Black Woman Promoted After White Executive Notices Her Edges Are 'Laid For The Gawds'
CHICAGO, IL—Keisha Williams, 29, walked into work yesterday morning and was met with an offer to be promoted from her role as a marketing coordinator to a key marketing director position at her company. Unbeknownst to her at the time, the reason for the sudden promotion was something she never thought was possible.
Jessica Nedler, the company’s VP of Marketing, took a liking to Williams’ hairstyle after seeing a picture of Williams on the company’s website and realized she was an actual employee and not a stock image of a random black woman placed on the home page for “variety purposes”. Nedler decided to promote Williams and had her assistant bring an iPad to Williams’ office so the two could video chat without Nedler having to physically and emotionally interact with another person within her department.
When asked about what she had said in the meeting, Nedler proclaimed, “I told her that the new hair looked so...exotic! Her edges were indeed 'laid as hell,' and to be even more specific, laid for the gaw-gaw-gawds honey!”
Williams, however, claims to have been sporting her “Passion Twists'' for the past two months.
“She’s spoken to me before but I mean, it makes sense because when I see her she usually confuses me with my coworker Vanessa who is also black but that’s like literally it when it comes to similarities. We don’t look alike...like at all. She has one leg.”
Williams was later informed that the reason for the promotion was because Nedler participated in a “Having-A-Previous-Incident Diversity and Inclusion Workshop” held by the company and led by Adam “Agent of Change” Lassiter, a corporate public speaker, and reformed workplace racist. Lassiter commented on the news of the promotion.
“I’m so happy to hear about Ms. Nedler benefitting from my workshop. It reminds me of the time I called a former African American coworker a derogatory slur and we worked it out after I complimented his fricky-fricky-fresh new hairstyle. Like Kid 'N Play. His hair was wavin'. Rest assured, I did not call him the N-word, I called him a [REDACTED] and I'm proud to say I’ve hadn’t said that word since...until now...in front of you.”
Nedler, in turn, spoke well of Lassiter’s workshop and went on to say which moment specifically impacted her decision to speak up about Williams’ hair.
“During Adam’s workshop, we watched a little skit from a television program entitled MAD TV. One of the characters, a black gentleman, told a caucasian woman, in a movie theater of all places, to 'work that ponytail' and 'own that updo.' As someone who works with people of colors and now identifies as a person of non-color, I wholeheartedly agree with his statement.”
Williams declined to give concluding comments at first but after hearing Nedler’s statement, decided to speak up.
“Look, all I’m saying is, it’s nice to have gotten a promotion so I shouldn’t probably be saying this in a professional setting but damn, I need to turn what happened into a Netflix pitch or something. I'm trying to monetize the marginalized.”
