Lies are a weapon. Communication the battlefield.
Since the beginning of time human's have made more and more efficient the method of communication between us. Translators, person & machine, have been used frequently when the spoken or written language isn't known by one party.
How we communicate in corporate America is rotten, lazy and inarguably white culture leaving its remnants in random places it exists in. Some drenched like the Prison Industrial Complex, some splashed with buckets like COCA-COLA or PEPSI. But the war nevertheless wages on wherever in whatever degree. We don't allow for culture or societal written vs spoken tonality. We don't understand the nuance of passive aggressive behavior. We allow for verbal abuse and aggressive or combative behavior. How do I know? Because I've witness this first hand in my 10 year career.
Black women are the most vulnerable in that atmosphere. But it doesn't look like vulnerability, it looks stoic, quiet, succinct, code switching or even flippant. We go to war in corporate America mentally and spiritually and I know it isn't JUST black women, but we are talking about me and if it weren't enough several of my friends (several meaning more than 3) who are black women have had mirror experiences in different cities, different temperaments & personalities, different industries & fields. Nearly the only similarity was the fact that each is a chocolate goddess. Communicating my warfare experience:
I'm a hunter, I just don't have the mentality of prey. Probably because I stand on my truth, so I don't run. I stand on the safe ground. So when I have an ill-intentioned or unknown being enter my hunting grounds, they are now my prey. You're trying to attack me, you can't expect a hunter to turn into a lamb just because you want them to. This is where the personality PIP comes into play (for those who don't know the personality PIP is a play on the Performance Improvement Plans that are thinly veiled to neither focus on performance or try to improve it but rather to serve as a lashing for doing something they didn't like. It was always white women for me but I won't speak to anything beyond that simple fact.
More than THRICE I saw this pattern inflicted on each of my friends. The maidens, the caregivings, the mystics the queens...I saw how each of them navigated in the wild. It was an amazing time to be alive, watching my friends master womanhood in their quest for success. Sheer will power and intelligence, grit & having needed to put down all the fucks you used to give out. They aren't yours anymore. I saw it played through like a warfare. But it was through them I knew that my experience was real, validated in a world that tries to make you feel crazy for being who you are. And in the end, trusting and being confident in the fact that I am one of the baddest m-fuckers out here...period. I'm just that real. I believe in me like Kanye believes in Kanye.
I realized that confidence is not a language that corporate America understands, recognizes or allows by black women. Those words scratch the chalkboards of their minds with pressured nails. Communication is a huge deal to me. I work so hard on it. So I tried desperately to share my experience and ask for help and support right up to the point of a mental breakdown.
Imagine the even better work I could've done with a more experienced and matured manager. One who doesn't have to step on people to make theirselves tall enough to FEEL tall enough above everyone else. Someone who knows their spirit is a giant already, so large in fact it can pull up other spirits.
Imagine that. Talking to someone who wasn't too threatened to listen. I am smarter than a lot of people, and even when I'm not I just am an extremely present presence, even if I stay totally quiet. I exist loudly (and I'm loud and never quiet). When you get that 1:1 it came be intimidating. I've experienced it with other people and realized you can 100% give off that vibe and be far from stoic, so I just am myself and it works for me (like it would probably work for most everyone aka showing up as your real self in every room you inhabit). I'm also not a jerk for no reason. I'd never mention it just to be ugly. But when I watch you lie and manipulate truths (with the brain that I have to know exactly what is happening in this movie). Its primal, I know and I'll lay the truth out to combat your lies.
We think it's ok to communicate in lies to push our agenda, we think the 'work lies' we tell don't count and we are just doing what we need to do and are generally apathetic about it. Or even more possible, we have lied to ourselves blindly choosing selfishness over community, or a million other things. I can't guess intent I can only use my instincts to strategize and have fun doing what I do in every setting. Hunt. I can hunt for the answers to your companies' needs or I know how to hunt those encroaching upon the sanctity of my spirit. I love being a hunter, I speak the language of war. It's the coolest thing in the world. I've had a hell of a time knowing when to put my bow away and when to have it out. I'm sure yours is cool too: Archetypes Quiz.