For the last 4 years I have only interned for conservative employers. Not out of choice but out of circumstance. In college I interned at a PR firm in the state capital that represented Republican politicians, and I took it because I needed an internship to graduate. They asked me in the interview whether their clientele would be a problem for me. And I told them no, it wouldn’t, because I’m used to ducking out of political conversations. I learned how to disappear at the dinner table growing up. But I had no idea how bad it would be.. My supervisor was a Donald Trump Jr. clone, a young hardline conservative hungry for power and influence who had a kind demeanor but awful ideas, and my boss -- oh, my boss. He was a despicable man, prone to casual sexist “jokes” and blatant off-the-cuff racism. I avoided him at all costs. After my initial interview, I think I exchanged a dozen words with him in total..... The politics bled into every facet of the business. Part of my job was writing reports when our clients showed up in the news, & one day I get an email from a superior giving “corrections” to my report. I had written that an opposing politician criticized our client on his approach to climate change, & I phrased it in the most neutral possible way. Literally, “X criticized Y, saying that [statement].” And this superior “corrected” my report by adding a sentence about how climate change wasn’t real. This email baffled me, because it was so unnecessary. It treated an objective, neutral statement, a statement that didn’t pass any judgment on the existence of climate change, like it was a political position....... meanwhile, one of our clients, a large energy corporation, was actively advertising its “commitment to sustainability.” The clients seemed less concerned with ideas & beliefs & more concerned with political expediency. Luckily my position was so insignificant that I don’t think my work actually benefited any of our clients.
Years later I interned at a law office run by a conservative old man. Even though my boss was even worse politically, somehow his age made it easier. I expected his views to be revolting, & they were. I would lower my head and pretend to focus on my work when he walked by my desk to tell me his opinion about “the blacks” & he would eventually go away, sulk back to his big mahogany desk. But he carried on with the assumption that I agreed with him, because I never got in a word edgewise. I didn’t want to.... how, in a short conversation, could I change the fundamental principles of a man who fed off of hatred for decades? I had tried with my own family & it always ended disastrously, with tears and shouting and stomping away, & I wouldn’t try it with him. Both of these experiences, this PR firm and this law firm, imbued in me a sharp sense of when to shut up and look away. But it makes me feel intense guilt -- am I endorsing hate by letting it go unchallenged? Am I wrong to make this calculation of emotional labor vs. expected outcome & decide to stay quiet? Truth is I’m sick of the guilt & the labor & the head bowing & the ignoring. I don’t need employers who I can talk politics with, not at all..... I just want to work where I don’t feel like a trespasser.
My difficulties pale in comparison to what others go through.... I know that. But this came to mind because now law firms are recruiting for summer 2021, & maybe I have an opportunity to work where I don’t have to disappear whenever a superior starts getting chummy. Maybe...... or maybe not. I have 18 months before I begin my professional life, & I might face a choice between money and morals. I like to think I’d do the right thing.........
