S1E4: Brittany William | Ambiguous Voice
[Justin]
Welcome to another episode of the Creating Belonging podcast. Today, my guest is Brittany William. And Brittany, I love your LinkedIn tagline, vivacious employer brand lead, spreading positivity one smile at a time.
Brittany, I would just love if you would further introduce yourself in your own words.
[Brittany William]
Yes. Hi, Justin. It is so great to be here with you today and to talk about creating belonging.
I related a lot to the book, so I'm excited to dive into it. But for those that are listening, my name is Brittany, but I go by Brit. So feel free to call me Brit.
And I am a black woman. I identify as a black woman. My pronouns are she they and I am nearing 30, which is super exciting.
But I have been in recruitment marketing for about six to seven years. I want to say I'm coming up on my seventh year right now. And I work in employer brand, as my lovely LinkedIn profile says, for a digital services firm.
[Justin]
Awesome. Thank you for sharing that, Brit. And thank you for sharing some of your identities.
And I wanted to check in. You know, I think it's helpful in the context of the conversations we're having to kind of have some of those identities out there so that we can frame the context. I just want to check in with you and see if there's any other identities that you'd like to share for our conversations today.
[Brittany William]
Yeah. You know, I also identify as a queer woman. I think I well, let me back up a little bit.
I also identify as non-binary. However, I know that I present as a black femme or a black woman. And so that will always be a part of my identity.
I'm trying to think of what else I would use to describe myself. I feel like I have so many different identities that I don't realize until I'm in that situation. But I would definitely say my queer identity, my black identity, my femme woman identity are the big three that I would say.
[Justin]
Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing, Brittany. So I understand that you have read the book Creating Belonging.
Thank you. And I just let's dive right in. And I'd love to hear, you know, as you went through the work and thinking about the areas of the Creating Belonging model, what sparked for you?
Like what areas of your life came up?
[Brittany William]
So there was a point in my life when I had just started my career that I was living in central Illinois. And I had lived there for about five years, going to school, doing what I needed to do for five years. And I was with my partner at the time who we were both trying to decide after graduation what we wanted to do.
Well, we looked at our finances and we were two very broke college students or I guess post college students. And so we decided to stay in the area. Both of us are in marginalized communities.
And so being in central Illinois during that time was a bit of a. It was a reach, you know, it was it was something that we knew that we would be safer if we lived in a more urban area. But with our finances being the way that they are and both of us being very independent only children, we were like, nope, we're going to stay here.
We're going to build up our finances and then eventually we will move to a more urban area that's a little bit more accepting of our identities. And so by staying in that area, I went through all of the all of the model essentially of creating belonging. And it really started when I started my first job.
And my first job just happened to be in marketing, which is ironic because my career actually took a very interesting turn after graduation. I graduated with my master's in family and consumer sciences, and I wanted to focus on fashion, sustainability and textile recycling. But somehow I ended up in marketing.
But when you live in central Illinois, there's not a lot of job options. And so that's how I geared up into the marketing career path that I am now on. But because of that, I went into a new space that I I didn't know a lot about.
I actually went into the dental industry and the town that I was working in was a very conservative town, small town, very white. And I am obviously not white. I am a black woman, a black queer woman at that.
And so I really had to go in and I'm trying to think of like what would be the best way to describe how I went in. But I was very guarded and and I protected myself quite a bit. So I would say probably a little bit of the recluse when I went in because I didn't know how people were going to react to me.
I have a very ambiguous voice. So when people hear me on the phone, they don't know what my race is. And I've had a number of interviews specifically in the central Illinois area when I just got out of school that would phone interview me, be super excited to meet me.
And then I got to the interview and it would end within 20 minutes, if not less than that. I actually had about five interviews like that, which at the time I was like, why is this happening? And then as I got older, I kind of realized that I was not a match for that company or that organization because of the way that I looked.
And so I was really nervous when I went into this job and, you know, this little cornfield area, essentially, of trying to figure out, you know, how much of myself can I really be without really knowing how people are going to be treating me, especially with some of the politics that go on in rural areas like that, you know, I was I was on guard. I was I was a little scared. But eventually, as I started my career there and I started making friends and learning the job and learning the team, I did start to open myself up a little bit more very slowly because I think there were a lot of instances of microaggressions.
There was a lot of instances of just blatant racism that came from my co-workers or other employees. And it caused me to kind of create two versions of myself. And so I created a work Brit version and a home personal Brit version of myself to separate the two.
And so when I was at work, I was a very bubbly, excited, positive type of employee that I think a lot of people attach to and they really loved. And they saw that as my authenticity. For me, I saw that as a mask.
