively they wouldn’t call a light-skinned black person a slave, or a monkey for that matter. Some terms subconsciously resonate more with skin tone. That subconsciously on a gut level pissed me the fuck off too.
Now I know why I went off — she also tapped into my lifelong insecurity. I was a keg waiting to explode. It was triggering for me too, knowing that I am identified a certain way, the layered aspect of this experience.
But now I’m here and bring my full self with me wherever I go. It wouldn’t happen again because I’d quit an environment like the first time no one listened to me.
2. Know your worth. My worth.
I’d left a temp job to work at this place to have more flexibility to dance. But no, it wasn’t really my calibre. I’m sorry. And I was in a space that didn’t represent me well, I now see. And I paid for it by being in a space that made hurtful comments permissible.
3. Don’t leave your supporters behind. My supporters.
You know, the guy I knew from college, I kind of left him behind when I started training. I always feel like this was karma for me. He was nice to me. And I just kind of let things fizzle and didn’t follow up with him after he dropped me off at French Roast.
I got my karma.
Also, I feel like I existed where it was only me not me and the background I have, the people that make up that background. They didn’t come with me — I didn’t bring them in spirit. So now I do this. I don’t dissociate myself from who I am.
4. Don’t give AF about making friends.
An Asian girl I met there who I befriended (“befriended”) the short while I worked there, she didn’t like that white guys objectified her (the weird fetish I learned some white boys/men have for Asian girls/women).
Yet she eventually told me how one of the (possibly not legal…don’t come for me, I won’t come for you) Hispanic kitchen crew told me my eyes were “chinky.” I didn’t know if I was offended for me or for her.
And I always thought that I should have threatened them with ICE because of the racial comments this girl said the Hispanic kitchen workers said about me. I should have called ICE. Anyway, don’t make friends.
I accept that I will annoy people sometimes, and they’ll make hurtful comments about me. And? I will keep it moving and WIN. (I’m working on it still.) Go about my way with my goals, and accept that some people won’t like you.
That’s all I have to say.
I thought I’d feel worse about what I did, but now I know that I self-protected. It was a mistake yes, but my back was against the wall I felt. I should feel bad, but I’m actually glad I stood up for myself.
Even if it cost my a job. I learned from it and won’t make the same mistake again. I exist fully in myself and will be mindful of the environments I place myself in too. I am a better person today, I believe.
Onward.
