Manns Medium

  Yesterday, August 6, 2020, I learned something that I would like to share with you. I need you to follow me here and if I lose you at any point please take a few minutes to re-read what is written here and think about it for a few seconds before continuing. Yesterday I was given an opportunity to try and explain to others how and why I came to believe that my work place was indeed a “hostile work environment”. I had practiced saying what I was feeling several different ways so as not to alienate anyone in the audience and actually thought I had figured out the correct way. Needless to say it did not go the way I thought it would and I left that meeting more hurt, agitated and angered than I did when I stepped into it. For the rest of the day and half the night, I could not understand how something could have gone so wrong and suddenly it occurred to me. The reason it went so wrong was not that I did not do what was right, it was due to certain expectation I had allowe...

Before anyone can began to discuss racism and truly have an open dialogue about over 357 years of oppression, they must first be willing to have their feelings hurt and be willing to hurt another person feelings. This conversation will never advance if we adhere too tightly to being politically correct. Now with that being said, there is always a way you can make your point without being harsh or abrasive. It’s the difference between hurting someone’s feeling intentionally or unintentionally. We began with the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The transatlantic slave trade was essentially a triangular route from Europe to Africa, to the Americas and back to Europe. On the first leg, merchants exported goods to Africa in return for enslaved Africans, gold, ivory and spices. The ships then traveled across the Atlantic to the American colonies where the Africans were sold for sugar, tobacco, cotton and other produce. The Africans were sold as slaves to work on plantations and as...

Many people take pride in a label or tag for different reasons but one of the constant reasoning is the belief that if you own a label or tag, you then remove the control it has over you and recover that control over it.  Now while I can see some truth in this, there are still words that I personally would never seek to take ownership of the number one word for me is Niger.  It started out as learning about the origin behind this label and the results of usage of this term.  The pain, suffering and deaths that are associated with this word made me decide early in the game never to accept it as part of my character, my definition or my reason.  I saw the nooses and even felt the pulling of one around my own neck once so trying to tell me that it was okay for anyone of any color to use the word as if only a selected few had the right to use it only made me see them as nothing more than ignorant of this origin and these results.  The more I thought about it, t...