Queenie
I was heading towards graduation from Northwestern University and was in a bit of a panic. I knew I wanted to stay in Evanston, but had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I headed to the career office and looked through their book of positions available, applying for any that seemed appropriate and would allow me to stay. One of the few that fit those parameters was at an insurance company in downtown Evanston. I interviewed and got the job. I breathed a sigh of relief because I at least I would get paid for doing something.
That something involved sitting at a desk and doing the paperwork for licensing insurance agents. It wasn't an exciting job, but it was my first 'real' job which gave it a sort of glamour. In celebration, my mom and I went shopping to get some 'real' work clothes. I was set. I thought.
I worked in an office peopled with only African-American women. My immediate supervisor was African-American as were my three other co-workers. All of our desks were within feet of each other in a large open area. I will admit to being a little intimidated. It felt a lot out of my comfort zone. It was the beginning of summer, so the insurance company hired quite a few college students as interns. One of those interns, a young woman from Wilmette who attended a private university, had started her internship just a week or so before I began my job. My co-workers had already given her the nickname "Princess" by the time I had arrived. (This name was used so exclusively that I actually cannot remember her actual name.) With my arrival, there was a bit of a quandary. Here I was, a young white girl newly graduated from a private university living in the historic lake district of Evanston and with a whole new wardrobe to boot and the nickname "Princess" was already taken. After much discussion, it was deemed that my nickname would be "Queenie". I smiled and wondered if this was a good thing, but I wasn't going to argue about it.
My job was mind-numbingly dull. I would finish my work a little after lunch and spend the rest of my day trying desperately to make it look as if I was doing something... and stay awake. I remember accidentally nodding off at my desk more than once. But the actual job was totally secondary to how I grew as a person for that year. (I would, the next year, quit that job in order to head off to seminary.) My co-workers, without realizing it, taught me many lessons that year. Lessons I have been thinking a lot about over the past few days.
I did a lot of listening that year. I would like to say that this was a conscious choice to listen and learn from people who had a different experience from my own. That would sound great, wouldn't it? Instead, it was really just a combination of being naturally introverted, really bad at small talk, and a little in awe of the women I worked with. It turned out to be the best thing I could have done.
Since the job didn't require any great intellectual effort from any of us, there was plenty of time for chatting during work. It was this just normal, everyday talk that gave me as important an education as that expensive private school one I had just finished. It was probably just as well that the way our desks were configured meant that my desk was in front of the others, because that way my co-workers could not see my facial expressions as assumption after assumption that I held were demolished. I've never been good at hiding what I'm thinking and feeling from showing on my face.
I don't want to focus on the stories these women shared, because they are their stories; I'll only mention the barest details so I can move onto what I learned.
The children of these women were often a subject of conversation, as they are for mothers everywhere. At one point, a story of a child coming home and telling his mother about a new friend at school was shared. As the story was recounted, the child's mother asked him what color his new friend was. I actually don't know what the rest of the story was, because my brain stuck on the question of asking someone what color someone else was. It was said with such an every day sort of tone that it seemed as though it was the equivalent of asking what someone was wearing. I sat at my desk feeling shocked. In my world, this was NOT a polite question. I spent years avoiding mentioning someone's race as did most of my peers. You just didn't do that. Yet, these women of color treated it as one of those basic questions that help you get to know someone. The idea that maybe talking about someone's race was okay was completely new to me.
My older self just wants to role her eyes at my younger self. Of course it is okay. We talk about race a lot in our house now. It's one way we understand who a person is, not so we can think disparagingly of them, but because it helps us to understand who someone is. Someone's race is not an elephant in the room that I was used to it being (which is actually pretty silly if you think about it), but one of those facts which make someone who they are. I will admit that sometimes there is still a tiny twinge in the back of my head, though. It is hard to overcome societal racial programming.
Another time, co-workers were complaining about another person, who was white, whose desk was in the same area though in a slightly different department. She wasn't the easiest person to get along with, though she would have moments of trying to make an effort. Often times, her efforts involved asking questions of my co-workers. This irritated them to no end, though at first I was totally baffled as to why. I mean, haven't we white girls been drilled over and over that if you want to appear friendly to ask someone about themselves? Finally one of my co-workers said, "She is so nosy! She always wants to know about our business!"
It was another of the those light bulb moments that happened with some frequency in that year. It never occurred to me that our social norms would be different. That what was considered polite to one could be misconstrued to be nosy and insensitive to another. It also made me realize exactly how wide the chasm between races and experiences can sometimes be without even knowing there is a chasm. I still was under the false impression that we had exactly the same outlook on life because surely our experiences would be much the same. Believe me when I offered up a brief prayer of thanks that I had been too shy and too overwhelmed to try to "make friends", because asking a lot of questions would have been my first effort at doing so.
I eventually was admitted into the circle of these friends; women who had known each other for a long time. I felt privileged to be invited to go places with them, eat meals with them, and even a couple of times socialize with them. At least one of them was able to come to my wedding. I came to admire each of them very much. Their experiences were nowhere the same as mine; often they had hard stories to share. They took me under their collective wings and taught me things. We kept in contact for a while, but that was over thirty years ago and it's been a while since I have seen any of them. This makes me sad.
I am still learning about this tricky thing called race. I am afraid I still get things wrong. I can think of several instances where I made ridiculous gaffes that were unintentional but also highlighted areas where I still needed to work out assumptions that I didn't know I had. I still am working on this. In fact, I'm a little hesitant to even share these stories because I care deeply for these women and do not want to inadvertently have things misconstrued negatively, not for my sake, but for their's.
And that nickname? It stuck, changing from a label to a nickname for a friend, though always with the overtones that I came from somewhere else. It was a reminder to all of us that this was a relationship that had different rules and required more grace on both sides.