I saw that as something that I had to put on at 8 a.m. every morning when I would drive into work to be this version of a black woman that they they wanted to see, essentially, because they had so many preconceived notions of black people in general. And I mean, if you go to central Illinois, most nine times out of 10, if you say that you're from Chicago, they're going to roll their eyes at you and be like, oh, you're one of those. You're from Chicago.
And so I took a lot of time actually debunking that and debunking that, you know, I'm actually not from Chicago. I'm from the suburbs and I grew up in a very affluent neighborhood. You know, I went to school and I graduated with my master's, which, you know, in a lot of marginalized communities, you know, we can't say that because we don't have the resources to and I was really blessed to be able to obtain two degrees.
And so I shocked a lot of my co workers. I shocked a lot of my, a lot of the other employees that I worked with of being this outstanding black person that worked there. So yeah, it was, it was an experience, but I'm sure you have follow up questions of all the different things that I had to go through because I can just, I can see your mind just going.
So, lay it on me.
[Justin]
I will, like, it'll show if you're seeing, if anybody's seeing this on video, but I was like, oh my gosh, I don't have a notepad out and I need to be taking notes. The first thing that hit me was you mentioned that you have an ambiguous voice. And the first thing, excuse me, that I thought of was that of gender.
And I thought in that moment, I thought, well, your pitch isn't that low, like, and then the follow up was actually it referred to your race as in a voice of race. And I, you know, it's so interesting because I just, like, it makes sense to me. But when you say I have an ambiguous voice, the first thing I go to is gender.
So it's so interesting. But it makes me think about, you know, I also have, I have a friend who identifies as Chinese American. And, you know, if you meet her, that's probably a little more obvious, but she's, she said so many times, like she used to be in sales and on the phone.
She, you know, sounded, quote, white. Yeah. And, and then people would meet her in person.
They're like, oh, they'd be just kind of like set back like, oh, oh, are you, you're, oh, yep. Okay, so I want to sit there for a second, because that's so it's so interesting and something that I think is underappreciated or not talked about a ton. Yeah.
Tell me, let's talk more about this.
[Brittany William]
Yeah, no, I think not only my voice too, but my name. So my name being Brittany, I have been told many a times, like, especially looking at my resume, because it doesn't sound ethnic, that people assume when I come in for interviews or if they're talking to me and they can't see my face, they assume that I'm white. Right.
So that's been something that I've dealt with my entire life. Growing up in the, in the suburbs, I was one of like maybe two or three other kids of color. And so, a lot of folks frame of reference of black people was from television and watching shows that might have portrayed black people as you know being hood or from the ghetto and, you know, talking like, hey girl, how you doing like why aren't you doing this like kind of like that.
Right. And so when they meet me they get really shocked and they're like, why do you talk like that. I'm like, what are you talking about this, this is my voice like this is the way that I talk.
And it's, it's very apparent that they did not know that black people come in all different shapes and sizes and that includes our voices as well. We're not all born in, you know, the hood or on the south side of Chicago. We come from different places all over the world.
My dad is from Haiti, he's an immigrant from Haiti and when he came to the States, he was ridiculed for his accent, and which is so ironic because he lived in New York, which is like a melting pot but kids are kids, you know, they want, you know, they want you to all sound the same at the end of the day. And so my dad worked extremely hard to not only learn English but get rid of his accent. So if you meet him and you meet his sisters you'd be like you all are related because his sisters both still have accents and my dad has completely gotten rid of his accent he was about 13 when he moved to the States and so I think, as I even grew up.
And my, this is the same with my mom as well. We were always taught to speak well and speaking well equals slash translate into speaking white to a lot of folks but for us it's, it's just the way that we speak but we also know that when we, you know, turn on like a sister girlfriend How you doing like I'm so proud like all that we know that we have less opportunities than if we were to say hello my name is Brittany How are you today, because it makes white folks feel comfortable to hear their, their own voice or their own tone or their own inflection, I guess I should say, and I've experienced that all throughout my life. My voice has always been a topic of conversation. And I'm over here like I have a podcast and I can't stand the sound, but, you know, it's, it's just something that as a, as a black person that I've had to deal with that grew up not in an urban setting.
[Justin]
So, like, I feel like we could just like keep digging in on things because there's, I think you talked about, you know, how black people are portrayed on TV. And, you know, I grew up in rural Iowa. And so we, I didn't have black people in my life.
