E2. The Intersectionality of Imposter Syndrome and Race with my Sista Circle Pt. 2

 What does racial aggression look like in a "professional" work environment? How can I protect my peace, my energy, and my mental health in work situations that involve racial aggression? How do we balance sticking up for ourselves with our professional duty to the individual causing us harm? In Part 2 of the Sista Circle Episodes, sister/friend Sarah shares her personal experiences of racial aggression and imposter syndrome in her legal career. She recounts a shocking incident in court and the challenges she faced as a woman of color navigating a predominantly white legal environment.  Rhonda and Whitney share their experiences with white people commenting on their appearance, and the sisters/friends talk about some options we have when these situations happen.

Those options include addressing the behavior head on, making light of the behavior and keeping it moving, and ignoring it all together. Each response has it's own benefits and drawbacks. Which do you use?

The podcast discusses strategies to protect mental health and confidence while confronting racial biases and microaggressions in the workplace. Listeners will gain insights into conflict resolution, self-empowerment, and finding support in professional settings. The episode highlights the importance of self-advocacy, protecting energy when we can, and moving forward in our power. We are not alone, and we will not be gaslit!

This episode is juicy and SO relatable! If you want more, don't forget to subscribe and join us each week. Reach out to Whitney with your comments and feedback by leaving a voice message at www.impostrixpodcast.com or on instagram @ImpostrixPodcast.

Be Validated.

www.ImpostrixPodcast.com

Interested in a free discovery call to see how W. Knox Lee Consulting & Mediation could help you achieve your goals? Email the team at info@wknoxlee.com.

Transcript

Whitney: [00:00:00] Welcome to Impostrix Podcast where we affirm the lived experiences of professionals of color who navigate imposter syndrome and racial toxicity. At work the tools that you learn here will help you confidently address racial toxicity at work. Put that imposter syndrome to the side. Stand in your power and resist racial gaslighting. I'm your host, Whitney Knox Lee. A black mother to black boy children, a civil rights attorney And an anti-racism educator and trainer. 

If this is your first time listening. Welcome. We're glad you're here. Episodes are published every week. Make sure you go back and listen to our past episodes.Alright, here we go. 

Whitney: Hi, and welcome to Impostrix Podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Knox Lee. Thank you for joining us for part two of the Sista Circle, um, episodes.

I am joined today by Sarah Hassan. And Rhonda Bass, Rhonda was with us on our last episode and so she'll be familiar to you 

 So Sarah, tell us about yourself. Who are you? 

Sarah: I'm Sarah Sada Hassan to some.

I'm Egyptian. I am a daughter of immigrants. I'm the oldest and only daughter. So that means the weight of the world is on my shoulders. Um, I'm Muslim. I am a sister, a auntie, a friend, and an attorney. 

Whitney: You got some cute nails too. Those are real cute. Um, Sarah started at my first lawyering job, literally like what, a month before I got there.

Sarah: I started February. I believe you started April. 

Whitney: Yeah. Yeah. So two months before I got there, um, and Rhonda worked there also, but without a doubt, probably the most helpful thing in my early professional career was having someone who also started around the same time that I did at work, who was like new to lawyering, um, to be able to bounce ideas off of and talk to.

Because there were many times, so we also shared the same supervisor and there were many times where we had questions, I had questions that I felt were just like stupid questions. Um, and so instead of going to my supervisor, I went to Sarah so that she could like, help me gauge whether or not it was stupid.

 and then if we couldn't come up with the answer, then we'd go to our supervisor. 

 and Rhonda, why don't you introduce yourself again?

RHonda: I'm Rhonda Bass. I'm an attorney, a wife, and a mother. And as I said [00:02:00] before, I've been in the game for 30 years. 

Whitney: thanks, Rhonda. And so Rhonda is going to help keep us on track, um,

RHonda: Really?

Whitney: Yes. And for folks that, well, most folks who don't know Rhonda, her, like, one of her roles in the sister circle is as like the mama bear, but also she asks so many questions all the time. She has this need to know and this need to understand.

And so I thought that it would be great having her join us to help Sarah and I get into this conversation a little bit. So with that being said, um, the first thing that I want to talk about is when Sarah have you experienced or what has your experience with imposter syndrome been like? 

