
Not a Black Chair - mikeevans
https://medium.com/@amelielamont/not-a-black-chair-8a8e7e2b9140
======
steve_adams_86
It sounds like a very dramatic series of events on all accounts. The Guy,
Amélie, Kelly, they were all up to weird and bad behaviour. I would say the
way she handled things wasn't anywhere near ideal, but that doesn't justify
her improper treatment at all. The chair incident is just bizarre.

I would say what went wrong here is that the others weren't fired as well -
not that she shouldn't have been. That sounds shitty, but I think the most
egregious inequality here is that the others got to stay employed. No one did
anything right.

Unfortunately I think this is just tech for you. I've witnessed so much sexism
in this industry, I just don't know what to do anymore (besides ask people to
stop it).

~~~
in_cahoots
I appreciate that she didn't sugar-coat her own behavior here; drunkenly
slapping a coworker at a company event (or even in one's free time) is enough
to get you fired at most businesses.

Still, the major theme here seems to be a complete lack of professionalism
from all involved (seriously, who tries to set up two new coworkers?) To me
that screams "culture problems" coming from the top, not handful of bad
apples. When your department is run like a Greek house, don't be surprised
when the employees act like frat boys and sorority girls.

------
kafkaesq
_She stared at me for a few seconds and remarked, “Oh. I didn’t see you. You
blended in. You’re so black, you blend into the chair.” I didn’t believe what
I was hearing and I didn’t know what to do. I looked at my arm, compared it to
the chair in front of her._

 _“Nope, my arm is brown and the chair is black,” I quipped awkwardly._

 _She replied, “No. They’re the same color.”_

 _The room was silent._

Yowzers. So is "Kelly" still working at Squarespace? I'm not sure I could take
someone seriously as a co-worker - and certainly not as a manger - after
saying something like that in a meeting.

~~~
legostormtroopr
Did you see the chair? Did you see the authors skin tone? Are you aware of the
lighting in the room they were in? Perhaps Kelly was distracted because she
thought she saw the author at the back of the room, or Kelly has poor colour
perception.

Given how subjective and variable human sight is, its perfectly reasonable
that Kelly may just not have seen her there.

~~~
khedoros1
\- The chair was black. We know what various black chairs look like.

\- The author's skin tone:
[http://amelielamont.com/about/](http://amelielamont.com/about/)

That woman, wearing a blue shirt, isn't someone that I'd reasonably expect to
blend into a black chair, even with a room darkened to make a projector more
visible and a half-blind manager.

Keep in mind that the author had also spoken up earlier in the meeting,
offering to take on another supervisor's project during his vacation.

~~~
tetromino_
To me, they key point is that "Kelly" did not apologize. If she had honestly
failed to notice the author, she would have been mortified of the faux pas,
and would have apologized during the meeting or in person soon afterwards. The
lack of remorse, even during the later meeting with HR, makes a deliberate
racist snub by far the more likely explanation.

That said, there _are_ circumstances where a person with dark skin tone is
hard to see. I once came very close to running over a pedestrian with dark
pants, dark jacket, dark hat, and dark skin crossing a poorly-lit suburban
street on a dark winter's evening; fortunately for both of us, the roadway was
dry.

~~~
khedoros1
> To me, they key point is that "Kelly" did not apologize.

I'll agree. Mistakes can be made in the moment, but they're worse if they
aren't corrected after some reflection.

> That said, there are circumstances where a person with dark skin tone is
> hard to see.

My wife is darker than the author seems to be, based on her photo. At night,
if she's (my wife) wearing dark clothes and comes out of a dark room
unexpectedly...well, we'll say that she has startled me a few times. Several
circumstances have to come together at the same time for that to happen that I
don't usually associate with sitting in a conference room for a meeting,
though. So while the statement's true, it's hard to imagine a work situation
that it'd apply to.

