Dreadlocks, Dark-Skinned, & Daggers
Just a Typical Day at the Office
“Though I may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” I often would repeat Psalms 23 to myself in the elevator after having shuffled from the subway to the lobby, shades on, and braids down my back. I was a Vice-President at a Fortune 500 company that also happened to be a Black woman. Mentally, physically, and spiritually I had to prepare for whatever might hit me. Not able to resist the urge anymore, I decided to wear braids even if it meant that I was not going to be promoted.
My decision to wear natural hairstyles bothered the few older Black women that I knew at the company, “You are so bright and everyone loves how articulate you are, please reconsider your ethnic hairstyle, you have so much potential.”
I was sad about their sentiments and wore my hair the way that I wanted anyway knowing that if I stepped out of the box that the few others around me would feel empowered to do the same. There was a woman far more senior than I was who happened to be white and a former Amazon executive that showed up to work with bright purple hair. This made her edgy and refreshing, but I was warned that if I wore my hair the way that I wanted that it would not be perceived in the same positive light.
The first time I came to the office with fresh braids, I had gone all out, Beyonce had popularized “Lemonade Braids” and I just knew the style would work for me. Then I went over the top and had my Harlem-based braider mix in some 99J red, the finished product was marvelous. Now I could go to the gym before work without worrying about my hair becoming “unkempt”. Heads in the office turned as I came in with my pink goggles, and long rose-colored Olivia Pope fall coat, my braids swayed as I hustled to my desk as to not be late for my first conference call. I knew somebody somewhere was going to say something and I would have to have a witty response in my back pocket to avoid awkwardness, plus year-end reviews were right around the corner, and this was not the time to be in conflict at the office. I had an in-person meeting on another floor later that day. The elevator came, and inside was my managing director and another non-Black woman more senior than me.
As I stepped on the elevator the big boss took one of my braids into her hand and said, “Oh my God, Roslyn, I love your new do, it is so sexy!” Then the other woman chimed in, “Your hair is so neat the people who braid are such artist!” They were both excited and enthusiastic and I believe it was well-intended even though no one had any business putting their hands in my hair. I replied with a smile, “My hair braider is such a nice lady who also happens to be deaf, so I communicate with her via text, I am so glad that the universe brought us together.” They marveled at this new information, the elevator got to their floor and they exited.
I breathed a loud sigh of relief now that I was on the elevator alone, unable to process what had just occurred because I had to put on my game face for what I knew would be a spirited meeting with an external team. I lay in bed that night weighing the fact that I was not ok with someone touching my hair without asking permission and the fact that the person who did it influenced my compensation as well as had put her fist on the table to make sure that I was promoted even when the male managers between us wanted to keep me at the same level. She was a key power player that always looked out for me, when she left the company a few years later, I attended a happy hour in her honor. By the time everyone was on their third or fourth drink, I knew I had to make an Irish exit but I felt I could not leave without saying goodbye to her. “Out of everyone, you are one of my favorites…” she kissed my cheek, and as I turned to leave, she said “I love you” under her breath but loud enough that I heard her, I turned back and nodded in a Shakespearian manner. Tears formed in her southern eyes. I would not be where I am today had it not been for her sponsorship, every time I change roles or get promoted, I drop her a note.
“Roslyn! Roslyn!” a colleague said my name and motioned me to come into a conference room. My heart dropped because the fervor in their eyes was such that I thought they were going to tell me that a layoff was about to happen. This was a reality at a publicly traded company that kept me in a routine fight-or-fight response anytime someone said there was going to be an “announcement”. I went into the conference room and plopped my wide hips into a chair, “Amanda, what’s going on?” I asked with wide eyes.
She tripped over her words, “Jacques has a dagger; he pulled out a dagger!”
I was shocked and said, “Ok wait, slow down. What happened with Jacques?”
Jacques was a dark-complexioned Black male with dreadlocks long enough to touch the back of his knees, he was known around the office to be “intense” and was hyper-visible because of his appearance.
“I was washing my fruits in the pantry, and the plastic knives were not strong enough to slice my fruits, Jacques heard me, and then pulled out a dagger to loan it to me” she replied.
I then tilted my head and used a high-pitched voice saying, “Oh! He was trying to help you, right? Did you use the dagger?”
My tone was friendly and unthreatening, but I looked into her eyes intensely, confident she would give me the whole story.
“Yes, I washed the dagger and then cut my fruits. It was so long and big I was nervous as I was using it.” She replied, and by this time, she had a calmer tone, probably sensing that I was going to remain totally objective and not participate in any hysteria.
I chuckled, “Have you seen the pairing knife that I keep in my lunchbox and use to cut lemons?”
“Roslyn your paring knife is different, it is just a simple paring knife, when Jacques pulled out the metal object he pressed a button and it turned into a dagger, he was holding it up high and said I could borrow it.” She had elaborated, now I had the picture in my mind and saw the “problem”.
We both had to leave to join different meetings, but I could not stop thinking about what had just occurred. I knew that Jacques was the “Black guy with dreads” in this setting so I began to wonder how many other people she told this story to and what that could mean for Jacques’s job.
