Business
How to Handle the Emotions of Racial Injustice While at Work
Shameeka Dream, of Baltimore is helped after being sprayed in the eyes with a crowd disbursement during a demonstration after an evening of riots following the funeral of Freddie Gray on Tuesday, April 28, 2015, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
As our country sits enraged about numerous moments of injustice, racial tension and police brutality, we still have to get up, go to work and “wear the mask.” For some in the Black professional community, this has been a challenge. A host of questions circled in the heads of Black professionals after Officer Darren Wilson was not indicted on any charges in the deaths of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Freddie Gray in Baltimore Md., or after more Black men and women are unjustly shot dead in the streets by police officers.
You may think, ‘How am I going to go to work tomorrow angry? How am I going to avoid any uncomfortable conversations with coworkers? How will I respond to insensitive and ignorant questions or comments? Will people expect me to be the resident expert and voice of the Black community?’ All of these questions are valid and speak to the larger issues of how events in society trickle … or bulldoze … into our workplace environments as well.
So, I pose the question: Is the workplace sheltered from the events that occur in our larger national and global society?
The answer is, no.
