Partner Track doesn’t go into the weeds of the model minority myth and all its implications, but it’s important context for why Ingrid behaves the way she does when confronted with microaggressions. Like so many of us, she’s internalized it. After Dan (Nolan Gerard Funk), another rich, smug, white senior associate, does a racist comedy routine at the company retreat, her first instinct is to remain in her seat and endure silently. She only gets up to follow Tyler (Bradley Gibson), the only Black associate we see in the firm, and when he tells her he is leaving the retreat, she hesitates. Though she does eventually go with him, it’s far from a big scene. And she does so after first going to her boss to raise a complaint. Tyler knows that the law firm and its HR department won’t help him, but Ingrid is still convinced that the system can work for people like her and Tyler. Even as her boss manipulates her into chairing the firm’s Diversity Gala and trots her out as its proud “Asian American female lawyer,” she still believes that she can win. All she has to do is swallow her pride and survive these little indignities. But that’s easier said than done, and, at a certain point, it’s just too much.