Sarah: I feel like I dealt with imposter syndrome more at the start of my career, but I still deal with it now.

Um. And I want to go back to the example that is probably most vivid in my head, if you were there, um, it was early on in my career, I think it was still the first few months that we were practicing because our supervisor was there to shadow us, you also were there to shadow me, um, and I had a case another against another attorney, a white male, and we were in open court, the judge was, I think, in chambers at that point, and me and the attorney were trying to negotiate with each other.

Um, and in the middle of the conversation talking about, you know, what each of our clients is willing to, to do, he just interrupts me and says, look here, little lady. And he was holding a pin and he takes that pin and he hits me on the nose with it twice. And I remember being in shock. I couldn't believe that it happened.

I mean, still today when I tell the story, I always say, I would not have believed it if you didn't confirm that it happened because you sat there and you saw it and it got worse from there. Um, we then went into chambers with the judge to discuss the case with him. And at that point, it was just me, the attorney and the judge, another white male.

And this man just went in on. He realized from my name that my heritage, and he kept asking me questions like, why are your people so angry? Um, asked me just a lot of inappropriate things, dealing more so with my background as opposed to the case that we were dealing with. And I remember like looking at the judge and wanting the judge to say something, but the judge wasn't saying anything.

He just kept saying, all right, let's, you know, let's, let's talk about this case now. And in that moment, I remember feeling so overwhelmed with how to handle it because in my mind, I was a new attorney. I didn't know what I was doing and I felt like if I ruffled any feathers, then it was going to be at the detriment of my client's case.

So I did nothing. I did nothing. I just finished up the case. Um, And I still think about that day often and how it made me feel, how I handled it, which I really didn't handle it and how I would handle it now, but I feel like that was probably probably one of the moments in my like a highlight of not a highlight because that would indicate something good, but just something that stands out to me as a moment where I really didn't know.

I felt like I didn't know what I was doing. Like I didn't belong in that space.

RHonda: Well, I wanted to correct you and say, you said, I didn't know what I was doing. You actually knew what you were doing as far as the law was concerned, but that's the other part about it. You felt

Sarah: true. That's what imposter syndrome is. I mean, he made me, yeah, he made me feel in that moment that I didn't know what I was doing. The way he absolutely degraded me in a courtroom, um, the way the judge who was supposed to be a neutral third party, you know, didn't say anything. It made me feel very small in that space.

Whitney: Yeah. And I remember also, because I mean, like you said, we were both new to the career and new to the space and feeling similarly about like, uh, should I say something, um, kind of waiting to see, is somebody else going to say something? Um, because the experience even felt surreal for me. Um, and. I talked to somebody a few weeks ago who talked about trauma and some of the ways that we can experience trauma, even if the trauma isn't like our own personal experience, and that our brains don't know.[00:07:00] 

And so I was, I reflect on this as like a traumatic moment and not in that it was so, I don't know, maybe not the typical thing that I would consider trauma, but it was certainly I mean. You, you used a word just now degraded and I feel like any moment where like we feel degradation, especially in a professional environment is a moment.

Whitney: That's, you know, can be traumatic. Um, the other thing that we talked about recently in the last sister circle conversation. Yeah. Was about this idea of when other people have like less confidence in our ability because of whatever their assumptions are about who we are and how we show up, then how that in turn made us have less confidence about our [00:08:00] ability.

And that's what I hear you saying here is that it's not so much that you came into the situation feeling as though. You were a fraud or you didn't belong, but there was an interaction that happened that made you question everything about why you were even in that space because that thing was so bizarre.

Um, you know, and then later he goes on to make comments that are disparaging about your culture. Um, and, you know, that type of racial aggression is the type of racial aggression that I think. I talk so much about in my trainings, but other people may not experience as aggression or they may not be able to identify as aggression like in the moment.

But it is when somebody comes up to you and says, why are your people blanky, blank, blank, anything, you know? 

Sarah: And to that point, I will say when I walked into that [00:09:00] courtroom, I felt confident because I, that particular case was, I believe, a temporary protective order and I had been doing those at that point for at least a couple of years because I had done it in law school as well.

