The Root of All Things

By Nicole Edenedo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKLIyGHSDBE

Academy Award winner Viola Davis discusses the healing power of being seen and having uncomfortable conversations on CBS Sunday Morning while discussing her first novel co-authored in collaboration with James Patterson.

After a nearly two-year period experiencing a series of unfortunate events, now capped by a recent sexual assault, it's time Nicole Edenedo got to digging for the root of where her troubles began, so that the healing can finally begin.

Last week I reported an assault and in reading back the account I filed several times, I realized how angry I was. Not about the incident itself but about who was telling this story. It was me but I didn’t recognize this person. Who is this shell of Nicole Edenedo and why is she so small? Why was she this vulnerable? What happened to her that got her to this place? 

And that’s when I realized how angry I still was about what really happened to me long before this incident and all of the other things that have happened since.

Johanna Jainchill, now Editor in Chief at Travel Weekly, is a wicked woman. I can say that, not because I’m an idiot, not because I’m reckless, not just because I have the audacity, not because I want revenge, not because I didn’t sign anything, and not even because I hate her. I can say that because I stand here today as living proof of the damage a person incurs and accumulates when someone in a position of power or authority abuses that position over their subordinate over a long period of time and gets away with it without consequence, without conscience, even when the issue is brought to executive-level attention.

I am also living proof of the compounding effect that damage can specifically have on a Black woman in the workplace, and long after she leaves it. Because unlike some groups out there that believe it is easy to have their silence purchased in exchange for pretending that the harm done to them never happened and are somehow "free" to "move on" living with the weight of that knowledge, such additional codes of silence are paradoxical in the lives of Black women, and certainly redundant.

So much so that the collective harm of those burdens reach a critical point of imposition. There is already the onus of balancing self-muzzling, an evolutionary survival tactic necessary for Black professionals to navigate the workplace, which comes with its own inevitable emotional and psychological hardships. Then, sometimes, comes the agreement of contractual silence signed under duress when forced to leave said workplace due to unchecked abuses of power that make it impossible to stay or job termination inevitable.

That agreement has legal implications if not honored, and with it introduces new emotional and psychological turmoil from the pressure of feeling as though the truth -- however unflattering but entirely true -- can never be spoken for there's the threat of financial ruin. But legally-binding unspoken truth is perhaps the heaviest of all the burdens a Black woman has to bear in her life, because so much truth goes unspoken and unacknowledged everyday just for her to exist, let alone to survive.

This collision of two types of trauma, this double tax, both induced by external forces -- one unavoidable, the other the lesser of two evils, neither ever a choice made of free will -- is what the Black woman in the workplace cannot avoid, either partially or sometimes fully. But inevitably the two become an impossible load that ultimately morphs into a matter of life or death for the Black woman; a choice between a life that can be tolerated and one that cannot be.

The Paradox of a Black Woman Wanting to Live & Work at the Same Time

Self-muzzling is inherent in the life of the Black woman in the workplace. She has no choice or say in accepting and assuming the role of undertaker for the sins of her colleagues, managers, bosses or company culture; it is simply an additional, unpaid job she must do because of the dominant racist systems in place that reward, protect and enable white people in the workplace across any corporate structure in America.

Those sins being the micro- and macro-aggressions she uniquely faces at work due to the color of her skin, and among them are racist policies like hair style restrictions; policing tactics that disproportionately target and punish her, such as a manager being unjustifiably and overly critical of her work and then subjecting her to more rigorous supervision than others; exclusionary practices like being regularly passed over for upward mobility or new opportunities within the company when clearly qualified and capable; or suffering frequent and overly critical remarks about her character, her work ethic and her professionalism, and then being met with hostility and gaslighting tactics when she justifiably and respectfully stands up and defends herself against those claims.

It's not like the Black woman can just walk away and find other comparable employment so easily either, especially in high-profile, highly sought-after and well paid career paths and industries, like broadcasting and travel. People might rarely ever leave certain positions in these industries, or company culture enables repeatedly hiring from the same candidate pools of people who went to the same schools or come from the same privileged backgrounds as those doing the hiring. Or the children of executives or staff in the company receive priority for hiring and internal promotions, while great, qualified candidates who are unrelated to them or the company's leadership are disregarded. Or simply, the hiring staff just hire more people who look like them because they are more familiar with these faces over others.

There are also the Black woman's own personal desires, interests and ambitions to consider. If white people can pursue and enjoy the careers and industries they desire, dream about or wish to work in because they match their own interests, not to mention rise through the ranks and hold positions for a long time, why can't the Black woman have the same pursuits and be met with the same success if she is just as qualified and experienced, and will only become more so over time if she isn't already? Why must only the Black woman consider leaving a workplace, changing jobs or switching careers and even interests entirely just because others are unwelcoming and unaccepting of her presence? Is it because it is the right of only white people to have these jobs in high-profile, highly-sought after, well paid careers and industries? Or because too many not only don't care enough to treat well even the few Black people who manage to get hired, but don't want them there because it's too much trouble anyway?

