You Read Me Wrong, But Your Othering Is Your Problem

A Real-Time Look at How Professionalism Standards Are Used to Justify Scrutiny, From Intraracial Policing to Selective Ivory Academia and Who Gets to Belong, Who Gets Tokenized, and Who Gets to Decide

The Bank & Respectability Politics

So the other day I went to the bank because I needed a new business bank account.

Mind you, I was wearing a flower Adidas crop top, a varsity bomber-style jacket, a headband with a bow, and some cute jean shorts. I walked in confident, pretty, and completely myself. I approached the teller, and she stared me up and down like I was lost or didn’t belong. Like, “What is she wearing?”

I let her know I was a bit late for my appointment with the banker. And she hit me with:
“You have a business? What type?”

Now listen, I was about to flip on her. But I didn’t. I sat down like they asked.

Then the banker came out. Another woman. Same routine. Looked me up, down, and back up again. Sizing me up. Trying to locate me in whatever biased file she keeps in her mind about “what a business owner looks like.” I had to explain again, yes, I have a business.

And it was so obvious what was going on.

You know what’s funny? I’m not the type to walk around screaming about how smart I am or how many degrees I have. I don’t lead with my résumé.
But whew, did I want to rip her a new one that day.

It was bad enough that it happened at all, but what made it worse?
They were both Latinas.

I was like seriously? Latinas? My own people? And man, I love my people, but these two are really doing this right now?
Do better to your people.

What I wanted to say was:

Just because you’ve been conditioned by cultural ideas of what’s “professional” doesn’t mean you get to project that standard onto me. That’s not mine to carry.

Your discomfort? That’s your own insecurity. Your own lack of freedom.
Girl, don’t play with me.

Honestly? God willing, if I get really big, I’ll be the casual billionaire.
Because that’s me.

And when I choose to wear suits, suspenders, and my colorful, bohemian, hipster version of “professional,” I’ll wear it when I damn well please.

It is not your business to dictate or presume what professionalism, etiquette, or “business energy” looks like on me.

Real tip: I’m not here to audition for anyone’s approval.
I walk in as I am educated, layered, qualified, and brown.
And I will continue to walk into every room that way.
Whether they like my outfit or not.

Let’s Breakdown The BS

Let’s talk about what happened at that bank. That was respectability politics in full force. The expectation that professionalism must be coded through Eurocentric norms, muted colors, polished hair, and soft tones has been so deeply ingrained that it shows up even in our own communities. These weren’t white women side-eyeing me. These were Latinas. My people. And yet, I was still being scanned, judged, and asked to explain my legitimacy based on what I wore. That kind of gatekeeping is intraracial, shaped by colonized definitions of what success should “look like.” And when you disrupt that aesthetic, when you walk in with color, joy, edge, or nonconformity, they don’t just question your outfit. They question your credibility. The fact that I had to clarify that yes, I do have a business, while dressed like myself, is the case study. And when our own communities weaponize those standards against each other, it is outright internalized oppression turned outward.

The Workshop & Ivory Academic Gatekeeping

Something else I want to name clearly: I was invited to co-lead a virtual workshop among other so-called “leaders.” Before I even had a chance to speak, I read the room. And it was giving exactly what too many of us already know: performative inclusion, tokenism, and no real equity.

One Ivory man in particular dominated the space with such unearned confidence and condescension that he felt comfortable labeling lived experience as a Brown person, as “the personal stuff.” He said those insights should be reserved for the end of the session, like they were some kind of emotional dessert after the “real” conversation had taken place.

And honestly? I wanted to ask,
“Since you have all this data, who is the data on? Because I sure as hell don’t see it reflecting Brown and Black people.”

But I didn’t engage because I knew what was happening. I’ve seen it before.
People like him extract energy from a room under the guise of structure. And I was deeply offended not just by him, but by the environment that allowed it.

Everyone was centering clinical data on mental health, as if it were the whole story. And I sat there thinking,
That’s cool, but this man has no idea I’m trained in both qualitative and quantitative methods. I’m a researcher. I’m building a business. I’m writing a dissertation. And your entitled ass really wants to make me feel like I don’t belong here? Like I’m somehow not enough?
Sir, respectfully, GTFOH.

And let’s be clear: this entire situation could have been avoided with real structure and intentional facilitation. But no, that didn’t happen. The person who organized this space wasn’t prepared to lead in a way that would interrupt entitlement. And of course, the ivory man in the room took that opening to assert his voice, his framework, and his colonized leadership style, full throttle, no self-awareness, like every tech bro stereotype we’re exhausted by.

When they asked for reactions, I calmly responded by reflecting back what he had said. And instead of self-correcting, he followed up with:
“Not to say that what you guys are saying isn’t important…”

No.
Don’t qualify my truth. Don’t downplay my expertise. And don’t think I won’t clock exactly what this is: a masterclass in how ivory centers itself even in rooms meant to center equity.
Get off your high horse and interrogate your own presence.

People, where is your humanity? We all bleed the same. Judge me by my character, not by my ethnicity or the color of my skin.

Let’s Breakdown The BS

Now that workshop? That was a crash course in academic gatekeeping. The moment a white man labeled lived experience as “the personal stuff” and suggested we save it for the end of the conversation, he revealed how deeply the colonial hierarchy of knowledge is still alive and thriving in these so-called inclusive spaces. Because what he was really saying was: Only what can be measured counts. And what can’t be measured, especially the lived truths of BIPOC folks, is secondary. When someone centers their authority by devaluing qualitative insight, they’re reinforcing a system that sidelines embodied wisdom and prioritizes majority performance over presence. I wasn’t offended because my ego was bruised; I was offended because my identity was reduced to a side note. And no, I didn’t owe that man a TED Talk on why I belong in the room. I already belonged by being there. Lived experience isn’t a bonus to sprinkle on top of the “real work.” And when research ignores embodiment, it doesn’t just miss the mark, it recreates the very systems it claims to critique.

