Skip to content Can I Just Be
Black at Work Without Explaining It?
January is a season of goal setting, vision boards, and trying to make everything fall into place. But while I’m focused on career growth, fitness goals, and leveling up in every area, there’s one goal I’m sticking to that feels both simple and radical: I just want to be Black at work—and not have to explain it.
Crazy Curls & Career Confessions
Share your wildest work or hair story anonymously!
This blog will help you:
Ready to strengthen your network and head into the new year with intention? Let’s dive in.
Before you can nurture your network, you need to identify the people who’ve been instrumental in your career this year. Take a moment to think about:
Action Tip: Create a short list of the five most impactful relationships you’ve had this year. Write down one specific way each person contributed to your growth.
Gratitude is a simple yet powerful way to maintain and strengthen connections. The key is to make it personal and specific. Instead of generic “thanks for everything” messages, highlight what the person did and why it mattered to you.
How You Can Show Your Gratitude:
Action Tip: Send personalized notes via email or handwritten cards. If possible, invite them for coffee or a virtual chat to express your gratitude directly.
If you’ve fallen out of touch with key connections, year-end networking events are a great way to reconnect. These events offer a casual yet professional setting to check in with peers, mentors, and even new potential connections.
Where to Find Events:
Attending these events not only strengthens your existing network but also helps expand it, introducing you to people who can play a critical role in your professional development in 2025.
Action Tip: Before attending, prepare a short “year-in-review” story about your career progress and goals. This makes it easier to spark meaningful conversations.
While group events are great, nothing beats a personalized conversation. Use this time of year to schedule one-on-ones with your key connections to reflect on the year and discuss future opportunities.
Conversation Starters:
These conversations show genuine interest in their perspective and can strengthen your relationship.
Action Tip: Offer to treat them to coffee, lunch, or even a virtual meeting if in-person isn’t feasible.
The relationships you nurture now can continue to grow in the new year—but only if you’re intentional. A connection plan ensures you’re staying top of mind with your network, even when life gets busy.
Ideas for Your Plan:
Action Tip: Make a list of three new connections you want to establish next year and find relevant networking events or groups to build those relationships.
Your career isn’t just built on skills or accomplishments—it thrives on the relationships you cultivate. As you close out the year, take the time to reflect, express gratitude, and intentionally nurture your connections. Whether it’s reaching out to a mentor, attending a networking event on Meetup.com, or sending a thoughtful note to an advocate, these small actions can have a big impact on your professional journey.
The main benefit of this “press tour” concept is keeping my momentum going. When it comes to networking, your work is never finished. At some point, you become the person people are trying to meet—and that’s what you’re working toward. But something with such abstract benefits can be hard to get out of bed for. But when I’m tempted to bed rot after a day of work instead of putting on my networking outfit and leaving the house, I pump myself up by reopening my vision board and remembering that if I want my life to feel like a movie, I have to go on the press tour.
he key to 2025 isn’t just setting ambitious career goals—it’s building the network to help you achieve them. Let’s make it a year of connection and growth.
For more career chats, check them out here.
Crazy Curls & Career Confessions
Share your wildest work or hair story anonymously. I’ll share advice via the career chats page on how to navigate them.
Let me be clear: I’m not talking about being the office-friendly version that smiles through microaggressions and translates cultural references to make others more comfortable. I’m talking about the unapologetic, full-spectrum version of me. The Nigerian-American woman who loves switching between twist outs and protective styles, who might show up with red lips on a random Wednesday, and who isn’t going to soften her tone just to avoid being labeled “aggressive.”
For a long time, I played the game. I leaned into the unspoken rules about how to navigate corporate spaces when you’re Black: keep your hair “neat,” your expressions neutral, and your culture just subtle enough that it’s intriguing but not too much for the room. But somewhere along the way, regardless of the company, I realized that the game wasn’t designed for me and people who look like me to win.
So last year, I stopped playing.
I stopped code switching every minute of the day, because it’s genuinely exhausting. I stopped dodging the questions about my hair that always felt less like curiosity and more like a demand for an explanation. I stopped taking the scenic route in conversations about diversity because I didn’t want to seem “too focused” on equity. And honestly? It’s been freeing.
But here’s the catch: even as I’ve made these changes, I always have to be cognizant that my surroundings may stay the same. Being Black in corporate spaces still comes with unspoken expectations and invisible hurdles. It’s a constant negotiation—deciding whether to speak up in a meeting when you know your tone will be dissected or wondering if your bold lipstick is “too much” for that client presentation.
“Being Black in corporate spaces still comes with unspoken expectations and invisible hurdles."
It’s a constant negotiation.
This year, I’m not negotiating anymore.
I’m done explaining why my hair looks different this week or why I’m skipping the after-work happy hour because I have a family event that’s a big deal in my culture. I’m done softening my edges to fit into a space that wasn’t designed with me in mind. If that makes people uncomfortable, so be it. My presence is not the problem—it’s the narrow definition of professionalism that needs to shift. Let me reiterate. This is not a rant about my company, I’ve worked at several major organizations. Chile, this is a systemic issue.
For Black professionals, this is a journey we know all too well. The pressure to explain, adjust, and shrink ourselves is exhausting. And yet, we’re still here, doing the work, excelling, and bringing value to spaces that often don’t know how to fully embrace us.
Just me, as I am.
If you’ve ever felt this tension—of wanting to exist in your workplace without feeling like you need to translate yourself—this is your reminder that you’re not alone. And if you’re ready to stop playing by rules that weren’t made for us, let this be the year you break them.
Because the truth is, we’re not the ones who need to adjust. The room does.
Check out The Corporate Curly for tips on building confidence, achieving career goals, and thriving in your workplace experience.
Search The Blog
Optimized by Seraphinite Accelerator
How are you reading my mind?!?