Dear Elphaba

Hi Sunnies,

I was talking to a law school friend this week and she shared that she quit her job. “Another one…” I thought to myself. There are so many Black professional women that are at their whits end. That are so tired, so broken, so beat down that their only option is to leave a place. Usually, it’s by force. Usually, we’ve stayed there longer than we should have. Usually, it’s after many signs that light no longer lives here. Usually, it’s after being forced to leave. I mean wow.

Another one bites the dust. Why are so many professional black women hitting this wall? As a black girl, if you’ve gotten to law school, usually it’s because you are a high achiever. Most of us breezed through high school and undergrad. Most of us test well and have exceptional social skills that land us in leadership positions. Most of us get to law school and have to learn how to really study for the first time. Law school is hard but we push through. Bar prep is hard but we get through that too. We push because someone somewhere convinced us that we have the problem solving skills, the social etiquette, and the work ethic to enter the highly prestigious career of practicing law.

We get to the big job as an attorney and it’s not the work or the hours. Yeah that part may be hard, but it’s the people who steal what should be a perfect fit from us. My first professional work experience as a lawyer, I worked with a lawyer who casually used the n-word when referring to a client’s instagram page. Would you believe the firm did nothing and I was left to confront her myself? My second experience, I had a boss who was so jealous of me and worried that I would pass her, she made my life hell. So when I saw Wicked, I felt Elphaba on a spiritual level. We all did! She was an outsider, a black girl in a white man’s world. By all accounts, to the other students at least, she had no business even being in the room. She found allyship in the animal professors, but even they were not her. And then Madame Morrible, who she thought saw something in her, villainized her the moment she couldn’t control her.

The worst part is, when I talk to older Black women professionals, this is nothing new. It’s been happening since Black women entered the professional work force. They don’t want us there but they can’t do what we do. If these firms and companies were smart, they would use our strengths to drive business forward. But the threat of our success pressures them to keep us as far outside as possible. It’s easy to be mean to a girl you don’t like anyway.

What I admired most about Queen Elphaba is she would rather do the right thing and be the villain in everyone else’s story than play the respectability politics that Glinda played. You know the part of your consciousness you just have to turn off and welcome complacency to get what you want. How many Black women in these spaces are doing that? How long does that last? Maybe it’s time we play their game on our terms. Maybe it’s time to wake the “villain” up. I don’t know what the right answer is but what I do know is things have to change. If you are wondering if you should leave a place, a job, a partner, a friend, usually, if you think you should, the answer is yes. I pray diversity helps this problem and we stop facing these issues alone. I pray the systems change and this bullying is no longer tolerated but even if it doesn't, please take good care. No one else can do it for you.

forever blooming,

Mikaela Amira