And so, and, you know, still even a lot of my family their only exposure to non white people is what they're seeing on TV. And, you know, it's unfortunate that the media has done such a disservice to, you know, just exacerbating negative stereotypes and and not showing the full breadth of humanity. You know, to understand, like, I can hear Brit and know that, oh, Brit is a black woman.
And that's like, that's okay. Like, that's normal.
[Brittany William]
Yeah.
[Justin]
You also I had to grab on the New York City thing. So your dad being in New York, we were just in New York last weekend. And at dinner, I said to my partner, I said, you know, the thing I love about New York.
One of the things is, you hear so many more accents and languages. Like, I just love it. I love the like the, the diversity, the difference, the, you know, I don't know.
The second thing I wanted to come back to is you talked about at work. You are, you were this bubbly, positive person at work. And that wasn't necessarily your authentic self.
Now, I haven't known you for a super long time, but I've known you to be very pleasant and positive. And, you know, of course, we all have our days when that's not the case. Everyone does.
But I love to dig into that a little bit more. How, how different was that to, you know, had you been able to present your authentic self? What might have changed?
[Brittany William]
Oh, you know, my authentic self when I'm not around other people, I'm very quiet. I'm very introverted, which I think is a shock to a lot of people when they first meet me because I do put on that persona of being very loud and fun. And I'm all those things.
I'm not trying to say that I'm not, but I turn it up. I turn it up for other people, especially around white folks, just so that they feel like, oh, she's a good black person. She's nice.
She's exciting. She's fun. She doesn't remind me of, you know, the stereotypes that I've seen on TV and things like that.
And so, yeah, I mean, yeah, that's what I would say for that.
[Justin]
So, so it is in essence, a form of, of code switching.
[Brittany William]
Oh, of course.
[Justin]
To, you know, just to be likable or appealing.
[Brittany William]
Oh, yeah.
[Justin]
It's, yeah, it's interesting. You know, I mostly identify as, you know, someone who has a preference for extroversion, but like, I'm so on the line. And then people don't understand when I go quiet.
[Brittany William]
Yep. They're like, wait, what, what's wrong? It's like, I need a, I need a break.
[Justin]
Yeah. I'm not on all the time.
[Brittany William]
Yeah.
[Justin]
So you kind of were, you know, weren't able to like really lean into belonging while you were living in, in central Illinois, and then you moved to Chicago. And so how, how did things change in the way that you settled into your communities in Chicago versus, you know, in central Illinois?
[Brittany William]
Yeah, I think I'm still settling into my communities. You know, I'm not going to lie, living in central Illinois for as long as I did, it was really isolating, especially with my partner who also had marginalized identities, like we felt like we were outcasts and that we didn't really have anywhere to go. So when we moved here, it was about, gosh, probably about four months before the pandemic started.
So we had a very short amount of time to, you know, really get out there and meet new people and do things. And I think both of us were still getting acclimated to our community and to our surroundings. And then the panorama decided to make her appearance and make everybody go on lockdown.
So then that made me and him kind of try to reconfigure like what does community look like? And so I think for us, we took that as an opportunity to kind of say, let's just take a break on trying to figure out where we're supposed to fit in and focus on ourselves, which I'm really grateful for, because it made me focus down and hunker down on what brings me joy and what kind of joy I can bring out of others and what kind of spaces that I want to belong to. So long story short, I'm still finding my community in Chicago.
I recently got some new friends, friends of color, which I don't really have a lot of friends of color, just because of where I grew up and even in college as well, because it was a predominantly white institution. That, you know, it's, it's just it's really exciting now to look at different opportunities with these folks and meet new people and go to new places across the city and do new things. But yeah, I think I'm slowly finding it right now.
And just putting myself out there way more than I had even before the pandemic, because I was really just focused on working. Like I think a lot of us were in 2019 just focused on, you know, building up our careers and, you know, putting a lot of value into money and then the pandemic happened and I think a lot of people started to see like, no, I want to have more happiness in my life. I want to start exploring new things with new people and have these new experiences and work is secondary.
And so with work for me being secondary, that's been a blessing to kind of start thinking about myself and who I want to be in the types of communities I want to build. I think that's another thing too is about building communities, which is something that I've struggled with for so so many years because it's like I can't find the community that I feel like I belong to so why don't I just make one, but then it's the you know imposter syndrome of, you know, I don't have the right to make my own community, or, you know, I don't have the tools to make my own community so now I'm happy to say that I'm in a point where I'm letting the opportunities come to me to build new relationships and be with a diverse group of folks because that's always how I've imagined, you know, my, my friendships and my life and the community that I actually want to be a part of is a very eclectic group of people, diverse people from all different types of backgrounds, that we all come together with a common goal of just wanting to be the best version of ourselves and, you know, just loving each other as, as we are.
