I'm trying to be better...

...I really am! People continue to call me the wrong name and I try to rationalize it. I try to put myself in their shoes. But no matter how hard I try, I end up with either feelings of anger or intense sadness. Am I so generic in their eyes that they cannot even be bothered to remember my name? Do they really think all black women look alike? Why can't they just remember, or at least ask me again? I truly have never had this experience before, and it is beginning to color my experience here. It worries me about my professors being able to remember who I am when giving out class participation grades. It worries me about the potential work environment that I could go into post B-school with these (types of) people. Will they not remember my name? Will I be unanimously lumped with the other black women in my office (if there are any)?

And the wild thing here is that its a different person every time. That should make me feel better, since its not just one person continuously calling me the wrong name, but in fact it makes me feel worse. If it was one person, I could write it off as an ignorant person who has racist tendencies. The problem here is that it is many people one or two times. So they make their mistake, but they learn and I shouldn't be concerned, right? Well look at it from my perspective...if out of a class of 300, 5% get my name wrong, that's 15 people. Over the course of 21 days, 15 people have gotten my name wrong...and not just wrong, they've called me the wrong black woman's name (which in my opinion is more egregious). That's almost every day for three weeks. It grates at my very last nerve, and it takes everything I've got not to blow up at each additional person that calls me out of my name.

I'm certain that my reaction boils down to not feeling respected (although I'm sure that's not anyone's intention), but the real question is what do I do about it. Do I continue to be that nerd who wears my nametag everyday? Perhaps. Do I say my name before I ask any question in class so profs and classmates alike remember? Probably not because thats completely obnoxious. But what DO I do? I honestly am at a loss with this one. What a situation! I almost cried on the way home just thinking about it. Blech!

A Day of Learning!

I learned some interesting things about myself today. I discovered that respect is one of THE most important values to me in every way (read: I got so annoyed that people were calling me the wrong black women's name because to me it indicated a lack of respect for me in not taking the time to distinguish between us).

I also learned that I am big on inclusion...I want people to feel like they're a part of the bigger group and not to feel left out (its the reason I plan weekly gatherings for my Carrboro peeps, and get frustrated when people form smaller exclusive groups...like the "cool kids").

I also learned that by recognizing when I am getting emotional in a work/school situation, I can think about what is motivating that feeling, what my triggers are, and how I can manage that (read: I wear my emotions on my sleeve, and that may be misinterpreted by others, so I need be aware of when its happening and manage it).

Overall a very personally productive day!

I really didn't realize

It has become glaringly obvious to my how truly underrepresented African American Women are in business. I guess my mom always set me up to do my very best, and not to worry about what has been done before but to blaze my own path. I feel like I have done that for the most part in my life. But venturing back into graduate business school, meeting many new people (of whom only a handful are black, hispanic, and native american), trying to figure out my career trajectory and researching companies, it has hit me like a mack truck that I could very well the THE only African American in my workplace when I leave here. Now that might not seem like news to anyone else. In fact, it shouldn't seem like news to me because I just came from a work environment where this held true in the office. But for some reason at this point in my life it makes me a little worried.

Let me first say, though, that it may be because I experienced a phenomenon that I have never before experienced in my first couple weeks in NC. I would introduce myself to people, and days or even hours later they would call me a different black woman's name in our group. And, ok, this isn't such a big deal when you're trying to learn 300 people's names, but come on, it happened to me 6 days in a row...really! Since I have been here, I have called one person the wrong name (I really thought his name was Brian, not because he looked like someone else, but I just thought thats what he said the first time), and if I don't know someone's name I won't hesistate to ask them again...hey, it's the first couple weeks, right!? I adore my name...who doesn't, and as Dale Carnegie says in "How to Win Friends and Influence People" to win friends, smile and remember their name. This experience has had the opposite effect on me. I am beginning to wonder why this is happening, and if people are really so obtuse that they would dare confuse the 6 black women in our group. No points from me on this one.

Anyway, in searching for companies and looking at their employee rosters there are surprisingly few, if any African American faces there. It is even more true in the Sustainability or Green realm. We will have to see how this all turns out, but it will, no doubt, be a HUGE learning experience for me.