Anyone who really knows me knows that I play things close to the vest. This is especially true of anything to do with my health because things can change very quickly for the worse. Historically that has been the case for me. This time last year I had just gotten out of the hospital after an asthma exacerbation.
This year I was in due to both COVID and an asthma exacerbation and I was scared shitless. After 2 1/2+ years of being extra vigilant, being fully vaccinated and boosted, wearing N95 masks everywhere, including two trips to L.A. for work, I was exposed on a work trip to Miami. I was in the hospital within 3 days of testing positive. I left my quarantine bubble to go to the hospital, not knowing if I would ever come back. It was the most sobering and terrifying experience I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot.
I was in hospital for four days, released back home still COVID positive to quarantine, and continue treatment. All with the Damocles Sword hanging over my head that I may develop COVID pneumonia, and to come back if I did. Statistically, based on my medical history, I shouldn’t have survived. But I did.
I’m dealing with Long-haul COVID and residual asthma issues, but I’m here. Oh, and something no one tells you about COVID until you talk to others who’ve had severe symptoms…the hallucinations… Yea, let that one sink in for a minute. As always, I’m grateful for the team at Methodist West for taking great care of me.
This selfie below was taken the day before I tested positive for COVID, but two days after I experienced anaphylactic shock at a team dinner. Nothing like being escorted out of a 5 star restaurant by EMS and security, in front of 100 of your coworkers to make you super popular at work the next morning.
T. Nicole's Graham Cracker Crumbs 
Don’t Put Your Labels On Me – Part II
Here we are yet again… *sigh*
I’ve had multiple instances in the past couple of weeks where someone (in this case WASP / White Anglo Saxon Protestant female manager bolstered by another authoritative WASP woman) automatically assumed I was lying and tried to “catch” me by offering up what they saw as “proof”. I had to write detailed explanations of the circumstances, justify myself and provided my own absolutely irrefutable proof that I was indeed being ethical and truthful from the very beginning. (I.e. I shut this mess down quickly with perfect tact, professionalism and screen grabs.) This was followed by the most insulting five words I’ve heard in recent memory, “Thank you for your honesty.”
Thank you for your honesty?! That insinuates that you assume that everything I say and/or do is fabricated until you feel you have sufficient proof that I’m telling the truth. This coming from the same non-POC people who, when the tables are turned, and I KNOW that non-POC has glaringly lied through their perfectly veneered teeth, tell me to “assume positive intent” or that I “misunderstood” what they said/did/asked/instructed/demanded. I am positive that it was intended to make me out a thief of time, a fabricator of salacious falsehoods and unethical to boot. Nothing there to misunderstand.
To compound all of this and add insult to injury, the earlier exchange is later followed by a backhanded compliment of a recorded WebEx presentation I did 3-4 weeks ago saying, “… it was very professional and easy to follow. I was very impressed with your presentation skills…”. There again are the micro aggressions.
It is automatically ASSumed that we are lying. It is automatically ASSumed that, despite our experience and education, we don’t have the same or better skill set than our white counterparts. And when we prove we ARE telling the truth and we DO have the knowledge and expertise, they are “impressed” with our professionalism and presentation skills. You ASSume because of my milk chocolate hued skin, my Afrocentric name and my love of head wraps that I couldn’t possibly be poised and polished and able to lead, teach, and inform the masses, let alone the white masses. I have to prove to you beyond what is expected of my white counterparts that I AM and that I CAN.
This is what it is to be black in Corporate America. This is what it is to be black in America, period.
#staywoke #resist #DiaryOfAMadBlackProfessionalWoman
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Posted by grahamcrackercrumbs09 on October 21, 2017 in Social Commentary, Work Life
Tags: Corporate America, Culture, Diary of a Mad Black Professional Woman, Life, Micro Aggressions, Opinion, Race, racism, Reflections, Resist, Social, Social Commentary, Stay Woke, Tanesha Graham, Work, work life, Working While Black