“The vendors have all been fantastic. I talked with the florist, and the arrangements we have planned will be beautiful.” I sit in the seat across from him, the same one I have been using for months now, and take out my iPad with all of my notes and plans on it.
“Very good.” He taps his cigar in the ashtray on his desk. “But I know you asked for this meeting for a reason. Is there a problem?”
The only downside of being alone for two weeks is that I’ve been inside my own head for the majority of it. I’ve been overanalyzing everything that I say, do, or think. Conversations from the last few months, like Vonnie saying she thought I hated my job, repeat in my head like a bad song. And the only way I can think of to get them out is to confront what’s been bothering me and prove to myself that I was right to give my loyalty to the organization that my dad and I both loved.
“There is, actually.” I pull open the document I have filled with Glenn Chandler quotes and links to the videos or articles where he’s being quoted and slide the iPad across the table. “I’m aware that this isn’t an event under the Mustangs organization; however, as you’re the owner, it will be touted as one no matter what. I understand that you’re friendly with Mr. Chandler, but I’m not sure you’re aware of some of the deeply problematic things he has said recently.”
Mr. Mahler slips on his glasses as he takes the iPad from my hand. He starts reading the list, clicking on a few links as he does.
“I’m sure you understand that I’m just trying to protect your organization from the potential fallout that could come from you hosting a fundraiser while he’s spouting some things that are, quite frankly, racist.”
Take that, Quinton! I see racism and I call it out when I do!
Mr. Mahler takes off his glasses, tossing them on the table as he hands me back the iPad. “Racist? Come on. People are just too politically correct these days.” The smug smile does a terrible job at masking the irritation in his voice. “That’s what I love about Glenn. He says what people are too afraid to say, he shakes things up.”
“I’m sorry”—not fucking sorry—“but alluding that minorities are criminals and attacking immigrants is not just being politically incorrect. I can tell you, as a person of color, it is offensive.”
“Oh lord.” He huffs, leaning back in his chair. “Don’t tell me you’re pulling the race card.”
“Excuse me?” I must’ve heard him wrong. There’s no way he said what I thought he said. Right?
“You know what I mean, I thought you were different. Don’t go getting all offended and pulling the race card on me now.”
Wrong.
Heat blooms from deep within, my blood starting to boil with the rage that has been lingering beneath the surface for the last couple of weeks, as the final thread holding me together snaps.
First, I get Quinton accusing me of excusing racism. Then, when I do point out something that is glaringly racist, I get accused of using the race card. Whatever the fuck that is.
But more than the anger and shock of having him say those words to me, there’s pain. Excruciating pain that comes with the realization that no matter what I do, no matter who I am, no matter how old I am, there are people who will never see deeper than the color of my skin.
Hurt causes my voice to shake. “If anything, I give more passes than most people and you should listen to me because that is not a term I throw around lightly.”
“Sure it is,” he scoffs. “Only when things aren’t going your way, right?”
I have made an effort to not put labels on anybody for any reason. When something happens, I never factor race into it. And maybe that’s naive of me. I never missed the way store clerks would follow me in stores, but never my friends. I witnessed the way officers handled pulling over my dad versus the Black men I dated. But I never attributed it to race . . . even when I knew deep down it was the reason.
Standing in this room, still reeling with the heartache of Quinton walking away, staring at a man who will never respect me, I feel like my entire life has been summed up in two moments. I just can’t win. When I was a kid, my dad would say things about how we should all be color-blind. I can’t help but resent those words now. It’s how I’ve tried to live my life and it’s impossible for me. I can’t ignore color, I am color. Trying to do so has caused so much damage. What I should’ve been doing is acknowledging and accepting all of the pieces that make me who I am instead of trying to force myself into a box I’ll never fit into.
Maybe Quinton was more right than I wanted to admit. Because when I think about it, I was so afraid that if I pointed out racism, I was inadvertently calling my family racist. I thought that I could protect myself from racism if I shielded myself in whiteness. But it doesn’t matter how much I straighten my hair, how many stories I tell about my white dad, or if I never address racism ever in my life, some people won’t see anything beyond my Blackness.
“You know what?” I stand up, ready to walk away from Mahler and Glenn Chandler. Vonnie was right, I hate this job. “I quit.”
“You what?” He chokes on the cigar smoke he just inhaled. “You can’t quit!”
“I can and I did.” I grab my purse, not wanting to waste another second in the same room as this man who makes my skin crawl, and