Black lives matter. Black lives have value. Black lives are worthy of the same respect and consideration that we white people take for granted.
That something involved sitting at a desk and doing the paperwork for licensing insurance agents. It wasn't an exciting job, but it was my first 'real' job which gave it a sort of glamour. In celebration, my mom and I went shopping to get some 'real' work clothes. I was set. I thought.
I worked in an office peopled with only African-American women. My immediate supervisor was African-American as were my three other co-workers. All of our desks were within feet of each other in a large open area. I will admit to being a little intimidated. It felt a lot out of my comfort zone. It was the beginning of summer, so the insurance company hired quite a few college students as interns. One of those interns, a young woman from Wilmette who attended a private university, had started her internship just a week or so before I began my job. My co-workers had already given her the nickname "Princess" by the time I had arrived. (This name was used so exclusively that I actually cannot remember her actual name.) With my arrival, there was a bit of a quandary. Here I was, a young white girl newly graduated from a private university living in the historic lake district of Evanston and with a whole new wardrobe to boot and the nickname "Princess" was already taken. After much discussion, it was deemed that my nickname would be "Queenie". I smiled and wondered if this was a good thing, but I wasn't going to argue about it.
My job was mind-numbingly dull. I would finish my work a little after lunch and spend the rest of my day trying desperately to make it look as if I was doing something... and stay awake. I remember accidentally nodding off at my desk more than once. But the actual job was totally secondary to how I grew as a person for that year. (I would, the next year, quit that job in order to head off to seminary.) My co-workers, without realizing it, taught me many lessons that year. Lessons I have been thinking a lot about over the past few days.
I did a lot of listening that year. I would like to say that this was a conscious choice to listen and learn from people who had a different experience from my own. That would sound great, wouldn't it? Instead, it was really just a combination of being naturally introverted, really bad at small talk, and a little in awe of the women I worked with. It turned out to be the best thing I could have done.
Since the job didn't require any great intellectual effort from any of us, there was plenty of time for chatting during work. It was this just normal, everyday talk that gave me as important an education as that expensive private school one I had just finished. It was probably just as well that the way our desks were configured meant that my desk was in front of the others, because that way my co-workers could not see my facial expressions as assumption after assumption that I held were demolished. I've never been good at hiding what I'm thinking and feeling from showing on my face.
I don't want to focus on the stories these women shared, because they are their stories; I'll only mention the barest details so I can move onto what I learned.
The children of these women were often a subject of conversation, as they are for mothers everywhere. At one point, a story of a child coming home and telling his mother about a new friend at school was shared. As the story was recounted, the child's mother asked him what color his new friend was. I actually don't know what the rest of the story was, because my brain stuck on the question of asking someone what color someone else was. It was said with such an every day sort of tone that it seemed as though it was the equivalent of asking what someone was wearing. I sat at my desk feeling shocked. In my world, this was NOT a polite question. I spent years avoiding mentioning someone's race as did most of my peers. You just didn't do that. Yet, these women of color treated it as one of those basic questions that help you get to know someone. The idea that maybe talking about someone's race was okay was completely new to me.
My older self just wants to role her eyes at my younger self. Of course it is okay. We talk about race a lot in our house now. It's one way we understand who a person is, not so we can think disparagingly of them, but because it helps us to understand who someone is. Someone's race is not an elephant in the room that I was used to it being (which is actually pretty silly if you think about it), but one of those facts which make someone who they are. I will admit that sometimes there is still a tiny twinge in the back of my head, though. It is hard to overcome societal racial programming.
Another time, co-workers were complaining about another person, who was white, whose desk was in the same area though in a slightly different department. She wasn't the easiest person to get along with, though she would have moments of trying to make an effort. Often times, her efforts involved asking questions of my co-workers. This irritated them to no end, though at first I was totally baffled as to why. I mean, haven't we white girls been drilled over and over that if you want to appear friendly to ask someone about themselves? Finally one of my co-workers said, "She is so nosy! She always wants to know about our business!"
It was another of the those light bulb moments that happened with some frequency in that year. It never occurred to me that our social norms would be different. That what was considered polite to one could be misconstrued to be nosy and insensitive to another. It also made me realize exactly how wide the chasm between races and experiences can sometimes be without even knowing there is a chasm. I still was under the false impression that we had exactly the same outlook on life because surely our experiences would be much the same. Believe me when I offered up a brief prayer of thanks that I had been too shy and too overwhelmed to try to "make friends", because asking a lot of questions would have been my first effort at doing so.
I eventually was admitted into the circle of these friends; women who had known each other for a long time. I felt privileged to be invited to go places with them, eat meals with them, and even a couple of times socialize with them. At least one of them was able to come to my wedding. I came to admire each of them very much. Their experiences were nowhere the same as mine; often they had hard stories to share. They took me under their collective wings and taught me things. We kept in contact for a while, but that was over thirty years ago and it's been a while since I have seen any of them. This makes me sad.
I am still learning about this tricky thing called race. I am afraid I still get things wrong. I can think of several instances where I made ridiculous gaffes that were unintentional but also highlighted areas where I still needed to work out assumptions that I didn't know I had. I still am working on this. In fact, I'm a little hesitant to even share these stories because I care deeply for these women and do not want to inadvertently have things misconstrued negatively, not for my sake, but for their's.
And that nickname? It stuck, changing from a label to a nickname for a friend, though always with the overtones that I came from somewhere else. It was a reminder to all of us that this was a relationship that had different rules and required more grace on both sides.
Black lives matter. Black lives have value. Black lives are worthy of the same respect and consideration that we white people take for granted.
Comments