I was in a clinic where I'd done that. So that was an area where I felt confident and like y'all talked about in the last sister circle discussion, I overprepare a lot. Because I'm a new attorney, I was a new attorney at that time. I was very overprepared. So I walked into that courtroom feeling very good about the case and feeling like I know what I'm doing.

I know the law, I know it's on my side. And in a matter of seconds with someone who's supposed to be a colleague, I felt absolutely destroyed. And I still, I get upset with myself sometimes now when I recount that, because I wish I would have handled it better. But the truth is I was new. I didn't know how to handle a moment of conflict within a [00:10:00] professional setting like that.

Sarah today would handle a lot differently. Like I would say something I would speak up because I feel stronger in. My professional experience, I feel stronger as a woman of color. I just feel more confident overall. And what I've learned navigating the legal field as a woman of color is nothing can come at my mental health's detriment. Even if it's a case that's tough and that's challenging, you know, I can still speak up and I don't have to assume or think that it's going to hurt my client's case. Because that's just not, it's not okay. I can't be in a professional atmosphere and feel degraded. That's going to hurt my client's case more than me speaking up.

RHonda: it kind of sounded like you were second guessing yourself because it was a surreal moment. You weren't sure that this was actually [00:11:00] happening. Like, could this be happening? So in that moment, you didn't know how to react because you really were like, okay, is this really happening?

Sarah: And I remember afterwards looking at Whitney and being like, did, did you see that? Did what just happened? Because I was so shocked. And let me say, I and Rhonda, you'd witnessed this. Several times, my race, my ethnicity, my cultural background is always, I feel like a topic of conversation, even within professional realms, uh, for some, I'm very ethnically ambiguous.

Right? I mean, when you look at me, I look ethnically ambiguous. So it's always something that comes up. So I had experienced where, you know, I'm in a professional moment and it takes a turn into whatever my, Cultural background is Rhonda herself has witnessed me.

She's introduced me to a lawyer. Whose first question was, are you part of the Muslim Brotherhood?

You know, just based off of my name, based off of my [00:12:00] appearance, whatever it is, people are always commenting. I mean, I was at a, um, like a bar event or like an attorney's event and somebody approached me an attorney and immediately started asking questions about my ethnicity and referred to me as oil people.

RHonda: As what?

Sarah: Oil people. Oil people. A professional said to me, oil people.

RHonda: Really?

Sarah: there were several people who witnessed it. So that's not atypical for me to experience. But to experience it in such a, this is supposed to be a formal, we're in court, we're negotiating a case, I am still a colleague, and you physically, Did something it wasn't just words.

It wasn't you physically like you were aggressive You took a pin and you hit me on my nose with it, right? That was such A surreal moment 

Whitney: and it's like, I would never, you [00:13:00] know, like who I, I really can't put myself in the shoes of someone who feels like they have the authority or the power or even the audacity to bop somebody on the nose in court, 

Sarah: the privilege and the entitlement that you can do that.

And you did not only that you think you did it. And indeed you got away with it. Nobody checked you. Right. Even the judge, nobody checked you.

RHonda: And I was going to say the judge should have turned the case around. At that point when he started asking you about your people it had nothing to do with any of the issues 

Sarah: Yeah. I mean, he said, let's talk about the case. He did redirect, but I 

RHonda: It took him a minute

Sarah: it did. It did. I mean, he let the whole exchange happen. He wasn't present for when he bought me on the nose, but once we were in chambers, he let that whole exchange, it was a series of questions. Oh, and before we left, he [00:14:00] had, we agreed to the order, what we were going to do.

And I'd said, you know, I'll, I'll email the order to him and he picked up a pin and started to, he like grabbed my hand to write his email address on my hand. 

 But it was just, I think, another way for him to,

RHonda: touch you

Sarah: yeah, touch me. I don't know, make me feel less than and I remember pulling my hand back and being like, what are you, what are you doing?

And just like redirecting him with a piece of paper and to, again, every time I recount this, I sometimes feel so mad at myself because I wish I would have spoken up, but it is what it is at this point

Whitney:  It's like he, I mean, he thought of you as a thing that he could write. Absolutely. 

Sarah: I was an object in that moment.

So it was everything coming together. It was racial aggression. It was making me that imposter. It was everything coming together to make me feel like I don't belong here. I don't belong in this space. [00:15:00] And it wasn't the first time in, you know, our time. Doing that kind of work in that particular part of the United States where we were made to feel that way.

