No. no. no. Listen to me.
This is exactly the way it needs to happen.
Kendra, I've been around a long time. How old are you, anyway?
Girl,
you don't have a clue.
You must have been in kindergarten when I started working here.
No wonder you don't understand how we do things here.
Ben,
Ben, I... I... want to talk to you about what I just heard.
You been listening in on my conversations again, Megan?
I'm like six feet away from you, so yeah, yeah... I heard you.
Okay, let me have it!
Ben is a great guy but...
he can be clueless.
He's acting as if Kendra is a child.
Just because she's younger and.. and hasn’t been here very long,
doesn't mean she doesn't have a valuable contribution to make.
Between being young, female and Black,
I see her getting ignored and dismissed a lot,
and not just by Ben.
When you called Kendra a young girl...
that felt really disrespectful to me.
Well...
she's young,
and she's a girl.
So... what's your point.
So, does that make you an old boy?
Listen here Megan...
Ben, Ben... the point is, that this company doesn't hire girls,
it hires women.
And... you made it sound that if someone is young, they have nothing to offer.
Which can shut them down and shut them out.
Oh.. oh... hold on!
That's not what I meant and I'm sure she didn't take it that way.
But how can you be sure?
At first, I didn't like what Megan was saying...
because really... Kendra and I are both Black.
But I realize that doesn't keep me from having gender and age biases
that showed up when I thought of her as a young girl.
You know, when Megan called me an Old Boy,
that reminded me that there was a time when I was growing up...
that Black men, no matter how old they got,
were still called boys...
which was very disrespectful.
I see your point.
I think I owe Kendra an apology.
I think you do.
And, when I get an apology,
I like to know that the person understands the problem
and the impact
AND feels true regret for what happened...
and can assure me that it won't happen again.
You know, you're pretty smart for being so... yoouu...
Well... you're right.
You've really given me some good advice.