BRINGING MORE OF OUR STORIES FORWARD

Since launching TheBlackWorker.org, many of you have shared your stories, dreams and visions for the future of Black workers. If you give us permission, we will post them here. All of our voices come forward when we tell our stories!

Monica Bradley 

I’m a native New Yorker. I was born and raised in Manhattan, NYC’s Lower East Side. I have been living in the DMV area for 16 years now.

As a Black working woman, I feel so torn. At every job that I've ever worked I've always been too much of something. Too polite. Too ahead. Too focused. Too caring. Too involved in making things right (or in trying to assist in making it right).

This labeling of “too much” has translated into I've always been deemed wrong. I was wrongfully terminated two times from two different companies within the past 7 months. Then there was a third job that I left due to being in a hostile working environment, which also involved sexual harassment.

And none of these issues were ever addressed because there is no access to legal representation for a woman like me. I find myself going from job to job to job.

It's a shame that labor laws allow for people to be terminated from a job without explanation or a just reason. Despite all of what has happened to me, I keep pushing so that I can enter into a career where I would thrive.

Even before I started down this job path, I faced a brick wall with a crap load of snowballs hitting me hard across my back. I attended graduate school at Fordham University where I barely graduated after facing the worst discrimination in all of my years of schooling.

It felt like a complete and utter waste; so many unhealthy exchanges during my time there. I also left there with so much debt that I’m unsure that I’ll ever pay off. I accepted the student loan because I had to, while being aware that my classmates who were young white privileged women would not have to pay a single dime because their jobs paid for it.

I've never been willing to accept failure, although many times I felt like quitting. I just wish there was a fight against every injustice I've ever experienced. Despite all of this, I get up every morning looking for new ways that I can excel in this life and bring my family and my community with me.

I'm now in the process of starting my own business. My life experiences have provided me with the wisdom to build something impactful and powerful so that I might be able to help someone else see the light beyond all that appears to be darkness.

I am Monica Bradley and my story is not over.