Over the last few days to weeks, I have been obsessed with Omorosa Manigault Newman. Why you may ask? Honestly, while she was a senior advisor within the Trump administration, I rarely heard or agreed with anything she said. Not that it never happened, it's just that it happened so infrequently. For one, I stopped watching TV after the 2016 Election, secondly, she is the perpetual bad girl and I have never identified with the perpetual bad girl.

Well, that was until she started dropping, her mixtapes on Donald Trump and the entire White House administration. Why would that make me identify with her?

Prior to moving to the States, I truly believed that racism didn't exist. I mean, up until I moved to the South, I had encountered racism twice in my life. Which is nothing compared to the daily "in your face" barrage of racial moments you are forced to deal with as a person of color living in the States. And prior to the Trump administration, it may have been bi-weekly/monthly. Here's the thing, when I first moved to the US, I worked for a pretty big medical institution here in Atlanta. I worked in a position, where I was the youngest by at least 10 years and the only black person in the department.

As an experienced sales rep, with experience in the pharmaceutical sales industry, I came to the department with the most sales experience and was hired based on that merit. However, the day our department was reorganized a new Director took over. Still the youngest and only person of color in the department, she was a little less than 4 decades my senior and decided and later verbalized that I was too young for the job and I should never have been hired into the position in the first place. As time went on, I looked for reasons to try to understand why she felt this way, to look for ways to be better to improve upon my skills.

But as time went on, I realized that she arrived at this conclusion not because I was bad at my job, quite the opposite, in fact I was quite good. It was the color of my skin. I didn't belong in the department which was all white and ran by her. She felt that I belonged someplace else. I was hired before she took over. Had she been in charge when I was hired, I may not have been hired at all. Years later, I have come to the conclusion that I was hired to fill a quota. Affirmative action had gotten me a seat at the table but like Manigault Newman, just because you make it to the table does not mean you get to eat. I was bombarded with threats to force me to quit. "You will never work in Georgia again" if you fight to stay. "Just quit". I planned on quitting, I didn't want to stay where I wasn't wanted, but I just wanted to quit on my own terms not be forced out. Like Manigault Newman, anything in quotes can be verified (you read between the lines). Now people may say that this institution hires people of color of the time and of course it's Atlanta.

While this is true, you will find, just as Manigault Newman was the only black senior staffer, it is so hard to find people of color in the more senior roles. And I truly believe that representation matters. Now what's all of this got to do with affirmative action, and why is it needed along with tape recordings?

I am a parent, if you are or have ever been a parent you know that you would move heaven and earth to make their world a safer and a better place. For me, that means that they are afforded every opportunity that they deserve and work hard for and every opportunity that their pears would be afforded. Not held back or put at a disadvantage because of the color of their skin. Now my daughter started elementary school last year. Like every good parent, I want to be involved. I became room Mom and joined the PTA and have strived to be as involved as possible.

Now that it's her second year in school, I opted to be a part of the PTA again. I applied, reached out and was met with a wall of what I consider nonacceptance. The first year I joined it was a blinded process. I was unknown but after one year, I am now known. The funny thing is within the PTA there is little to no minority representation. Now I understand not everything is about race. The PTA is like a high school mean girls click. The women in the click identify with one another, and being different and with a different upbringing plays a part in their uncomfortable-ness. But that is when I see the need for things like affirmative action. You see, why should my daughter and girls and boys that look like my daughter not benefit from having representation because of your uncomfortable-ness.

"The term "affirmative action" was first used in the United States in "Executive Order No. 10925", signed by President John F. Kennedy on 6 March 1961, which included a provision that government contractors "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. It benefits not only people of color but women too, irrespective of color. Which is why it is funny that something as simple as a school PTA could be so divisive and exclusionary. It should not be that way.

I will be honest, I don't know what the solution is. As I fell down the Omorosa rabbit hole in the last few weeks, watching and reading pieces of information about her, I came across people like Tomi Lohren, who hold such strong views in the negative to my viewpoint. Now some things they speak on I agree but at times, their argument, which is so strong in the opposing direction seems to have no merit to me. But the passion and vigor with which they speak cannot be ignored. Which is why I believe that Omorosa's Axios phone was needed but the fact remains that some will listen to it and still hear what they want to hear.

In closing, I hope and wish for more unified times, but in the meantime, my hope is that things like affirmative action remain intact because without it, it obvious to me that representation would be a subjective and something that people may feel it is easy to go without.