For years I’ve watched Angela Rye with rapt attention and admiration for the way she smartly navigates complex political conversations that affect the entire nation, while still managing to center Black people, namely Black women. She is brilliant, down to earth, and she makes us feel seen. 

So, when I caught a recent CNN panel debate where she had to, as my grandma would say, put her foot down, I leaned all the way in. I’m penning this because I want her to know I saw her. 

During the segment, Rye physically shifted away from fellow panelist, a Trump-supporting entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, telling him “Don’t touch me.” I felt it in my gut, for her. It wasn’t just the words—it was the clarity, the calm, the audacity to draw a line in real time, on live television, with millions watching. It was a moment so brief it could’ve been missed. But for those of us who’ve had to shrink ourselves in professional spaces to avoid being labeled “difficult,” it said everything. 

In a world where women, particularly Black women, are expected to endure discomfort for the sake of civility, Angela Rye’s instinctive boundary-setting was a powerful assertion of bodily autonomy. Her refusal to be touched—especially in a high-pressure, public setting—underscored a truth too often ignored: physical contact is not neutral, and consent doesn’t get suspended in professional environments. This moment wasn’t just about a few taps on the arm. It was about power, agency, and the right to exist in one’s body without being managed, minimized, or made to feel small.

Despite a mostly successful DEI rebrand attempt by the conservative right, the core reason for the movement still stands. Minorities are regularly faced with microaggressions in the workplace that are largely internalized because workers, namely Black ones, are nonverbally taught to keep their heads down for fear of losing their jobs for complaining about things they can’t prove. 

2023 survey data underscores years of research demonstrating that women face microaggressions at a significantly higher rate than men. In a USA Today report, 78% of women stated they experience microaggressions at work. 

In that same study, more than a third of Black women – three times the number of white women – said they had to code-switch – adjust their language, behavior, and appearance to fit into the dominant culture – to blend in with others and to avoid discomfit.

Micro-aggressive behaviors are just that, small. They are the subtle comments that allude to a racial undertone but aren’t quite brash enough to call out. For example, the condescending email that betrays a belief that you’re incompetent but doesn’t quite cross the line of name-calling. These behaviors still exist in the office. Unfortunately, I do see this type of conduct flexing even more in this post-DEI era that we’re in right now and will be for the next few years while the GOP is in near-complete control of the White House. 

So, to see a Black woman, at this time, on that platform, stand up for herself in a real way while at work is affirming and more of us should feel empowered to follow her lead. Yes, we are in what feels to me to be a losing civil rights war, but moments like these compel me to put my armor back on.