THE ONLY BLACK GUY IN THE OFFICE

The Weight of White Guilt in the Workplace Is Too Damn Heavy

My coworkers — bless their hearts — are making a tough time even worse

The Only Black Guy In the Office
LEVEL
Published in
5 min readJun 9, 2020

--

Illustration: Richard Chance

Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.

When I received the Zoom meeting invite, I knew something was amiss. All it took was a quick glance at the attendee list, which only included me, a few department heads, HR, and the other two Black employees at the company. Oh, and Nat, our (Black) intern. The agenda: Working Toward a Better Tomorrow. I just knew things were about to get weird.

The timing of said meeting made its motivation obvious: It was scheduled the week after the inhumane killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, just one of a string of state-sanctioned murders that include Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery this year and countless others in the decades prior. In the aftermath of that news — and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests that have been popping up in cities around the world — I’ve noticed that my well-intentioned colleagues seemed to be tiptoeing around me in a way that’s palpable even virtually. There was a thoughtful, companywide email that had been sent, but up until this point, none…

--

--

The Only Black Guy In the Office
The Only Black Guy In the Office

Written by The Only Black Guy In the Office

Do you know him? Is it you? The trials and tribulations of a Black man navigating corporate life.

Responses (68)