You Are Not Human Here.

When I was in college, many of my classes touched on how capitalism strips away our agency to indoctrinate us into a workforce of unconscious zombies. We work and work, attempting to escape the precarity inherent to our society. To avoid reckoning with it, we act as though the foundation we’re standing on is not crumbling underneath us, pretending it wasn’t designed that way. Acknowledging that we were placed on intentionally faulty ground is destabilizing in itself. Some then choose to stand still in hopes that if we don’t make a fuss, don’t try to live beyond the limited movements of our rocky foundation, then we’ll be saved. Even while knowing it’s impossible to escape it, we’re made to believe that Corporate America is a method of compliance that shelters us from this insecurity.

For the first time since graduating nearly three years ago, I’ve been working in an office. I’ve had corporate jobs before, but fortunately, they’ve all been remote. Despite my better judgment, I was swindled into thinking a hybrid work environment would be good for me. Some socializing here and there to prevent myself from becoming a total recluse. Safe to say now that it’s been a great lesson in the consequences of going against my intuition, but also a wonderful opportunity to observe humanity in a way I never have before.

When you’re in a classroom, digesting material about the force that is capitalism, the sheer magnitude of control it has over our lived experience, there are many ways to make those theoretical lessons more tangible. However, I’ve learned there is no greater lesson than, well, living it. It’s fascinating how human behavior molds itself to archetypes in these settings, stripped of any real range or personality beyond the acceptable forms of existence.

By now, I’m one of four Black people in a sea of white and asian faces. As the only dark-skinned Black woman, there is a level of hyper visibility I’m subjected to that one may not understand until you’re in such settings. My existence in the office visibly rubs people the wrong way. My tendency to resist conformity in whatever ways I can also does not help. And no, it’s not in my head (I’ve brought this up to others who have hinted at this). For example, someone in the office has made it a point to make me uncomfortable from my first day. Her latest iteration of microaggression is misspelling my three-letter first name on vertical wide emails, even though she’s spelled it right before. I’ve had the orientation of my flexible desk shifted, its height changed when I step away to go to the bathroom; managers have giggled together within earshot of me about things I’ve said while making it clear that I have no power (or concrete proof) to do anything. In summary, I’m in a great position to observe the enforcement of racial and otherwise hierarchies taking shape all in defense of a status quo that upholds white supremacist capitalist notions of how we ought to exist.

There is much to discuss, but I’d like to ruminate on the dehumanization process required when attempting to “fit” into such spaces. Whiteness is…encroaching. It’s impossible to escape it. I’m in active pursuit of living as Black a life as I can. I live in a predominantly Black area of the city, I chose to join a historically Black sorority in college (that has its issues and choreographies that recreate toxic patterns of dominion and control, but I digress). I consume Black media, I revel in the loudness of my neighbor’s music on a warm spring day (literally happening as I write this)—I love my Black life! I love to witness Black life around me. Now that I’m practically living in an office, I can’t ignore how whiteness encroaches—its violence, its tendency toward suffocating life that dares to exist differently from it. I talked about the “small” things I’ve been subjected to in the office, and there are larger things I’m not ready to share yet that have all pushed me into thinking about why. Why is there such joy, such pleasure, that these coworkers derive from my discomfort?

It comes down to two things for me: the eroticism behind Black violence and an inability to deal with their precarity. Black suffering is the opium from which our society derives a constant drip of euphoric release. I exist within an inherent power imbalance. It is a white space, and I’m an intruding Black force. For many, I imagine, there is this compulsion toward constantly reminding me of the pecking order. Both of the bureaucracies of business variety and also relating to the racial hierarchies. I see it in the way the non-Black people of color overperform their disapproval of me for white validation. I see it when the women engage in the choreography for white male approval. And every time I’m struck with a new comment, a sly remark meant as a dog whistle that only rings in my ears, I observe the smirk on their faces, waiting for me to respond. They want to know the deepest parts of me to mold me into their control. It’s an obsession, and there is a twisted sensuality to it. They are relentless, lustful in pursuit of my subjugation. Every morning I walk into that office, unshaken, is an invitation to keep pursuing this erotic fixation with breaking me. To them, I am not a person who feels pain, who is soft, joyous, complex, and dynamic. To them, I’m a challenge, a back to be broken. And I question if the older Black man—the one who told me early on in my tenure that I had to do well because they wouldn’t hire more of us if I didn’t—went through the same buck breaking. I wonder how long he stood tall before bowing his head, submitting to an overgrown frat bro who gushes over the idea of breaking my will.

My existence in such a space questions the status quo because I carry reminders that there is life outside of what they’ve convinced themselves is the only way to live. And perhaps at some point, they were also personally victimized because they reeked of vitality and chose to give in, submitting to the breaking, and I stand as a reminder of what they used to be. Which makes me question: do these people know that they, too, are enslaved to the capitalist system? That they have bought so far into the false promises of capitalism, the shiny fakery of white superiority, that they exist as shells of the human experience. As they engage in these choreographies, do they see themselves clearly as pawns? Perhaps they envision themselves as the victors, as the guardians—oath keepers dare I say—with power and influence to uphold the principles of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. But I’m sure, more of this than anything else, that I’m disposable in this environment, just as they are. It is not enough for me to put my life into “playing the game,” bending myself into unrecognizable versions to be kissed on the forehead by masters I never consented to having for the sake of survival. Still, many of them are resigned to such a life.

In part, each of them individually contributes to such a desolate space, void of hope and true joy. But it’s also so much bigger than they are. I chose to be in this environment, but never really saw myself staying that long. And now that I’ve seen what it does to you, I’m desperate to opt out. When I look around to see if anyone will meet my gaze to process these small acts of violence that unfold constantly, all I receive in return are dead stares. And there is no greater reminder of capitalism’s power than looking for signs of life and instead meeting your social death.

Thank you for making it this far. Holding your time and attention means a lot to me. I invite you to stay if you’re open to receiving whatever I can give. — [ana]

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