I mean, I recall one of your cases where I was tagging along and I mean, we were dressed to the nines, like we looked professional and it was immediately they asked us. I think we were the secretaries. But the white man who came in with a very wrinkled outfit was immediately led into the attorney's box.

It's moments like that, that no matter how confident you are, no matter how prepared you are, it makes you stop and be like, dang, these people really don't want me 

Whitney: here. Mm hmm. Yeah, I'm gonna ask you about that later, about like dress, because that's one of the things that I often talk about is how I, as a Black woman, feel like I need to dress to be given the respect that I'm entitled to.

Um, but that's for later in the conversation. 

Okay. So one of the things that like, [00:16:00] I hear you talking about Sarah and that experience and that I know I've experienced is what do we do when we are like in our work and we experienced this thing. It may happen in a space where we're trying to be advocates for other people, one experience that I often talk about, my experience while I was out at one of the libraries, being available for people to come to, to seek legal advice, one of the people that came in, Told me that I was pretty for a colored girl, and I had never been called colored before And I never been like I guess compared to white people like directly When talking about my appearance and whether or not I was pretty And I mean, like you, I was pretty stunned 

Um, I did not know what to do and I, I ultimately just kind of laughed it [00:17:00] off. but I also, you know, part of my not knowing what to do was not knowing what my duty was to continue to be available to this person who may be a potential client. Even though I've just been offended, by this person because of my race and gender, you know, and so you had mentioned something early on that you've come to realize that your mental health essentially comes first, 

And I think that's something that I wish I would have known earlier on is that it's okay for me to just advocate for myself. Uh, and of course I went back to work. I told my supervisor about it. My supervisor was like, fuck that, you know, like you ain't got to keep talking to that person. but in the moment and as a young attorney.

I felt like I did have a duty to continue to be objective and to continue to be somebody that, [00:18:00] might be able to help this person instead of setting a boundary with somebody. and I think to some extent that goes to my internalized feeling of particularly white people are entitled to my time when they're not, um, no one is entitled to my time except for perhaps my children.

 I wonder if you could share with us ways that you try and protect your energy and protect your mental health, in your profession. 

Sarah: So for me, and I recognize this as kind of a privileged answer because not everyone is in a work situation where they can. Speak up, whether it's fear of retaliation or just not being able to handle whatever consequences come from that, because I recognize that not everyone is in that position.

I am at a point now, though, where I have to say something for my mental health. I've got to say something [00:19:00] and sometimes it doesn't. And let me tell you. I'm very direct, and y'all know that. I am very direct. I usually don't have a problem with saying how I feel, but those are moments that are still very tough, very tough for me to address.

Um, whether it's someone bringing up my, and it happens all the time, even the position that I'm in now, with people that I'm working with, um, bringing up my race, my religion, my whatever it is, and me having to redirect them. It's an uncomfortable thing to do. But, I have to do it. Because... It's snowballs so quickly 

If I just, you know, try to laugh it off then their questions are going to keep coming and it's going to turn into something else. So, I'm in a position where for my own mental health, I will say something, I will address it, and I will, if I continue to feel disrespected, I will cut it off. I don't owe anybody, even in a professional setting, if you [00:20:00] disrespect me.

I don't owe you the courtesy of continuing to listen to you disrespect me, and I know that was something that we both when we were at our previous organization. I mean, we took that feeling and we ran with it because we realized that if we felt like this, other people felt like this and that we should not have to.

Sit with potential clients who are saying things to us like that we should not have to have, you know, our intake workers who are doing phone calls. They should not have to sit there and be cussed out, you know, because they sound black or whatever. It is that the person on the other line says, and we.

Felt strongly about that. Like we have to empower ourselves and empower those around us that.

It should not come at the cost of your mental health or physical health. And for me, I'm someone who my mental health affects my physical health pretty seriously. So, yeah, it's easier to say, you got to say something, you got to say [00:21:00] something. But I also recognize that that's not the case for everybody.

Whitney: Yeah. And we talk, um, a little bit in some of the trainings that I do, we talk about the various options that we have when we're experiencing something like this, where somebody is saying something offensive and it can be applied in any situation. You know, we're applying it specifically to racial aggression.

