The Exhaustion Nobody Talks About: Being Black in Corporate Spaces

There is a kind of tiredness that does not show up in a performance review. It does not appear in the metrics by which professional success is typically measured. It is not the result of too many meetings or an unreasonable workload, though those things may also be present. It is something more specific, and more difficult to name in a professional setting. The exhaustion of doing two jobs simultaneously. The first: managing your identity, your awareness of your skin colour, how you are perceived, navigating the unspoken rules of an environment that was not necessarily built with you in mind. The second: doing the actual job that you are being paid to perform.

For many Black professionals working in corporate environments across London and beyond, this is simply the background condition of professional life. The frustrations so familiar that they have stopped registering as unusual. So constant that the fatigue is normalised as part of what it means to ‘go to work.’

 

Hyper-visible and invisible simultaneously

One of the more disorienting features of this experience is its contradictory quality. The Black professional in a predominantly white corporate environment is often simultaneously hyper-visible and invisible. You may feel seen and scrutinised, and yet not quite seen at all.

This contradiction is psychologically taxing in a way that is difficult to explain to someone who has not experienced it. It produces a particular kind of vigilance (a heightened awareness of how one is being perceived, a constant low-level monitoring of the room) that is costly, in terms of both psychological and mental resources, to sustain.

 

When the workplace is not safe

Much of what maintains professional inequality is not overt. It does not happen in formal processes or stated policies. It happens in the informal architecture of professional life.

For many Black professionals, microaggressions, prejudice, ignorance, xenophobia, or discrimination are a feature of daily working life in corporate environments. What makes this particularly complex is that these experiences often come from those tasked with protecting, mentoring or supporting them. The managers, peers, senior colleagues, and institutional structures that should be a source of safety and advocacy.

 

The quandary of speaking up

These dynamics make raising concerns feel complicated, daunting, or at worst, impossible. The result for many Black professionals is a form of self-silencing. Keeping their heads down, not drawing further attention to themselves, pushing forward and above all, protecting their employment.

There is also a particular exhaustion of so-called ‘banter’ which skirts the boundary of (or simply is), overt racism. The comments dressed up as jokes. The remarks that land as a slight but are immediately reframed as humour. To challenge it is to risk being labelled as ‘over-sensitive’: a ‘spoilsport’, someone who ‘cannot take a joke’. The eye roll, the dismissal, the "it was only banter". These responses do not deflect the original comments. They place the burden back onto the Black professional who experienced them, requiring them somehow to justify their own reaction, rather than have the impact of these remarks truly acknowledged. Over time, the calculation of whether to say something or absorb it quietly becomes an additional form of exhaustion.

When concerns are raised formally, be that through complaints or grievance procedures, many Black professionals experience a shift in the relational landscape around them. Colleagues who were warm become distant, friendly faces become solemn and withholding. A door that felt open quietly closes. The experience of raising a complaint is frequently one of finding oneself more isolated than before speaking up, at the precise moment when support would matter most.

Additionally, there is the noisy yet quiet calculation made by an already fatigued body and mind, of whether to pursue a formal complaints process. There is a knowing that taking action is not a guaranteed route to justice. There is an understanding that it will involve a significant expenditure of energy, time, and emotional resource, with an uncertain outcome and a very real risk of further exposure. For many Black professionals, the decision not to proceed is not passivity. It is a reasonable assessment of what they can and can’t afford to lose.

 

The question of staying

The question of whether to stay or leave one’s current role can surface repeatedly, often without resolution. Leaving (which may involve a request to be relocated, or formally applying for other internal or external roles) can feel like the only way to protect one’s wellbeing, and yet it can also mean starting the same negotiation again elsewhere, with no guarantee that a new environment will be any different. Staying can feel like giving up, being trapped, or being resigned to a quiet erosion of the self over time. Neither option is straight forward, and the decision is rarely made once.

Having the desire to exit is one thing. Having the available time and the mental, physical and emotional resources that job searching and lengthy interview processes require, is something else entirely. This may be further complicated by having to request references or buy-in from the very individuals who may be at the heart of the poor treatment you are receiving. Also having to construct or share narratives for one's decision to leave can be further tasking and exposing. As a result, the decision making process tends to be revisited again and again, often privately, and often without anyone else realising the weight that it carries.

What therapy can offer

Therapy cannot change the structural conditions of a workplace. What it can offer is a space where you can feel safe to unpack your experiences of microaggressions, prejudice, ignorance, xenophobia, or discrimination.

Therapy can also offer a space to think about what is sustainable, what the cost has been, and what, if anything, needs to change. Additionally, it can also provide a safe space for you to explore and unpack your decision making around staying or leaving your current role or organisation.

Many Black professionals find that therapy is the first space in which they have been able to exhale and speak about these dimensions of their working lives without having to manage the other person’s response to them. That in itself can be significant.

If any of these experiences resonate with you and you would like to explore them further, therapy can provide the opportunity that you are seeking.

Dr Erin Reid is a counselling psychologist offering online therapy to individuals, couples, adolescents, and families across the UK and internationally. Visit drerinreid.com to find out more.