Читать книгу Silenced and Sidelined - D Lynn D Arnold - Страница 5

(and everything in between)

I sit in a chair outside her office exchanging small talk with her executive assistant. It has been challenging to get on her calendar, and I know I am one of several people she will meet with today, back to back, with no breaks in between. She has people in her office now, and I can hear them talking fast as they wrap up a meeting that has run over. I feel my pulse quicken as her door opens, and two colleagues shuffle out still in the middle of their conversation. I smile and return her welcome as I ask myself, Is she too busy to shift gears and spend the next ninety minutes with me? And how much will she share?

Her office is warm, and her furniture is cluttered with books, mementos, and personal items that suggest she has worked here for many years with a collection of experiences and memories worthy of display. Her life is documented in the photos, certificates, and diplomas framed on the walls. She is a physician turned executive and has more education and credentials than most. As I begin the interview with the click of my recorder, she responds as I expect of any c-suite leader, with a clear and concise review of her background. As my questions pivot to those that probe into her experience of feeling silenced—I sense a subtle but guttural shift in her expression, posture, and being that widens and deepens over the next hour. It is almost as if she is raking the yard of her soul—I see her beauty, intelligence, pain, and exposure.

I ask her a question about what it feels like to be silenced. She looks me deep in the eyes as she says, “Feeling silenced? Carrie, it is almost like subcellular toxicity.” Her words stop, start, and get tousled together as she continues.

And I do mean literal cells, and I do mean spirit, and I do mean mind. It impacts the mind, body, and spirit. We endure these tiny bits of arsenic. Whether we are women, we are black people; we are disabled people, or we who are the “others.” It’s like taking a tiny bit of it every day. Then we wonder how it ends up manifesting itself?

She then pauses as she searches below the soil for more to say and I sit with her for a few seconds in silence.