The Linked In Blues
By: Anastasia Reesa Tomkin
Tags: Professional Development, Black Women, Humor, Careers, Nonprofit

Photo by Magnet.me on Unsplash.com

The Linked In Blues

Black employee, white workplace, recipe for disaster

My Linked In profile could use some serious revamping.

I have the same old photos from when I was a Languages Intern at the UN, the highlight of my life back then. Me looking intelligent as I give a presentation — the cover photo. Me smiling warmly with my face a little too close to the camera — my profile photo. I realize my best bet is to take a hint from all those professional accounts out there and post a proper photo. One that says “I am a successful professional who loves my job”. Except I’m not. But it’s nothing a smart suit, folded arms and a warm laugh can’t hide. I know how to pose, I know what to do — so what’s the problem?

Linked In gives me flashbacks. Of all the people I’m linked in with but if I pass them on the street it would trigger PTSD. It reminds me of the shit show that my career trajectory has been. Sure, I’ve worked at cool places, but do they remember me fondly? The most rebellious employee ever, the employee who incites revolutions. In my mind I’m Ann Boleyn, or Hamilton or something.

It didn’t start at the UN. During my 3 month internship there I was on my best behavior. As the holder of a Languages degree, I thought I hit the jackpot, getting to work there. But there was one little thing about my dream job — it was unpaid. So my dad gave me an ultimatum, get a part time paying job or I couldn’t do the internship. Nothing would stop me from being inaugurated into the hub of the world’s languages, the non profit of all non profits, so I actually found a part time job at H&M. That was my first real glimpse into how racist the US was, I observed and learned much more than I ever did at the UN.

Looking back, I don’t know how I mustered the energy to work at the UN by day, and on evenings and weekends work shifts at the store. It sounds exhausting. And I can’t believe I told myself that working for free would yield intangible benefits. Like what, my old French professor being proud I sorta made it to the UN? My old classmates back home being super jealous of my Instagram pictures in all the cool rooms? It sure didn’t make my resume stand out, or make finding a job any easier.

When I was leaving to earn some proper wages, my supervisors took me out for lunch. They asked what exactly I wanted to do with my life. “I want to fight against racism…you know, the black revolution.” Their faces fell. I could see it even as these two white women kept on casually eating their salads. Little did I know white people’s reaction to my dreams of true equality would only get progressively worse.

So yes, Linked In brings back unwanted memories of a time when I was eager to start my career, to brag about my accomplishments just like everybody else. Meticulously name all my skills, have some people endorse them. Show off my fancy titles and my important tasks. Everything I had spent a childhood being an overly competitive A student to achieve. Perhaps the girl I laughed at for not remembering that “famille” is the French word for family, would find it equally funny that now I was the one failing at Holding a Job 101. I don’t stand a chance against electives like “The Boss Knows Best” and “Be the Agreeable Black Woman or Else”. My pet peeves are people who hoard power and people who allow others to hoard power. Both groups hate when I put it that way, which I often do, and here I am. With the most pitiful Linked In profile ever. My last job and current job not even listed, neither organization even tagged.

The title that best describes what I’ve done at both non profits is “Bullshit Interruptor”. What would my superior Linked In audience think of me then? Would I get any more messages from Premium accounts who want to recruit me for yet another mediocre, underpaid position in another phony non profit space? Career suicide. It’s what being an outspoken, antiracist black woman gets you. No one knows what to do with me, and I don’t know what to do with myself.

So I smile at the handful of people who posted my article on racism in non profits on their Linked In account, found me and tagged me or messaged me, but I don’t reply. I suck at networking. I suck at saying Thank you for liking my article, then retreating to my little hole of still being poor and black and too angry and stuck in a rat race that was never designed for me to win.

I am stunned at the amount of people who are willing to win individually, and to hell with the collective. So many of us who just want to be exemplars from the black community, we want ourselves and our families to be safe and comfortable, but can’t be bothered with uplifting the black community as a whole. The cost of it is too high, which is what I’ve learned firsthand. Yet how do I will myself to stop caring?

In an alternate reality I would be the light skinned black girl that white people love, who accepts her crumbs and focuses her energies on shopping and boys. At times like this I wish so badly to be her. To wake up one day and not be pained at the thought of where I would possibly fit into a white supremacist world. Why would God give me such a huge ego and cunning mind and sharp tongue, then package me in a body forced to the bottom of the food chain, craving nothing but the taste of respect and power and victory.

One day I will either revamp my Linked In or delete it entirely. It causes too much anxiety, being in limbo. Watching so many wildly successful people who seem to be doing just fine within the status quo. All I need is more degrees, a book deal, my own business, and a way to temper my pro-blackness. I don’t even need an A in Holding a Job 101, a passing grade will do, until my Linked In Queen alter ego manifests out of nowhere.

A girl can dream, can’t she?