But in any situation you have the option to brush it off you have the option to stop it and then kind of make light of it and then you have the option to like address it right on and there's benefits and kind of consequences to each of those things because if you just laugh it off then You're, you might feel like you're not protecting yourself or you didn't stand up for yourself and down the road you may have shame, um, and also the person that's, uh, perpetrating these actions towards you, has [00:22:00] not been stopped, you know, and how they interact with, with you.

 and potentially with other people. and then if you make light of something, so maybe you make a joke about, about it or, um, you say something to interrupt the interaction, but it's not as strong and as direct but if you do that, somebody might not even get the hint.

You know, like that might go over their head and, but what it does do is it stops the behavior. Um, and then the last thing being direct and addressing it in the moment is uncomfortable. You may not have all the words, like you may not even have the language to be able to communicate to somebody why what they said was harmful to you.

 and so you might be restricted by your fear around. What that encounter is going to turn into, if you do do that, um, you know, the benefit is you've told them something like you've given them this information about why this is or is not okay, um, [00:23:00] what you need to happen instead, perhaps, and they've been called out or they've been called in.

You know, and so it is really difficult and particularly when, when it happens in a situation where we're supposed to have one role. And I think what we, what I kind of grew into my professionalism around was this idea that all of my identities couldn't be in the same place at the same time. So if I was showing up today as an attorney, then that means my sole purpose in this room is to advocate for somebody else.

And that means that I can't also advocate for myself and my needs. Um, and what I encourage us to do is to move through that. Because I, I want to be somebody that can show up in every space, my full self. Um, and that means sticking up for myself, And that might be. laughing it off because I don't have the energy today to deal with this [00:24:00] person.

Um, but that also might mean speaking my truth, and accepting the risk that comes along with that. but as you said, not everybody, not everybody's able to do it. 

Sarah: Yeah, it's an analysis that you kind of have to go through in the moment because I've definitely, it

depends on sort of the situation and what's going on.

So, you know, with clients, if it's, it's, it's coming more from like a curiosity standpoint, you know, I'll redirect the conversation, but I'm much more gentle because it's not necessarily ill will behind it. Now, I've had some where it does turn into that. And then again, I'm not gonna allow you to disrespect me, but with professional colleagues, people in a professional setting, I am much more.

about it. Um, and it hasn't happened really, you know, in, in lately in my professional life, like in a setting where I'm actually like at work and dealing with a colleague and they say something that's completely out of pocket. But if it were, I'm definitely in the space right now where I'm the [00:25:00] same way you're trying to make me uncomfortable.

I'm going to make you uncomfortable and whatever those consequences are, because you know better. You know better. I'm not dealing with someone who is not sophisticated, who's not, you are a professional as well and whatever entitlement bullshit that you think you've gotten through your whole life to put you in a position to talk to me like that.

I'm about to check it. So, again, it really depends on the situation and the analysis, but I do firmly believe that if we continue to sort of navigate spaces, feeling like our whole selves can't be there, that will at some point. Be detrimental to whatever case, cause, person you are trying to advocate for.

Right. You are your best advocate when you are your whole self. As opposed to having to worry about ripping away pieces of you so that they're not a distraction in whatever it is.

RHonda: It's true. It's very situational.

Sarah: Yeah.

RHonda: You do have to analyze the situation like you Whitney I [00:26:00] was Called you are a pretty black girl. Not only was I called well not black I'm sorry a pretty colored girl exactly the situation that you Not only was it colored, but I was also a girl when I'm a grown ass woman, explaining some legal documents to you.

Um, however, the woman was like 95. So I probably was colored to her. Um, if she, you know, had gone back in her days. Um, so I looked at that in that moment. Would me saying something to her make a difference? And the answer that I came up with was no, so I thanked her and continued to explain the documents.

Um, but you do have to analyze the situation. Is it going to make a difference? Do you have the energy to, you know, do this explanation? Um, is it going to make you be. Considered less professional. Um, are you coming with your whole self? So, [00:27:00] you know, it's a whole analysis that you have to do. 

