Becoming The Problem

Hello friends,

There’s a thing that happens to Black people - and likely to other people who face isms - when we name the ism that we’re facing. I’m going to talk about racism, because it’s what I’m most experienced with, but for those with intersectional identities and those facing other isms, see if this resonates with you too.

What brought this to mind was my experience on my previous newsletter platform, Substack. I’ve recently realised that it mirrors what happens to many Black women and Black people in the workplace. It’s the pet to threat syndrome, which increases exponentially if you dare to mention the R-word: racism.

What Happens at Work

In an office setting, if you mention racism as a Black person, many of your white colleagues look uncomfortable, feel uncomfortable and do anything they can to distance themselves from any association with it. As usual, many seem to believe that the label is worse than the experience, which is kind of ridiculous. Persist with the mention, and no matter how well you’ve been perceived in the past, the temperature will start to cool and you’ll literally find yourself out in the cold. 

My Substack Experience

If you recall, I was a Substack Grow Fellow in 2021, one of only a handful of Global Majority folx to achieve this. I got a welcome one-off stipend (just in time to pay some college bills) and free access to a few useful tools. And I was invited to be part of their Product Lab for early release features, and to be in their Slack. In 2022 I became a member of their Writer’s League with continued access to their team. My experience of Substack at that point was positive - they were writer friendly and really cared.

But when I got trolled on Substack Notes - the social network the founders denied was a social network - the cracks in the facade started to show. Some members of the team reached out to support me; a few others were silent. And the response from the founders was disappointing. This foreshadowed what happened later with the Nazi problem, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

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