There was an administrative assistant that happened to be a Dominican woman that was from the same borough that I lived in. “Girl, we gotta taaaalk!” I was able to catch her as she was walking by my desk. She knew what that meant and went into the furthest conference room out of ear distance to wait for me. I walked the floor and made a cup of tea that I did not even want and then slithered into the room where she was hoping to remain undetected.
“You are not going to believe what happened earlier today…have you been in the pantry?” I asked.
“Nooooo tell me, tell me.” She said eagerly waiting for the punching line.
“Your boy brought in a switchblade to the office, and now they are running around saying he has a dagger on him!” I exclaimed.
She sucked her teeth, “A dagger?”
I jolted my head back, “Yes girl, a whole dagger!”
We erupted into laughter, we were literally howling and trying so hard to stop so that no one would hear us. I told her the whole story and we were laughing so hard I had to stand up and swayed there wishing I had worn a panty liner.
“No, no, I can’t with you Roslyn, I gotta go back to my desk, I just can’t!” she tried to leave as tears of laughter started rolling.
“Wait, please wait, should I warn Jacques about this so he can get ahead of the story?” I said while crossing my legs to prevent myself from peeing.
“I don’t know about this one, this is just too much…” she said as she left.
I waited for a minute or two to pass before I sprinted to the bathroom.
The whole ordeal was messy because I knew that Jacques thought he was helping a colleague, he was not self-aware enough to recognize that in this setting he was a “threat” and everything he did would first be perceived through this lens. I wanted to warn him about pulling out his switchblade but was not sure how to do it without potentially becoming “involved” in the event there were negative repercussions from the ordeal. “Having to talk to HR was the last thing my Black behind needs right now” I thought to myself, but the feeling of wanting to warn him would not go away. I had a fair complexioned Memphis-bred male colleague that I use to have coffee with, he had made the point to introduce himself to me when he first started at the company and made it clear, “Roslyn I am Black-Black.” When he said this, I nodded saying “I am Black-Black too” with a smile. The confession that we were both “Black-Black” meant that we were people that not only identified as Black, but also embraced our shared history and culture. This is an important data point in these settings where we are vastly underrepresented. Some professionals that identify as Black assimilate to majority culture to get ahead and ruthlessly undermine other Black professionals in the office because they feel that there can only be one or two in the upper echelons of any organization. The mentality is to destroy whoever they perceive as competition for the few seats reserved for Blacks at the table. It is a mindset based on scarcity and has historical roots that can be traced back to slavery, a topic worthy of so much more than a mere footnote in this blog post. I happen to be a first-generation, “Black by way of Jamaica” and he was African-American with roots in the American South. We got along, but he did confess that he did not like island people, he said other Jamaicans that he met try to act like they are so British and it annoyed him. I did not have any hang-ups about other cultures throughout the diaspora and recognized that African Americans have had a distinct experience in the United States that I needed to respect for what it is. He was paranoid about us being perceived as “close” in the office and went through extra efforts so no one would perceive us as “friends”. I grew up around many African Americans that were a product of the 1920s and 1930s, so I understood why he felt that way he was afraid that if we outwardly appeared as allies, someone might do something to separate us which was a valid concern in our environment.
When I asked him his opinion about Jacques and the switchblade incident, he became upset and shouted at me, “Roslyn just stop it! Your problem is that you try to save everyone and you cannot keep doing that! He is stupid for bringing a switchblade to the office and even dumber for pulling it out in front of white people. You best leave that alone.” My mentor, Black-Black and 25 years ahead of us in their career agreed with him, “Roslyn, just sit on your hands for this one.” Jacques was so talented and all he needed was a good mentor I was convinced, but I caved to the pressure and instead of warning him directly, I went to the person who had told me the story later that week to ask whatever happened with “that dagger” in an upbeat light-hearted way. Thankfully she had not reported anything to HR and agreed with my interpretation that he was just trying to help. Whew! I prayed that night that he would not do that again, I knew if he did it with the wrong person I would not be able to influence the narrative, it was just his luck that this is a person that I had a relationship with outside of the office. She took my word for it that time, but it was not the last time she came to me about Jacques’s behavior in the office. When he moved to another department, I was relieved, someone over there would have to discretely look out for him, this office was a landmine.
I often used my paring knife in the same pantry to cut up lemons, ginger, and other produce to put into my water bottle. Colleagues would gather around to see what I was infusing my water with, and team members of Asian and Middle Eastern ancestry took a strong interest in me and we started talking about herbal remedies used across cultures. I and my paring knife was a “hit” in the office. I also had essential oils on my desk that I used to help me focus and be more productive which I discussed openly. “You would be an excellent lifestyle blogger!” I would be told. “You should sell wellness products, I would buy from you.” An executive visiting from the Midwest told me I was her “hydration inspiration”.
Mocha brown skin, rocking natural hairstyles, cutting up my produce, and infusing jugs of water. Displaying John C. Maxwell books, positive affirmations, and sometimes fresh cut flowers on my desk, I was labeled “sexy” and/or “influencer material”. My darker, taller, male and very opinionated colleague with long dreads was something to fear and contain, even when he was trying to be kind, he was trapped in a box of perceptions that likely did not match his inner reality.
