The first time one of my friends visited me in the office, she sat down next to me, leaned over and whispered, “Leah. This office is...so white.”
At the time, I brushed the comment off with a laugh, like, “Yeah, what can you do?” But after a full academic year working in the newsroom, I am no longer content with my silence, my compliance.
Here’s the truth: almost every person of color I know in this office has thought about quitting on more than one occasion, due to the oppressive nature of being non-white in this primarily white space. I have watched friends quit because of the way they were treated — the casual racism, the microaggressions. The way that no one cared enough to care about them.
I am the only Black editor in the DTH’s newsroom. I cannot count how many times I’ve had to brush off anti-Black sentiments, sometimes even from other people of color in the office, because I didn’t know how to have that conversation. Because I didn’t want to call them out. I didn’t want to make them uncomfortable, so I settled with being uncomfortable by myself.
And how do you call out your coworkers, your friends, on their casual racism? Because so often, working at the DTH, that’s where the racism was coming from. People I consider my friends.
If I say something, the room goes silent. I’m too outspoken, too sensitive. Should’ve just let it slide. It was just one word. It was just a little comment. It was just a joke.
I don’t say something? It’s just one more thing that builds up.
The DTH has a race problem. A diversity problem. A problem in general. But it’s not because of recruitment — it’s because this office does not create a welcoming space for its people of color, does not allow them to thrive; they are damned if they speak up and damned if they don’t.
I am disgusted by the ways the DTH has handled and discussed our race issue. The way it’s been marketed as a campaign tool. The way it’s been put on the to-do list, but never resolved. The way it’s ignored in favor of silence, sweet and simple silence.