[Justin]
I don't know if you were teeing this up or not, but you basically, you basically defined how I define community in the book, which is a group of people coming together for, you know, a shared goal or, you know, a shared purpose so yeah I love that. Thank you. So, first of all, you absolutely have a right to build your own community.
And so I'm going back to my notes. So, the, the pandemic that was so isolating, you know, I think we, I feel like it divided us more in a way, right, because it put us in our homes, more so that we're exposed to fewer people. And if we're in our homes, and only interacting with the people that are closest to us.
It is highly likely that we have much less diversity in our immediate sphere.
[Brittany William]
Mm hmm.
[Justin]
So yeah, and you and you said you moved to the city like right before the pandemic. Yep.
[Brittany William]
October 2019.
[Justin]
Yeah, so barely a second to like unpack your boxes and then yeah. Oh, now we have plenty of time to unpack our boxes.
[Brittany William]
Exactly, exactly. I like the way that you thought about that. Yes.
[Justin]
Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's interesting the you mentioned also kind of in when you were in central Illinois, you talked about how you didn't really have anywhere to go and so yeah you wanted to come to Chicago to have those options. I wanted to there was something in there I wanted to dig into because, you know, having grown up in, again, in rural Iowa like I totally get that, where, you know, as a queer individual, you know, there weren't spaces for me.
And, you know, I, I, you know, I'm still a white male so like I can kind of blend in for the most part. And, you know, speaking of the ambiguous voice my voice is usually what gives me away. There's that there's actually a Netflix documentary something about, like, why do I sound gay.
And it's interesting and kind of deconstructing the history of kind of the gay voice. But yeah, I don't know like what I wanted to come back to that kind of didn't have anywhere to go like thinking about either being in central Illinois or in Chicago like how that compares and kind of just comfort level, because you also mentioned. You also mentioned, making more of an effort to get out and meet people in Chicago and how that differs from when you were in central Illinois and the kind of the comfort level there.
[Brittany William]
Yeah, I comfort for me is always about safety. So when I was in central Illinois, particularly at the time where we were staying when I was working, there's a lot of racial tension, like it wasn't just like, you know, across the country because I think it was like 2016 and we all know what happened in 2016. But there was just like a lot of tension in the community and so being active and being out as a black person as a townie quote unquote because I had already graduated from college and I was living there full time.
It was, it was difficult to find spaces at me and one other co worker that I had who is a black woman. I mean we bonded like we only really had each other and we talked so many times about all the dreams that we had about getting more black women together and creating space and being able to share ideas and lift each other up but we only had us like we only had the two of us. And in central Illinois, I feel like I really kept to myself quite a bit.
If I did want to do something that was a little bit more outwardly queer outwardly black or anything along those lines like I would go to Champaign Urbana, Illinois, and I would go to the U of I because it's a much more diverse campus. And so I really had to kind of pick and choose my battles of, you know, how out, do I want to be in in central Illinois or where I was living, compared to like you know when I go up to the burbs and visit my parents. And so when we moved to the city.
Obviously the pandemic did not help but seeing so many more diverse people made me feel more safe that I can be myself, if that makes sense like it was an opportunity to be like oh well I can, I can walk down the street and I'm not going to get stared at for like why are you here, instead of it's like oh you like hey how's it going like it's I mean granted I will say that people in Chicago aren't as nice as people in central Illinois or other rural. That's just, that's just me.
But I think New York is a little bit worse but no offense to New York love New York. But, yeah, it's, it's, it's being able to see yourself represented like even though it's not necessarily like, um, you know, I'm seeing a stranger on the street that's black and I'm like hey let's form a group together. It's just more of, you know, okay, there are people here that look like me which means that I can find my community.
And when I was living in central Illinois, I, there was one other person who looked like me and so it made it really difficult and disheartening honestly to want to engage with other folks and want to build any sort of community with that.
[Justin]
Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, I get the the safety being a big thing and kind of being, you know, in that more rural area being the only one or one of two. It makes me think of a couple of summers ago so my family's all still in rural Iowa, and we were at the lake, and the, the fire department like just drove by you know like small town like they're out cruising in the fire truck or whatever they do.
And one of the firemen was black. And so I was kind of surprised because I was like, you know, this is literally a town of less than 1000 people in rural Iowa so you just don't see. Yeah, non white people, and I, I don't know if my dad will ever listen to the podcast so you know he may or may not be upset with me for sharing this but I, he, I was like, Oh, like you have like there's a black guy who lives in your town and he said, he said yeah but he's, he's one of the good ones.
