They decide who you are before you even speak
I have spoken in parliament, in committee meetings, advocated for human rights in front of people. But I have learned that the hardest part is often not the speech itself. It is everything that happens before my first word. By the time I reach the microphone, the space I am in has already decided things about me. My accent, before they have heard it. My competence, before I have demonstrated it, the points I will make, and whether I belong there at all. Assumptions arrive before my first word, and I spend the first few minutes of every intervention working to undo them.
There is a particular weight that comes with this. Women are already expected to be perfect, to be twice as prepared, to never give anyone a reason to doubt them. But for Black women, that expectation doubles again. We are not allowed an off day, a moment of being merely good rather than exceptional. Perfection is the baseline we are required to meet just to be taken as seriously as the average man in the room. And the stakes of falling short are too high. When a Black woman makes a mistake, it is rarely allowed to stay hers. It becomes proof. It gets folded into every pre-judgment about Black people, used to confirm what some people already decided before you arrived.
You are not just representing yourself. You are carrying the weight of being read as evidence of the entire race. The frustrating part is that doing the work well is often not enough. A friend of mine, a sharp lawyer at a good firm, was doing genuinely excellent work. Competent, social, and respected by her colleagues. And she was called into HR. Not for her performance, which was strong, but because she was not smiling enough. In a law firm, of all places, where you would expect the quality of the work to speak first, the stereotype spoke louder. A Black woman who is focused and serious is read as cold. The same demeanour in a man would be read as professional.
This blog post is part of the ARM project. The ARM project is an international project designed to explore the complex layers of racial and gender discrimination through the power of storytelling, art, and narrative research. Our goal is to create practical tools that support the mental health and empowerment of racialised and LGBTIQ youth.
At its core, the project looks beyond individual incidents of racism or discrimination. Instead, we’re interested in the hidden, often unspoken emotional impact these experiences leave behind — how they shape a young person’s sense of self, confidence, and well‑being.
Across Europe, race and gender still strongly influence who feels safe, heard, and valued. Yet the mental health effects of racism, gender discrimination, and internalised racism are rarely discussed, even though they deeply affect racialised and LGBTIQ young people. ARM aims to change that by creating spaces where youth can share their lived experiences and see their stories reflected, respected, and understood.
