Being black, female and intelligent is to be constantly questioned by folks afraid you might outshine them. Being Black and female in the workplace is to be the vessel into which to heap everyone else’s frustration, lack, weakness, and failures in the form of discrimination, abuse, harassment, and stereotyping. In too many professional spaces, the top rungs are filled with individuals seated at the right hand of Satan. Rooted only in the promise of money and power, not the cultivation of innovation or the development of human talent. God often puts demons in your path so you know what they look like, smell like, how they breathe, and how to spot their venom. When the most objectified and mistreated person in the world trades their blackness and womanhood for red horns and a pitchfork… it does so without any transference of power. She is a powerless demon.

I am far from a perfect person. However there are some things that I do exceptionally well… gift giving, taking care of and tending to people I care about, writing, accessorizing, handling my business, organizing, keeping a neat and clean home, doing my job, and I can cut a mean rug every now and then. Of the things I do not do well, top of that list are allow you to mistreat me and watching you mistreat others. There is no excuse for either. I don’t bother anyone, ever… I make sure of it. Besides professing my love of Michael B. Jordan, Michael Jackson, and candy corn… I try hard not to bother anyone. Because I don’t care to be bothered by anyone, ever.

So when someone has specifically targeted me as their whipping post to bear the pain of their own self-hatred and misery, I have to draw a line in the sand. I am not your mirror image. I am not your peer. I am not your competition. I come from a long line of Black, proud, educated, articulate, and cultured ancestry. My folks were in college when few of us were there. My folks had titles when you were but a spermatozoa and ovum waiting to meet. My folks came out of slavery and demanded excellence of their free progeny. I come from excellence, and excellent I am. My folks begat me… and I’m real beasty out here in the world. I don’t boast or talk about my accomplishments, because I serve others with this magna cum laude and dean’s list big gargantuan brain as humbly as I possibly can. But make no mistakes, I am beasty out here. Real beasty. And I keep excellent receipts.

But back to my point, we have nothing in common, nothing. I wear my womanhood proudly, speaking out against patriarchy and sexism every chance I get. I wear this Blackness as a robe of honor , and I won’t rest until I see some glimmers of real freedom and I resist against even my own people subjugating us to the levels of “baboons and monkeys” and “being so black that…” jokes. Maybe your blackness is a joke, but mine is a privilege. Your Blackness and womanhood you use as a weapon, to mask your attempts at stereotyping the rest of us who don’t bow down to your feet. I’ll never bow down to Satan’s minion!

It is typical that the most evil apparition will feign godliness. But ain’t no God in you!

God is love, not putrid vials of insecurity and thinly veiled attempts to destroy those you cannot consume. God is pure, not a wasteland of grandiose boasting surrounded by mounds of yesteryears garbage. God is all knowing, not ignorant tongue wagging and lessons in sabotage and deceit to your class of dunces.

In closing… while I have prayed for you to heal and do your work, I realize now my prayers were wasted on the faithless. Only a woman who has no constitution would ever show more loyalty to her abusers than the abused. I operate by the law of love, which understands that compassion, understanding, active acceptance, and consistency are the only real statutory provisions of humanity. My humanity is intact, so I sit in my seat by choice, God has shown me other options. You sit in your seat because you are stuck between the armrests, and no one will help pull you out. You will rot there. I will thrive no matter where I sit…

“until you do right by me, everything you even think about is gonna fail”..

Signed, a Black Woman