Whitney: I mean, the fact of the matter is as. Uncomfortable as these experiences are like, they're not unique, you know, like we experienced these things often, often enough to talk about it with each other. And that's, you know, again, one of the purposes for this podcast is to let folks know, like, if you're listening to this episode and you've experienced this, then you're not the only one that's experienced it.

 and maybe you didn't do anything about what you experienced. You're not the only one that didn't do anything about what you experienced. and I think that there's power in just knowing that we're not alone. Like, because so much of the experience of racial oppression is this gaslighting of the, you know, minimizing or downplaying the effect that these types of interactions have on us.

To the point where we think that we're making a big deal out of it when it shouldn't be a big deal, [00:28:00] or we're wondering if something actually happened, when like, we know it happened, but nobody else is acting like it happened, so it must not have happened, and when we are experiencing those things, I consider them to be racial aggression, the underlying message is that my experience in this specific situation doesn't mean anything or is.

Um, unreasonable and, that idea, that myth is a myth that stems from white dominant culture. Because when we're talking about whether or not I feel justified and believing what I believe, or if I feel, reasonable, what we're comparing ourselves to in terms of reasonability.

Is what a white person would feel like, you know, because that's, that's the standard without saying, we don't say, well, what would a white person think? But we say, well, what would somebody else think? And when we're, you know, for me, I'm comparing myself to people that are not me. the one other thing that I wanted to say about kind of the middle of [00:29:00] the road response to these types of racial aggression is.

One thing that we can do if we're not really sure, we don't want to just let it go, but we don't want to address it head on is to just ask questions about it to say like, well, what makes you ask that question if I'm in the Muslim brotherhood and make them say the stupid ass shit that they're going to say, you know, let them hear themselves and let other people hear, you know, hear what they have to say and hope, 

That that stops them in their track. It might not, but then maybe you can give them one of your looks of like, Really, dude? Like, really? That really came out of your mouth? 

Um, and then 

Sarah: And some of it too, is I have to try to not be desensitized.

Like sometimes I feel like I'm constantly confronted with things like that.

The. I've kind of gone numb to it and I can't quite reckon there have been times where someone's like, Oh my God, I can't believe he said that to [00:30:00] you. And I'm like, oh, oh, because it happens so often, which is, I think, an unfortunate part of the cycle when it comes to imposter syndrome. It's because it happens so often you're trying to figure out if you're crazy, but then it's, you're seeing it so much that eventually it just becomes like real life.

So then like your daily, everyday life, you're experiencing this. But really it's kind of tearing you down every single time that it happens. Because like you said, the, I mean, the underlying tone of it is you don't belong. You're different than what we as professionals in this environment have looked like.

You don't belong. And even if it's going to be a really small way of me pointing that out, it still messes you up. And so I have to constantly remind myself, like, this is not. Normal behavior. This is not okay. Behavior. I cannot get numb to this. And I 

Whitney: think too, like we run the [00:31:00] risk of taking on those beliefs as our own.

Like if we're told it enough, at some point, are we going to start believing it?

Um, Rhonda, how have you kind of, I mean, maybe you haven't dealt with like this kind of persistent. Onslaught, if you will, but how have you as somebody that's been in the profession for so long been able to like protect your confidence really, and protect your sense of belonging.

RHonda: Um, like I said before, the over preparing so that way when I am confronted with something, I, I know what I'm espousing. Is the law or the facts that will help my client, um, also. In preparation, I breathe, which, um. You know, that was a technique that I had not used in the past. Um, but recently [00:32:00] it's been a technique that has really helped.

You know, I just take deep breaths and then I, you know, deal with it.

Whitney: I'm trying to think about what I do to really pump myself up and like validate myself. After the fact, like after something has happened and honestly, it's really hard for me to recover from that. I had a situation recently that everybody in my sister circle knows about because I had to text all of them like immediately to be like, this is what I'm experiencing.

Like, I need your affirmations for me because it can be so difficult. To recover, like in the moment from those types of comments or actions or harms. And particularly where there are other people around just carrying on, you know, as if nothing happened, as if what you've been told is totally [00:33:00] acceptable.

 so that's one thing, using my sister circle is, has always come through. And there's so many people in the sister circle that one, somebody's going to text back within and. 10 minutes, you know, like we all supposed to be at work, but somebody gonna text back. 

