The Warning Shot that didn't Work: Have we had Enough Yet?

A connection recently DM’d me: “You complain so much (on LinkedIn). Why don’t you go do something else?”

Fair enough. I do write a lot about inequity in and around corporate spaces... ("Potato poh-tah-to!" right?) So I actually paused and gave his question some thought. And I keep coming back to that chair:

I'm 22 and at my first big agency gig: An Omnicom holding company (one of the ones with all the letters). I'm young and Black and at this point you can fit every Black general market advertising agency professional inside a McDonald’s.

I'm a few months into the gig and they give me a new office—a converted janitor’s supply closet: desk, chair, shelf, old window that won’t shut right... Office next to me is empty, save for this big leather chair. It’s cushy, c-suite looking. I want it.

After a few weeks of no one in it I make a move.

 “Um, can I use that chair?” I ask our secretary.

“It was for the freelancers, but they’re gone. Probably won't back for a while. Just switch it out with yours.”

I do that and take the chair.

Done.

A couple weeks in, I walk in my office to find—on my nice new cushy chair—a noose. And not some thin packing twine or thin nylon cord for strapping the Christmas tree on your car roof in December. No; this was medium-thick white-tan rope, big loop into a coil with the hanging slack draped perfectly on my chair’s back…

A full-on effing noose.

I start thinking... You could get twine from our mailroom, but this stuff? I'd seen nooses before. But who keeps noose rope in their office?! It's not standard office equipment. The Klan was still in Indiana—we all knew where to stay away from there, but I doubt David Duke comes to Chicago to write chewing gum commercials... No, I doubt this was a whim. Somebody probably knotted this up at home, brought it in to work just to drop it when I wasn't looking...

My head is spinning.

I turn to our secretary—she sits about a free-throw from me.

 “Hey, anyone stop by my office looking for me?”

“I don’t know. I just got back from break.”

Hmmm.

I go back in my office, close the door and stare at the noose. I’m still new here. Would she actually tell me if somebody had stopped by? Maybe she wasn’t paying attention and they snuck it by her. Maybe she did see something but somebody with some juice told her not to say anything.

Hmmm…

My first-grade teacher called us “dirty monkeys” so often we thought it was just another thing white people said on the regular.

At age 7, Chicago PD told us their nightsticks were called “nigger beaters” and they’d use them on us if we didn’t act right.

When I was 11 the Klan came thru my neighborhood—with Indiana plates (shocker!). (It made the local news.)

When I was 13 me and my boy got chased out of (then lily-white) Marquette Park by some white guys yelling “F—kin’ niggers!”

In high school my honors English Lit. teacher told me to “go back to Africa if I didn’t like it here.”

(Those aren't even the highlights.)

Now—like I said, I’m 22, also 8 months removed from a chubby white guy pushing a red Camaro pulling a .38 on me at a red light on Archer Ave. in Bridgeport. He cocked it so I would it hear that it was loaded and know that he was for real:

“I’ll blow your nigger brains out if you don't get the fuck out of my neighborhood, you fuckin nigger!” He had a Blackhawks brim on, which was Hollywood casting director-perfect for that part of town. (Gotta love those old school hockey fans.)

So, at this point in my life, I know the city I live in, and I’ve got suspicions about at least some of the industry. So on this day, this noose is mostly just pissing me off.

A little voice in my head says roll this b***h right out in the hallway and make somebody answer for it. But I don’t. I wanna fight, tho.

But who?

Like I said, I got my suspicions; A few of us had been going back and forth over this particular chair for a minute. A lot of people liked it. One morning it'd be in one person's office, by afternoon someone else has snagged it. I probably had it the longest from its original empty office spot. But some folks were used to taking things they wanted. So it could be one of them.

Then again, the way the office was set up I was a corner three-pointer from the receptionist lobby. Random people were walking by my door all day long. And by now, I've been away from my desk just long enough that anybody could done this. I can't call it either way.

“Hey ma…” So, I call mom at work.

 “A WHAT?!" then she gets real calm.

“What do you want to do?"

By now, I knew that whatever I had seen or known, my mom had survived worse. Way worse. So her staying calm actually keeps me from going off.

“Um, I think I wanna stay.”

Another breath.

“Yeah... I’ll stay.”

“Good, man. Good. Call me later.”

I hang up. I take the noose off the chair, throw it in the little wastebasket that's by my desk.

We're on the 8th floor overlooking Michigan Avenue. Old building, old window... Mine has chipped paint, doesn’t shut right. I put my forehead on the window and looked down. I tell myself that next time something happens I’m finding out who; and they’re going down, no elevator.

Skip ahead...

It's been a few years now and I haven’t had to test out any windows—yet. But a few folks have come close, tho. (And they woulda had it coming, too.)

Today I think we’re at the point where younger folks need to fight this fight. This is bigger than "just do the work" or "boost minority hiring" or so-called allies piling on feelgood hashtags and conference chats...

Somebody's gotta do something. But I'm gonna let 'somebody; be somebody. I'll hang it up, soon... likely sooner than later, fact. But no one's gonna run me out, not before I’m ready to go.

Nobody.

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