[Eleopteryx]

I've witnessed unconscious prejudices in myself e.g. toward female coworkers. I remember being livid because a female coworker corrected me in the presence of others. If she had done it in private I would have had no feelings about it. But I felt like it was a particular harm to my reputation on account of her gender.

If asked, I would strongly deny being even remotely sexist. Ironically, if I were in a position to hire or promote a female candidate or employee, I might be unreasonably biased toward the notion on account of wanting to have a diverse team. But in the aforementioned scenario I was caught inside of my own projections of an invisible pecking order.

The prospect that there are people who might have a similar reaction to my asserting myself while being a black man frightened me. I ruminated over past interactions, framing them in a completely different context.

Trying to make it in this industry has created a certain amount of anxiety and resentment, and it's compounded by the fact that I don't know which parts of it are my imagination or reality. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to argue that everyone is prejudiced toward me, but rather my own constant uncertainty of how I'm perceived is both alienating and discouraging.