Sarah: And it's always, you get so many different like kinds of response.

Cause we're all so different. So like, you'll get all kinds of, you've got the angry response, which is usually me being like, man, also you're experiencing imposter syndrome right now. Get it together. Get it together, bitch. Like that's usually my answer. And then you've got the more gentle one, then you've got the one who's going to pray for you.

And then like, it's a very, but it is nice to, you know, when you're having a moment and you

need that. Support, because I will say one of the ways that I kind of overcome some of those moments of feeling like, what do I, like, what am I doing? Do I know what I'm doing? Is recounting my own accomplishments to myself.

Um, and so it's always nice when you have like the [00:34:00] sister circle or whoever your supporters are kind of doing that, because I feel like that's something that we do. Well, where it's like, no, you are more than qualified. You did this, this, this, and this. And so that's the tactic that I've used for myself, just recounting my own accomplishments to sort of be like, no, I do belong.

I do know what I'm doing. It's okay. 

Even with my current position one of the things I struggled with the most. And I still, I will say it still pops up every once in a while, as I'm one of the youngest, if not the youngest person in that office, and I'm in a position of like, I'm in management, I'm a supervisor, and it can be really hard.

Again, you start feeling those, those feelings of, uh, do I know what I'm doing? Because you're giving direction to people who are older than you and more experienced in the, you know, job sector. And so sometimes I have to step back and really like, no. You got this position because you are qualified.

RHonda: Right.

Sarah: I have to constantly kind of remind myself of my 

Whitney: [00:35:00] accomplishment.

That's right. And y'all, Sarah got that position over me now.

but it's okay. I don't harbor any resentment. We are all where we're supposed to be. We are. 

Sarah: Right. Um, I think I want to say, you know, Whitney, I am grateful for this space. Uh, and I think this is a necessary conversation to have because there is a lot of power in knowing that you aren't alone.

So I am excited to hear more stories from other people of color in professional realms and their experiences and knowing that I'm not alone. So thank you for giving me this opportunity to share some of my experiences and I look forward to hearing about others, even though. Sorry that they happened.

Whitney: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but it is, it is what it is, you know, and I think we all have inherent power and it's okay for us to tap into that. Um, and if [00:36:00] that means that we need to heal first from some of the racial trauma, then fine. healing comes for me when I relate to other people about my experience.

And when I find validation from other people about what, what we're going through as folks of color. So I'm appreciative for both of you guys being on the show and Rhonda for coming back a second time.

RHonda: Thank you so much, Whitney. This is a great forum. I love it.

Whitney: All right. That is the end of the show. Thank you so much for listening to parts one and part two of the sister circle episode, where we talked about how we've dealt with imposter syndrome, when we've dealt with imposter syndrome, and when we've dealt with racial toxicity, we talk about the tools that we use to overcome those things. And that includes. 

Over-preparing sometimes and making sure that when we're walking into these situations, we know exactly what we're talking about. That included. dressing [00:37:00] with confidence that included. Choosing, if we're going to be direct with somebody when they're putting us in a position that belittles us or that's offensive that we feel is racism or discrimination. So we talked about a lot of things. I would love to know what you thought about this episode. I would also love for you all to think about when you used some of these tools and how that went for you. 

And if you haven't ever done these things, if you're someone who's still trying to figure out how to move within these spaces, feel free to use some of these tools and then get back to me and let me know how that went for you. Did you notice a difference? Um, if you gave yourself affirmations or relied on assist a circle for affirmations, how does that make you feel? 

Whitney I hope you enjoy today's episode. If you liked what you heard, don't forget to listen to past episodes and to subscribe. You can do that by pressing the little bell on your screen.You can also follow me on social media. 

I'm on Instagram at Impostrix podcast. I'm also on LinkedIn. And you can search me by just using my name, Whitney Knox Lee. I'm also on Tik TOK at Impostrix pod. And I'm now on threads at Impostrix podcast. Also feel free to leave me a message. I want to know what you think about this show. So you can do that by leaving a review. 

Or you can do that by sending me an email at Impostrix podcast@gmail.com. This podcast is for me. And this podcast is for you. And I hope. That you're leaving this podcast and this experience feeling validated. ' cause that's that's the goal. Be validated. Until next time.