Today, I’ve decided to share my #BlackatR29 story. Like many young women starting their careers in fashion journalism, I was naive, eager and ready to take on whatever came my way — at least that was my mindset. (Thread)

When I got my first full-time job at @Refinery29, I was thrilled to be at a company that claimed to empower ALL women.

When I first started, I had a supervisor who I actually got along with, however there was another supervisor, Melissa Katz, who had issues with me from the beginning. She wasn’t my direct report, so I wasn’t concerned.

Fast forward and my direct supervisor quits, and on her last day at the job, she told me, “good luck,” because she knew my life was about to get difficult. Little did I know what she meant, until Melissa became my new boss.

Melissa was consistently verbally abusive and made me feel unqualified. It didn’t matter that I won the Editorial Prize for the best written masters thesis at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, out of a pool of 300 people.

It didn't matter that prior to @Refinery29, I worked at The New York Times and Elle Magazine, in addition to numerous internships at BBC News, CBS News and I was a White House Correspondents' Association scholar. None of this stopped Melissa from talking down to me as well as

constantly directing microaggressions towards me, which ate away at the confidence I developed from my aforementioned career success. I’ll never forget when she sent me a specific work project and then proceeded to send me a barrage of messages to micromanage everything I did.

I respectfully responded to all her messages with “will do.” She snapped back with: “are you just saying ‘will do,’ or do you actually get what I’m asking for?”

On another occasion, she questioned how I was able to attend Columbia University, saying something along the lines of, “Isn’t that school really hard to get into? Isn’t it for smart people?”

Melissa’s microaggressions also extended to the merits of my work. Even as I held the title of content strategist, she once overturned my decision to have a writer cover a story about Black women wearing braids as a protective hairstyle

in the winter, citing it as inaccurate. These constant microaggressions, culminated with Melissa attempting to derail my career. During our one-on-ones we would have conversations about my goals,

and I shared that I was interested in transitioning into a video and social media role. She responded positively and even seemed excited for me, but then she went behind my back and told the video team to stop featuring me in their content,

because she wanted to limit my skills to content strategy. It should be noted that @Refinery29 encourages all staff members to work across teams to produce videos, articles and other content.

I only found out Melissa did this because my friend/Black colleague told me she was telling the social team not to give me opportunities.

I’m sharing this story now as I reflect on my current achievements at @TheCut, where I’ve doubled their Instagram following to a million, in the year that I’ve been working there. It has reaffirmed everything that Melissa once made me doubt.

I can’t let another day go by, knowing young aspiring Black journalists could face what I dealt with. Since leaving R29, I’ve made it my mission to help Black and Brown women who want to work in media get the jobs they desire.

I want to keep amplifying our voices and taking up space. I’ve already created a directory of hardworking and talented Black and Brown women who are looking for media jobs,

if you’d like to know more about this, feel free to DM me! Let’s help dismantle racism and injustice in the media workplace.