If the Black woman wants to make a living anywhere, retain a job, build and maintain a good professional reputation, earn a salary and positions commensurate with her experience, talents and skills, and create the best possible chance at living a decent life, much less pursuing the life and work she actually wants, she learns early on that self-muzzling in the workplace is a matter of survival for people with the color of her skin. No other path within that system is possible for her to venture on to make and sustain a living that she deserves and has earned.

She also learns the importance of staying put at a job. And while she may love that job, is good at it and actually wants to keep it but no longer feels safe or able to give her best due to the deteriorating conditions that her work environment or manager have created around her, she knows it's the overall smarter and more economical choice to remain in her position while she at least looks for, and hopefully secures, another job before leaving her current job. That's common practice for anyone. But that is, of course, unless those conditions deteriorate so quickly that they begin to critically threaten her overall health, well-being, quality of life and her ability to continue doing her job to meet even basic expectations. And that can happen because of the enormous amount of stress she's experiencing from the way she is being treated, making an emergency exit from her job more of a necessity as a final act of self-preservation.

The stakes of enforcing self-muzzling and the potential risks of not self-muzzling grow exponentially when a Black woman is working in high-profile, highly sought-after, well paid career paths and industries that are almost 99% of the time entirely populated with and dominated by white people. The Black woman may not always get exactly what she wants by self-muzzling in the workplace all the time but she can ensure that she keeps her job for the most part. At least, that is the hope. While not self-muzzling, even just once, greatly increases the risk a Black woman in the workplace faces of being labeled or treated like a problem and every time she carefully decides she has to do it. This alone can open herself up to the eventual threat of job termination, whether company-imposed or self-imposed.

The sun's rays wash over Nicole Edenedo on a warm afternoon in September 2024, just one day before her last day at Travel Weekly.

So when a Black woman in the workplace carefully decides at times that she needs to not self-muzzle, it's usually out of necessity. Perhaps for the sake of professionalism, be it in protest of misconduct or abuses of power, or paradoxically, out of self-preservation and survival, such as in defense of her own professionalism and character when under attack, certainly in defense of protecting her job. But no matter how carefully thought out or in defense of whatever honor, no matter the reason that the Black woman decides she needs to speak the truth and remove that muzzle, she almost always suffers the consequences anyway for doing so, swiftly and/or subtly, but surely. Because Black women, at least this one right here, can always tell when the mood in the workplace changes, particularly in her interactions with her managers or bosses, whenever she has to assert any kind of agency, competency, or even a duty of care for her wellbeing.

There's a palatable shift in the air when those with authority, or rather, those whose identities are inextricably linked with their workplace authority, come into contact with my inherent sense of agency, competency and surprisingly to them, my reasonability. I actually have a sound and reasonable mind, believe it or not. It's as if they are in constant shock at my level of intelligence and awareness of my personhood and equal ranking to them on a basic human level, and my enforcement of those facts and qualities in a way that matches accordingly the manner in which I'm being approached, spoken to and treated, and at the level at which I determine I need to do so on a case-by-case basis.

The Tall & Short of It

People make mistakes. They make different assumptions about me the first, second or even the third time around perhaps in their first year of working with me, or first moments of even interacting with me. And while I don't feel the need to fight every battle and I practice an incredible amount of patience, I can swiftly recognize when people -- especially people who are supposed to be leaders -- are not bothering to make the effort to do better when they know better.

Instead they rely their privilege of laziness, indifference and entitlement on their assumption of my alleged inferiority -- professionally, personally and otherwise. But most importantly, their privilege relies heavily on what they believe from society to be my perceived inherent lack of power as a Black individual. And as a powerless Black individual who needs a job, gets a job and wants to keep it, they see themselves as the only ones who are in control of that job and whether I get to keep it. People make mistakes, but they make decisions too.

When someone makes it known to me, especially repeatedly, that they are not shy about dangling innuendo of their awareness of that power structure and dynamic and their ability to swiftly make it a power imbalance if I don't comply with their demands -- if I don't agree that it really was all my fault, if I don't make them feel better about the awful, abusive way that they continue to treat me, if I don't help share in the blame of their mistake that they 100% made on their own, if I raise my voice at them because they've been interrogating me on the phone for over an hour about decisions I needed to make in order to get my 20 different jobs done and they immediately act like they're terrified and threaten to call Arnie Weissmann, then Editor in Chief at Travel Weekly, to intervene because they feel uncomfortable -- that is when I know this person who has power over my ability to earn a living is fully aware of the deeply racist systems in the workplace and in society that are meant to protect, reward and enable people like them, and that they are not afraid to activate those systems to put me in my rightful place: under their thumb, at the bottom, powerless, where I belong.

And that is a terrifying realization to make after nearly three years of working at a place I earned my right to work in, and more than proved my competency, value and right to belong.

