Four Facets of Workplace Character Assassination: Black Folk Edition

Reader, following my last two posts, a friend and fellow reader has asked me to follow up on character assassination at work. I told this friend to look no farther than the public humiliation of Georgia DA, Fani Willis, for a very good example of this at work. However, he still asked for an extended post. And we both thought it a good idea to share it, because many African Americans and people of color do not know what character assassination looks like in real time.

Reader, in my other life, I am an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist who travels around the South helping those in management become leaders and not straw bosses. I am traveling and teaching employees of color and women to respect those in management who look like themselves. I am traveling around the South destroying jealousy-ladened, toxic workplaces. I am traveling around the South snuffing out intellectually-lazy narcissists and administrators who just want a paycheck and the power to tell other grown folk what to do.

That’s my other life. In my dreams.

In my real life, I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, writer, and struggling professor. I’ve been teaching higher education for almost 20 years and I want so badly to turn my back on it, but something keeps pulling me back. And the sad part is, even though I am in higher education, I have seen more than my fair share of toxic work cultures and have been the target of nonsexual harassment and multiple character assassinations. In my previous two posts, I have shared some of my experiences as a youngish Black woman (and I decree and declare that I’m still cute and am getting cuter with each added pound) with the hopes that other Black people, women, and people of color realize that it may not be all racism as we are apt to believe, but that work place may be toxic from the front door to the back! And maybe, in spite of the feelings of arriving, the paycheck and benefits package, this level of toxicity may not be the safest place to plant dreams. Even dandelions can’t grow if the soil is no good.

In those posts, I admit that I didn’t flesh out character assassination well. Truthfully, character assassination deserves its own book and not a blog post. Therefore, I am glad that my friend asked for an elaboration. Reader, here we go:

1. ) Please understand that character assassinations know no race, sexuality, ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, or…