Being Black Is a Job of Its Own

Being Black Is a Job of Its Own

Are you Spanish?

Are you mixed?

What are you?

You don't look Black.

You don't look gay.

I have been answering those questions my whole life, so let me save everybody some time.

I am a Black man. 100 percent. Yellow as yellow can be, and Black all the way through.

Before somebody decides to misunderstand me, I am not talking about you. I am talking about me.

I am proud of my ancestry. Proud of what survived so I could stand here. Proud of every part of myself that somebody decided I should make smaller so they could feel comfortable standing next to me.

Being Black is a job of its own.

Not because of a skin color. For me it is a presence. It is the tone in my voice, the pride in my walk, the history I carry into a room before I say one word.

It is knowing something feels off while everybody insists it's fine. It is asking a reasonable question and watching people get more offended by the question than curious about why I had to ask it.

People love the strong Black man until the strength is pointed at protecting himself.

They love confidence until confidence says no.

They love authenticity until authenticity asks why I was treated differently.

They love honesty until the room gets uncomfortable.

Then the conversation changes.

Now I'm angry. Now I'm difficult. Now I'm hurting my brand. Now I owe somebody an apology for finally responding, after I asked politely once, twice, three times for someone to explain something that did not add up.

Then add gay to the equation. Oh, baby. Now there's a second instruction manual.

Not Black enough for somebody. Not gay enough for somebody else. Too masculine here. Too expressive there. Too loud. Too direct. Too proud. Too unwilling to smile while somebody quietly disrespects me.

At some point you realize the problem was never that I don't fit the brand. I stopped auditioning for it.

I celebrate people. I share their wins. I clap when somebody gets their moment, because somebody else's success does not threaten mine.

So yes, I notice when the invitations go everywhere except my inbox. I notice when another man's directness is called leadership and mine is called aggression. I notice when somebody sets a boundary and gets applauded for self-respect, and I set mine and suddenly we need a summit meeting about my tone.

So I ask the simple questions.

Why not me?

How was this decision made?

What changed?

How is worthiness being calculated?

Don't insult me with corporate cotton candy. Don't say "networking," I have been networking. Don't say "relationships," I have been building them. Don't say "show up," I have been showing up.

I asked you a direct question. Respect me enough to answer it.

Sometimes people keep testing a boundary because you enforced it politely the first two times. Then your voice finally rises and they act like the story began with your reaction.

It didn't.

There were chapters before that. Conversations. Warnings. Tiny moments you tried to overlook because you wanted to believe everybody meant well. The joke that lands different when you're the punchline. The invitation that quietly disappears. Being told to calm down instead of being asked what happened.

Those moments add up.

Eventually somebody looks at the scar and asks why you're bleeding.

I don't need everybody to understand my reaction. I need to recognize the man in my mirror.

I have watched people preach authenticity on the stage and practice convenience in the parking lot. I have watched people hug somebody in one room and take that same person apart in another.

That's their business. Just don't ask me to join in.

Tell me you don't like me. Have the courage. I can work with truth. What I cannot work with is a smile in my face and a rewrite in another room.

What I say in the light, I will repeat in the dark.

My standard isn't perfection. It's consistency. I will not let your discomfort with my consistency become proof that something is wrong with me.

I am Black. I am gay. I am outspoken, loving, loyal, generous, complicated, and imperfect. I can be wrong, and when I am, I will apologize.

I will never apologize because somebody preferred my silence.

There is a difference between accountability and obedience.

Accountability asks me to examine myself. Obedience asks me to shrink so you never have to examine yourself.

I'll take the first. I refuse the second.

I am not lowering my voice because confidence sounds better coming from somebody else. I am not begging to get behind anybody's velvet rope.

Baby, I am the velvet rope.

I know what I bring into a room. I know who I have helped. I know how many times I showed up when nobody was watching, and how often I extended grace. I also know the difference between grace and surrender.

This season taught me that you can't always answer exclusion by working harder to be included. Sometimes you stop asking for a chair. You build the table. Then the room. Then the building.

One day you realize the line you spent years trying to get into never led anywhere you wanted to go.

So call me loud. Call me direct. Call me difficult. Say I clap back. Some days, you're damn right I do.

But before you analyze the volume, ask whether you listened when I was whispering.

I asked nicely. Twice.

What came after was not me discovering anger. It was me discovering that my dignity deserves protection too.

I am William Rochelle. Black. Gay. Proud. Still learning. Still willing to apologize when the apology is mine to give.

I will not pay an apology invoice because somebody is uncomfortable with the full volume of who I am.

You don't have to understand me. You don't have to choose me, invite me, or even like me.

But you will not convince me that respecting myself is disrespecting you.

If refusing to bow, shrink, whisper, or kiss the ring makes me incompatible with your frequency, that's all right.

I'll broadcast from my own.

Thanks for reading,

William Rochelle
but you can call me Bill.

#BlackAndProud #BlackVoices #GayAndProud #Authenticity #Leadership #SelfRespect #SpeakYourTruth #UnapologeticallyMe