I’ve been thinking a lot about Trayvon Martin and the Zimmerman trial. Rolling the facts around in my head and searching for a different, more equitable outcome. No matter how I slice it, an innocent teen got shot because a man with a gun was scared and paranoid, and that just seems wrong.

Now well-meaning whites are walking around wearing I Am Trayvon Martin tee-shirts, and while less offensive than the fact that an innocent teen was killed, I still find this a bit, well, offensive. Because no white could possibly understand what it must feel like to be black.

How do I know this? Let me tell you a story.

My first job out of law school was at a boutique firm in Sacramento. Except for the support staff, I was the only woman. I didn’t really give this much thought when I accepted the job. I’d always been a woman who hung out with males.

On the first day, a partner insisted I not lean on the counter when speaking with my secretary. “A client might get the wrong impression,” he said, gesturing toward my flat, white-girl butt, tastefully covered in a knee-length skirt and pantyhose. I wasn’t sure how to read his comment, but I noticed his concern didn’t include my male coworkers who were leaning just like me.

Later that same week, he called me into his office and said now that I was an attorney, I should “stop associating with the women.”

He meant the legal secretaries, but I wondered how he thought I could stop associating with myself.

I knew the rules, so I didn’t complain, barely even acknowledged his remark. But that night I sat alone in my apartment and cried.

For months I felt vaguely ashamed, but eventually I bloomed where I was planted. I worked long hours, memorized sport statistics, and swore up a storm. I wrote articles and spoke at conferences. I forced myself to laugh when the men joked about their wives.

I’d been with the firm for almost two years when it was announced that we would have a firm retreat. The partners brought in a facilitator who interviewed each of us. He and I spoke for a long time. On the first day of the retreat, the facilitator said, “Obviously Cynthia might have a different viewpoint because she’s the only woman.”

The men looked confused, and several insisted that I was not the only woman. There were plenty of women at the firm. The facilitator laughed and asked if there was another female attorney he was unaware of.

The male attorneys looked around the conference table, and I could tell it had never occurred to them—any of them—until that very moment that I was the only female. How was that possible? I stared at the facilitator, who flashed me a bemused look and shrugged. These men, these smart, talented, funny, dedicated attorneys, had never noticed I was an outsider.

The facilitator asked them to imagine what it must be like for me. Most of the men looked stunned; a few stared at me with new-found respect. One insisted that he would love being the only male in a firm full of women. “I’d eat it up,” he bragged.

The other guys shot him disgusted looks, and then the moment was over—for them.

That night I lay in bed and pondered how it was possible that a truth I had lived with every minute of every day for two solid years had not even registered with my white male coworkers. They simply hadn’t noticed, hadn’t considered that my experience might be different than their own. It seemed impossible, and yet, I’d seen their reactions. They didn’t have a clue about my reality.

How could they? They didn’t share my gender, and they hadn’t lived my life

Which is why I think it’s nearly impossible for a white to imagine what it might be like to be not only black, but a black male teen like Trayvon Martin. Whatever we might imagine, it would never approach the reality of the situation.

But maybe, just maybe, we are starting to take notice.

Until next time,
Cynthia Patton