So many assumptions are made about Black people anywhere about their education, their competency and their personalities, among other things. But this is particularly true about the Black people in workplaces, careers and industries where they don't normally maintain a meaningful presence or level of authority, which is not by accident. And I have often found, through 12 years of firsthand professional and personal experience as a journalist specifically on the east coast, and 34.5 years as a perceptive, caring, and humanist human being, that the white people who are used to dominating these workplaces, careers and industries are wholly unprepared for when they hire a single Black professional who knows the exact limits and boundaries of what they need to do in order to show basic professionalism, respect and deference to those senior to their roles, and what crosses the line into the unnecessary, the unwarranted and the abuse of power.

What a Privilege...

The things I could do with a Harvard education, the New York Times on my resume and the ability to work at a job that I loved and was good at for over 20 years in a top, hard-hitting position that also happens to be a cool job working in and covering the travel industry. Surviving rounds and rounds and rounds of layoffs and even a global pandemic over the years that I so flippantly brag about outlasting to the fewer and fewer new folks brought onboard every once in a blue moon. A 20-something-year tenure that sees me grow bigger as everything around me shrinks and disappears, and still I exist, still I matter there; I am wanted. 

What a privilege it must be to have an Ivy League education, an Ivy League career and all the trappings it affords you — stability, security, a family, a house on a lake, a place in the city, a yappy little dog, and all the shoulder-rubbing with global tourism leaders and heads of state that an Ivy League life was always meant to buy someone just like you. The right person. The best person. The only kind of person worthy of such things. These are not blessings. This is not luck. It is God-given right, your divine place in the world, not so unlike a monarch or the Dalai Lama. 

And yet. And yet, even a Harvard education, a tenure at the New York Times, a job you’ve managed to keep and allegedly grow in for over 20 years, and even divinity from God was still not enough to buy you a clue as to who you are, what you stand for or how to treat people who show you nothing but decency, grace, kindness, tenacity, drive, an eagerness and willingness to learn, to ask questions, to admit when they don’t know something and ask for your help, who go above and beyond to get a story done, to get it right, to work long hours all over the world in changing climates, time zones, through sheer exhaustion and violent illnesses that have them naked, vomiting and defecating on the floor of their bathroom in a foreign country with no travel insurance crying for their mother. 

There isn’t enough privilege in the world for people like you that could ever inspire even the slightest sense of duty to share some of that privilege with others once you’ve achieved most or all of your dreams and goals. To share the privilege of paying the people coming in behind you a small kindness, some respect, a little decency — even just giving someone whose background, experience and skin color that you are personally unfamiliar with the benefit of the doubt. Not because you have to, not because your role might expect you to, but because, what would it really cost you? 

I wonder where I might be if I had a Harvard education, the New York Times on my resume and a job in travel that I loved and was good at and got to spend 20 years at if I wanted to because everyone knew I was valuable, everyone treated me like I was valuable and could never just throw me away, even as they threw so many others away. Or allow the circumstances in which something like that could ever happen. Or just simply hold the door open wider when I threatened to quit. I wonder where I’d be today if I had all those doors open and welcoming to me. I guess we’ll never know. 

A Tax Worth Paying

I know, I know. I’m going to go to prison for this. I’m going to burn in hell for this. I’m going to be taken to court and bankrupted for this. I’m going to ruin my life over this. My career in travel is over. But guess what? It’s ok. It’s ok now. Because whatever kind of shadow of a life that I’ve been living since I was harassed out of my job at Travel Weekly a year and a half ago, that no one lifted a finger to save except to point it back at me and tell me these were my problems alone and to change my tone when speaking about my problems that I had been dealing with since I first got there, it has proven to be not a life worth living anymore, due to the compounding weight of the psychological, emotional, mental, financial and now physical trouble of me staying silent and not speaking the truth. So I would rather go forth from here still penniless, underemployed and altogether hopeless with just a little more dignity, integrity, honesty and sanity if it’s all the same. 

Because maybe God is actually trying to tell me something through what has felt like a seemingly never-ending operatic series of unfortunate events ever since my life flipped upside down. And what I think I'm hearing is this:

“Speak. It’s not that big of a deal and it’s not worth your life. It’s still gonna be hard for a little while longer. So if it makes you feel better to let it out than to pretend you can keep it in, let it out. Just let it out. You’ll still be here in the morning. I promise.”  

So there you go. That’s all. I was a good journalist when I got hired at Travel Weekly. And I became a better journalist because I worked at Travel Weekly. And because I worked under Johanna Jainchill. When she wasn’t busy being afraid of me, or feeling threatened by who I was, or being overly critical of me, or abusive in her behavior toward me, and whatever else it was that kept her from just embracing and accepting me and treating me like I belonged at Travel Weekly too, she taught me so much. And I am still so sad she did this to me. 

If you’re still here reading this, I hope by now the judgements and fears of what I needed to dig up here have left your body. I hope you know that two things can be true at the same time. And I hope you remember that despite any wealth, privilege or status we might or might not achieve in our lives, all we really have as human beings -- and we are all human beings -- is the way we treat each other and what is left behind as a result of how we do.

Happy Women’s History Month.

P.S. -- If you feel inclined to leave a comment or reach out, and you're most welcome to, please refrain from saying "I'm sorry this happened to you." No 'sorrys,' please. For any of it. Because yes, aren't we all...