College, Culture Shock, and Survival

This experience really triggered me. It brought me right back to my first years in college, where I was probably one of the five Brown students on campus. And coming from a high school that was so beautifully diverse, stepping into that environment was a cultural collision, a full-blown identity shock.

I felt entirely out of place, out of rhythm.

That year, I ended up seeing a therapist because I became severely depressed. I also developed bulimia. Let’s say I did not have a healthy relationship with my body or my identity at that point. And it wasn’t just about food or grades. It was the constant tension of being hypervisible and invisible at the same time.

I was constantly being watched, but never really seen.

I was navigating stares, coded questions, and microaggressions daily. And of course, the constant
“Do you have papers?”
As if my existence needed to be verified or explained.

It was suffocating.

And it took me years to find my footing again. To rebuild that connection with my body. With my culture. With myself. To walk into my identity on my own terms, instead of letting the gaze of others dictate how I showed up.

So yeah, when I say I don’t play about belonging, I mean it. Because I know what it feels like to hide who you are to survive.

And frankly? These are the same types of ivory entitled people, the ones who gatekeep, who “other” you, who turn curiosity into interrogation, that make the “woke white folks” look real bad.

Let’s Breakdown The BS

My first years of college were not just challenging academically; they were traumatic. When you’re one of five Brown students on campus, your body is treated as both hypervisible and invisible at the same time. You’re tolerated but never really welcomed. You’re seen but not understood. That kind of social positioning isolates and fragments you. It teaches you to second-guess your voice, your appearance, your culture. And over time, that creates a rupture between being seen and being safe. I became depressed. I struggled with bulimia. As if cultural gaslighting wasn’t enough, the environment required me to leave parts of myself behind to belong. And the concept of “minority stress” doesn’t even begin to capture it because this was systemic displacement. These institutions want our brilliance, our diversity, our stories, but only if they come edited, softened, and assimilated.

The Homefront and Holding It Down

This week at home? Rough.

You know you love your family, of course, but some days? You want to lovingly (but firmly) slap folks back into reality for the way they speak to you, or the energy they bring into the room.

My daughter’s been in a low phase emotionally. She’s in her first year of college, navigating her own internal storms, and I’ve had to step in with some extra care. And that’s okay, I’m her mom, and I’ll always hold space for her. But sometimes? It’s exhausting.

My husband, on the other hand, has been in an episode. His moods have been up and down. Some days, it’s hard to watch, hard to hold, hard to stay grounded while witnessing someone you love unravel in waves.

So I keep it moving.

My mother used to say I move like the Easter Bunny, eat while standing, always bouncing from one thing to the next, never still. And honestly? She wasn’t wrong.

Between the nonverbal tension in the house, the weight of other people’s projections, the silent demands of women who haven’t done their healing, and the invisible expectation that I stay the motivator for everyone else, I’m running on grit. Shit is hard, but I love my people. I will continue to make time for myself to process, heal, and recharge.

Let’s Breakdown The BS

The truth is, society has trained us to applaud women who hold everything together, but never stops to ask why they’re expected to in the first place. And for neurodivergent women of color, that labor isn’t just heavy, it’s tripled. Emotional labor. Cultural labor. Invisible labor. All of it is expected.

In I/O Psychology, we name this role overload, but for us, it’s cumulative fatigue. This erosion happens when your body becomes a service center for everyone else’s needs at home, at work, in public, in silence.

Yes, these are my responsibilities. Yes, I show up.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t get tired.
It doesn’t mean I can’t rant, cry, or shut the door for a while.

I have a right to rest, too.

Zooming Out: What These Moments Reveal

None of these moments are accidental. They’re patterns and structural dynamics at work, showing how power, perception, and bias shape our lived experience every single day. Whether it’s a bank teller, a biased workshop, a college classroom, or your own kitchen, systems will often respond to your presence before you even open your mouth. And more often than not, they will try to frame your truth as disruption.

They’ll question your credibility if you don’t mirror their language. They’ll treat comfort, not equity, as the price of admission for being heard. And when you refuse to contort yourself to fit that unspoken standard, the backlash is real.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand and what I intentionally make space to teach: there is nothing excessive about being who you are. The issue is the standard they’re trying to squeeze you into. Hence, when you stop translating your identity into something that is not your own, it’s discernment, self-respect, and your power with boundaries.

So yes, I move through the world in a crop top and with a dissertation underway. I care for my family and command space in policy rooms. I bring lived experience and academic rigor together

because they are not mutually exclusive. They are layered, interdependent truths that shape how I lead, how I speak, and how I teach. I am seriously not trying to prove anything. What I do know is that I refuse to leave pieces of myself behind to please other people and their standards.

P.S. I hold deep respect for all people, especially those who move through the world with integrity, care, and a commitment to humanity beyond race, color, or creed. When I name these dynamics, it’s not to target a group, it’s to call out behaviors and patterns that harm. Because harm is harm, no matter who’s causing it. And accountability is a refusal to normalize inhumanity.

As always,

Be yourself and never give two fucks about who doesn’t welcome you in yourself or what they say.

With Love, Itzel