Open letter to Corporate Jamaica

Dear Corporate Jamaica,

Jamaica.
-Island
-Caribbean
-Bob Marley

-Black People.

Yes, black people
We (about 97 percent or suh of us) are partially or fully black. Why do you insist that we wear another ethnicity to work every day?

Do you look in the mirror and hate your reflection? Do you look at your kinky hair, unwashed face, and your very afrocentric features in the morning and feel the urge to vomit? Is your skin such a burden that you have to wash it all off every morning?
Do you wake up each morning and read from a bible of outdated Eurocentric standards?

I do not.
Cannot relate.
I have walked into banks in Paris and offices of tourism in European countries (you know, the countries we still roll over backwards to appease) and met upon employees whose feet were adorned in crocs, whose hair was dyed pink, whose upper lips were pierced and received better customer service than I receive from women whose feet were stocking clad, whose skirts were 2 sanctified centimeters below the knee, whose faces were artfully painted and whose entire existence and appearance oozed “conservative.” (That’s a lot of whose, don’t it?)

Help me understand how the texture of my hair will assist me in carrying out the duties I’m charged to accomplish. Help me understand how a second piercing on my right earlobe will impede productivity during my 9-5 shift. Will my coworker be distracted if my braids are 2.6883 millimeters larger in diameter than outlined on page 4 of the handbook?
Outline to me, with bullet points and perfectly worded English, how wearing French coffee stockings instead of black stockings while sitting at my cramped work space for a 9-5 shift, answering phones all day will somehow affect the quality of my work.

Hmm?

I’ll wait.

If you think your skin, unweighted down by Mac and L'oreal, your lips, not tinted with red, your hair not relaxed- is somehow unattractive, unprofessional or inappropriate for the “corporate environment”- then I feel sorry for you . Don’t demand that I feel the same.

Teisha’s braids do not prevent her from doing her work. Kyle’s locs do not prevent him from doing his work. The only thing preventing Kyle and Teisha from working are the meetings they have in the HR office.

So please, Mr. Corporate Jamaica Sir, sekkle and cease.

Respectfully,
Black girl with braids and black stockings.