Yeah, I was like, I'm sorry what, like, they're like, and going back to that TV representation of, you know, it's like what there's, it's that statement is a little bit like, whoa. But also, I spend a lot of time really trying to get myself in, like, I've spent, you know, 44 years, trying to get myself away from my dad's thinking right. But actually, later in life, I've spent more time trying to understand his perspective.
No, I'm like, Oh, gosh, you know, like, I guess, if, if that's your experience if your experiences, watching TV, that's it and that's all the exposure you get, then that's a kind of statement that you would make right. Yep. And it's unfortunate.
But it's also, you know, what's there.
[Brittany William]
Yeah, it happens quite a bit, quite often.
[Justin]
Yeah.
[Brittany William]
I've been, I've been told that I'm a good black way more times than I'd like to admit which I'm like, and as a kid to like to hear that and be like, wait, what, what does that mean like, like all the black people that I hang out with are good but he what are you talking about and of course it didn't take me until getting older to realize that was a microaggression got it.
[Justin]
Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
[Brittany William]
Is that yeah, yeah, I had a lot of like thank you moments in my life so I feel that.
[Justin]
Yeah, it's, you know, and those, those, I want to relate that back to the work because those microaggressions sit in overbearing for individuals have those blinders on and don't get that like the way that you're viewing the world right now actually isn't the way that everyone sees it. Yeah. And, and, you know, it's, it's.
I hope that this work continues to peel back those blinders a little bit.
[Brittany William]
Definitely, I and I think it will to I think, you know, especially with all of the unrest that we had in 2020, like, it's hard to go back, you know, it's hard to it and I can see like in our landscape, specifically our political landscape that it. There's a divide that they're trying to draw between both of us and it's about it. The way I see it it's love versus hate, and I'm on the love side, I want to love everybody and I think everyone deserves to be loved.
And there's no reason that we can't all figure this out and get along.
[Justin]
I love that perspective of being on the side of love. We we just need it. And I think that's a really a really great way to close our conversation today. I feel like we could sit and chat forever. But I think that, you know, we'd have to have a multi part episode or something. But I do want to make sure that people know, So you have a podcast and it is called your only black friend is that right?
[Brittany]
Right, yes, your only black friend podcast. I started it. I want to say maybe. Over of 2021, it's been a passion project of mine for a really long time, mainly because I felt alone. I felt alone in my experiences of being in spaces where I was the only brown face, and I wanted to find other people who have that experience as well. So on it, I reached out to people On TikTok and that's how I really got started of just meeting strangers and then posting videos about their experiences being the only black person. That was like hey, I have a podcast, get on here. Tell your Story and I love I love saying this episode because it's it's one of my most successful episodes and this person has become a very dear friend of mine all through TikTok. But the episode is called Trap Music and Birkenstocks, and her perspective relates a lot to mine. And we went through a lot of similar experiences, although. She was in the South and I was in the North, quote UN quote. And so if anybody is going to listen or if you want to check it out, I highly recommend starting with that episode just because of all of the correlations, all of the things that we've talked about today, we touch on over there as well, so.
[Justin]
I haven't listened to that episode yet, so I'm definitely going to check it out.
[Brittany]
Yes, please.
[Justin]
Thank you for that. And two follow-ups to that. So number one, you are building your own community, I love that. And secondly, I love that you are I love anyone and and you know, saying this as it's something I strive to do is When when we don't feel like we have the right representation to step out and be that representation, and that's some of the additional work and research I've been doing to continue the work of creating belonging is digging into that authenticity where, you know, those of us with marginalized identities. If we have the privilege to be in safe, Spaces we have, we have an obligation to show up for others, so I love that you're doing that.
[Brittany]
Yes. Yep.
[Justin]
Thank you for showing up.
[Brittany]
Yes, thank you. I'm glad to be showing up it. It took a lot for me to get to this point, but the impact that I've been able to make, even if it's just been like a 5 or 6 text messages from people saying thank you for sharing your story has made a huge difference. And I'm always going to be an advocate for anyone of a marginalized group to share their story, because you deserve to be heard. And you deserve to share your experiences with other people and tell them how they made you feel and how you're going to grow from them, but also how you want them to grow from them. I think growth and healing is so important right now so that we can be a better society for each other.
[Justin]
Well, thank you so much for joining me. Brittany, I had a great time talking with you and I have a feeling we'll we'll keep the conversation going with the recording off.