When a Young Woman of Color is Told She is in a White Man’s Profession
How we can use our #onesecond to change humanity even during our darkest hour
I did not want to write this story. I did not want to share it. Because it hurt me, but more importantly it hurt humanity in a way that I could not process. I did not want to revisit those corners. I did not want to display them for anyone to see. I did not want humanity to relive it through my words. I did not want to start a chain of the same feelings of shame, disgust, and confusion that I had.
But I wrote it on a day when I just had to because there was no other choice left. Because I had to start a chain of change. And that one second when I made the decision to do so, I changed humanity.
I apologize beforehand that this story has to use skin colors and ages because again I am not left with a choice to say it otherwise. I am also sorry for the fact that this is not fiction. It has happened in our live real-world probably not too far from where you are, in a space you cannot imagine.
“So you are the diversity in this room I hear!”, says the old white man with a condescending tone approaching the young woman of color.
They share the same profession. Year is 2019, not that it should be relevant.
The young woman of color committed to function in this world with open-mindedness and message of world peace gives the old man benefit of doubt and elects to continue the conversation by focusing it on productive topics.
She shares her educational and professional background with him along with the experiences she has had in her vibrant career so far.
She initiates the discussions around the current project in hand, and how they can come up with collective solutions to problem solve the challenges in hand.
She encourages the old white man to share his thoughts on the project and his lessons learned from his professional experiences in his long successful career.
She asks him to advise her on the profession as it stands today.
And he responds saying, “I sent my son to school to get a good degree in the same profession. Because it a white man’s profession and it should stay that way.”
The young woman of color walks away.
I do not have the courage or the heart to discuss race, politics and dark affairs of the world today. Maybe tomorrow I will but today I am just tired. My pen shakes today.
And a certain numbness settles in leading me to the restlessness of if I am not living it up to as the granddaughter of a fierce freedom fighter from India’s struggle of independence, that I am choosing to accept unjust things as they are, brushing them off and slipping into a night of unconscious sleep.
Am I not doing what I am supposed to? Am I being submissive when I should be aggressively vocal and actioned for the side I believe in? Should I not be on the streets marching and yelling my heart out? Should I not be angry?
But today I am not angry. I am just tired. Tomorrow I will hopefully wake up and tomorrow I will hopefully decide what I want to do.
Today I wake up.
Today I decide what I want to do.
Today I want to change humanity.
I want to change it with my words.
And with my that one second, I change humanity.
I am sharing these next words with you so you can use your respective one seconds to change humanity. Join me, please. And share your #onesecond.
The young woman of color makes a conscious choice of not carrying hate forward from the incident.
She chooses to see it as a reminder of how she not only matched but outperformed the space with her talent, qualifications and good manners. She remained respectful and professional even when some people were exactly the opposite with her.
She chooses to always see this incident as an empowering experience where she maintained being a good and decent human no matter what.
With this one second of decision and realization to view this seemingly negative experience, not as a discouraging, unpleasant, hateful and unjust situation, but her victory over the same, and by sharing this story with her sisters with the same thought hence preparing them for a sometimes unjust world, is when with her #onesecond she changes humanity.
The old white man has one second of regret. Perhaps in that one second of regret, he chooses to say something kind to another young woman of color. Perhaps in that one second, he encourages this other young woman of color to pursue her dreams. It can happen. And with his that #onesecond, the old white man changes humanity. You might not be ready to believe this yet. But I believe in this possibility of events vehemently.
Son of the old white man comes to know about the incident and confronts his father. He tells him he opposes such behavior and doesn't support such toxic ideologies. With his #onesecond of confronting and putting a stop to the toxic cycle of passed on poisons, he changes humanity.
As witnesses to this incident, as listeners, as readers, as humans, we can make a choice here.
We can fill our social media feeds with lengthy unproductive debates, hateful remarks, deductions and conclusions vomited on each other’s virtual faces, make the water muddier and stinkier, reach absolutely nowhere to anything remotely close to solving the issues at hand, and add one more cycle of destruction to an already fucked up situation.
Or we can step out of the circle for a bit, create a bit of space between us and such incidents that continue to threaten, embarrass and disgust humanity, and we can choose then FOR HUMANITY!
We can choose our reactions that help humanity, not pull it further into darkness.
We can tell the young woman of color we are proud of her. And that what she experienced is a rotten fruit that has come about from ages of not choosing for humanity, but that is not our entire tree.
We can tell the old white man his actions and words are reflective of suffering and insecurities he has gone through all his life, perhaps something he was passed on to as a young boy from another young boy who never grew up, and that we forgive him, that we will not carry forward this hate.
We can tell his son that we are proud of the choices he has made to preserve humanity rather than blindly following his father. We are proud of the white man he has become. He is exactly what frees us from our malignant past.
We can tell ourselves to be part of the healing, not further scratching the wounds, to move forward in unity, not backward in division, to not keep repeating same mistakes and patterns that have clearly not worked for anyone.
With this #onesecond of individual choices, we change humanity for better today.
Join me, please. Share your #onesecond.
~
Vaishali Paliwal
