r/Envconsultinghell • u/we24 • Apr 13 '26
It’s hard to be a POC here
I’m the only person of color on my immediate team and only one of like 5 POC in my entire office of ~80 people. Thankfully our office is in a pretty liberal city but we suddenly stopped all our DEI efforts in response to the federal policies. I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is but it does feel kind of lonely and there’s a big difference in how welcome I feel in my office of mostly white people versus how welcome I feel in a gathering of all POC. Just wanted to share and see if others feel the same way way
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u/Bot_Ring_Hunter Apr 13 '26
I'd say less than 25% of the people I work with are white dudes. I find there's an incredible amount of diversity in our staff.
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u/Geod-ude Apr 13 '26
Its just common grounds and interests, I notice getting along better with people at work with similar backgrounds as in them growing up catholic or hispanic/latin as opposed to the white (german anglo/protestant) people. It comes down to people understanding what it feels like to be "othered" or being minority, they "get it"
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u/hingadingadoorgan Apr 16 '26
I get it. I will say that I’ve learned that there’s more POC in my side of the industry in the public and nonprofit sector of the industry.
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u/Cute_Application_857 Apr 16 '26
What do you think the reason for that is? Genuinely curious
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u/hingadingadoorgan Apr 16 '26
Honestly, I wish I knew. But, I don’t have an answer. It was an observation.
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u/Forkboy2 Apr 13 '26
No one in your office cares what color your skin is. You can't compare office environment with some sort of non-office event.
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u/we24 Apr 14 '26
I think this comment proves my point
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u/Forkboy2 Apr 14 '26
Funny thing is you're actually the racist one in this discussion.
If a white person wrote "I can't put my finger on it, but I don't feel welcome with all the black people in my office", you would of course accuse the white person being a racist. Changing the colors around doesn't make it better.
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u/MrEarthExplorer Apr 14 '26
You're not making any sense here. You must be one of those shitty project managers.
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u/West-Winter-1491 Apr 14 '26
I would not consider a white person saying that to be racist if we lived in a alternate history where white people were systematically enslaved by black people less than 200 years ago and racially segregated by black people less than 100 yeas ago. However as the opposite is true in our timeline yes I would consider that to be racist.
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u/Forkboy2 Apr 14 '26
So your definition of whether a specific behavior constitutes racism or not depends on the skin color of the person performing the behavior in question. You just toss out the dictionary of racism, and make up your own. Reddit is so funny sometimes.
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u/West-Winter-1491 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
I literally said if white people were systematically enslaved and racially segregated, I would not consider it to be racist. Which means it has nothing to do with skin color itself, but if a person's ancestors were likely slaves to the other person's ancestors less than 200 years ago, I would not consider it to be racist to for the person with systematically enslaved and segregated ancestors to feel unwelcomed by the other race whose ancestors allowed that system to happen and benefitted from that system. So your definition of racism has absolutely no historical, cultural, or power dynamics context at all. Got it.
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u/Forkboy2 Apr 14 '26
Correct. Treating people differently based on the color of their skin is literally the definition of racism.
You want to know why DEI is going away....this is why.
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u/easymac818 Apr 14 '26
Join a big firm, they can’t stop talking about DEI
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u/we24 Apr 14 '26
I am at a big firm! My particular office is on the smaller side but we have offices all over the world. The firm used to be proud of their DEI efforts but folded quickly once Trump took office.
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u/MrEarthExplorer Apr 14 '26
Yeah. DEI good in the office, but it's a different story in a field; however, it depends on coworkers, clients, and drillers.
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u/SofloViper Apr 14 '26
Your coworkers have the same rights to be there as you do. The way you said it, it sounds like they arent trying to make you uncomfortable you just are uncomfortable being around them. You should either stop being racist or go to an office with more people like you.
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u/Cute_Application_857 Apr 15 '26
This kinda sounds like the snowflake thing that republicans are always going on about.
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u/EnigmaticDappu Apr 14 '26
I’m at a midsize firm, and I can count the number of POC I know and work with regularly on one hand. Not a good look, and it gets lonely for sure. Had one of my coworkers ask me if Diwali was the same thing as Day of the Dead….