Now that there is great traction for the #secondcityisover party, I want us to turn our focus to another beloved Chicago institution #cardsagainsthumanity. As their first black/queer black woman employee, I’d love to share my experience of working there. #cahisover (1/?)

I started at CAH in November 2016 after leaving a toxic work environment. Friends had their concerns, but I naively believed that it couldn’t be worse than what I’d just left. Or so I thought… #cahisover

For the first few months, everything was normal. As I say normal, I mean standard well meaning white people bullshit, people asking if my hair is real, commenting on how often I change it, those sorts of things. #cahisover

Well shit hit the fan one fine day when I sent this message. #cahisover

This is the response I got from @theandrewbriggs and others. There was some ensuing madness where everyone piled on in this public company slack including Max Temkin who suggested my simple comment was not a “polite request.” So, essentially, angry black woman #cahisover

Meanwhile, even though everyone piled on in the main channel, here is what happened in other channels. I was made fun of in random and then @theandrewbriggs decided to send me a dm to “apologize” while simultaneously making fun of me through another dm. #cahisover

While all this was going on, I told all of the women in our private slack how they call themselves allies, yet no one stood up for me until I called them out. They also brushed off the racism from that developer (who we later hired I think.) #cahisover

After this happened and all was said and done, I was a social pariahs to all of @someoffice. People who I had been working with for months stopped speaking to me or asking me to eat lunch with them for about 3 days. All because I asked if we could thread messages. #cahisover

As a follow up to this, I finally was brave enough to speak out. I sent this email to the Office Manager, Nick. . #cahisover

Instead of putting anything in writing, he asked me to meet him IRL. His response? “well, tone is lost in digital comm. let me ask others (re: all the white people who piled on and have been racist to me for months) how they felt about what happened. #cahisover

So okay, I learned my lesson. I WAS ALONE. #cahisover

All this happened right. Well LET ME TELL YOU. Everyone remembers CAH Saves America right? Well, initially there was supposed to be a day dedicated to reparations.

Imagine, a company who is the poster child for “I would have voted for Obama a third time” talking abt how they gonna redistribute wealth to black people. That wealth? $20 $20 for 400 years of abuse and subjugation. Well, I had something to say about that. #cahisover

So I, along with a white co-worker, wrote them to express why the day was problematic. You can see the email and responses below. #cahisover

Not only did they not address me (even though I signed it), Max tried to defend the day because the founders are Jewish and paid for their college and such from Holocaust reparations and that is why it was important to them. #cahisover

Meanwhile, Nick does another IRL check-in on how things are, even though nothing has changed at all. No one was talked to and there was not even the obligatory, maybe we should take D&I seriously. Nothing.

I told him, things are better for me because I stopped caring. And that was the end. Because I said I stopped thinking anyone would show up for me, that was an OK resolution to the issue. #cahisover

I ended up leaving a few months later and have never looked back, nor been shy about telling black people not to work there or out of @someoffice. #cahisover

End Notes: These are just a couple incidents I have so many more. Like when I WFH for a few days during the construction and I scolded and then they changed the WFH policy. Even though every other white person had been WFH for weeks with no policy change or trouble. #cahisover

End Notes: So forgive me for not going in for them at all (I mean they haven’t even done lip service to BLM). This thread also doesn’t just apply to just the founders, it applies to everyone who worked(s) there and remained silent.

I hear they have NDAs in place now to prevent what I’ve just said. But I will not be silent any longer. #cahisover

If you have an ongoing partnership with Cards Against Humanity, or any of their companies consider breaking the contract or divesting. You are directly funding an abusive company who doesn’t care about it’s black employees #cahisover