Personal Stories of Racial Oppression in the Workplace
In 5 Ways to Address Racial Oppression in the Workplace, utilizing numerous publications as well as input from friends, I recommended 5 actionable changes:
- Don’t just hire Black employees: ensure they also have the influence to enact change — just as you would for your white employees.
- Stop Gaslighting.
- Actively work to dissociate the word “diversity” from “lowering the bar.”
- Begin to wholly reconstruct business processes with your least represented employees and end-users in mind.
- Ensure access to tools and resources that will provide your under-represented employees with true opportunity for success and advancement.
Having led Talent Acquisition and supported DEI initiatives for years, I can confidently anticipate and commiserate with the pushback change-makers will face. Many of us — or perhaps our leaders and budget-holders — will want to believe that although these recommendations are valid, that the issues they address can’t possibly exist within our own teams.
To make these 5 suggestions more tangible, accessible, relatable, human, I’ll now share individual experiences of Black friends and colleagues who have been personally, professionally and recently impacted by these particular examples of racial oppression. Putting a face to an issue is impactful, and that’s what we have done here. The following people have bravely shared their stories, including Annette* who asked me to refrain from including her name:
Don’t just hire black employees: ensure they also have the influence to enact change.
Personal experiences:
Llew made an important point: that even if you bring Black employees into leadership positions,
The space is already set up against us. The slick thing about whiteness is that you don’t have to be racist to benefit — you just have to show up. If you don’t recognize that privilege, you’re contributing to it. You could compare it to male abuse of women. Until you get men to collectively decide that abuse against women isn’t representative of manliness, until men actively say no to this behavior in themselves and others, and until we stop making it acceptable or safe for perpetrators of the behavior with their silence , it will not change.
Jessaye pointed out one of many reasons why it’s essential to empower Black leaders.
When I have a question or am confused about something, I will rarely ask a white coworker for help unless I’ve built some sort of professional rapport with them. Every mistake I made felt like it was reflecting on my identity as a Black woman. It took years of building relationships with some white colleagues and managers before I felt comfortable asking them for assistance and even still, BiPOC will typically ask other BiPOC before reaching out to white peers.
This is due to feeling like any indication that I don’t understand or need clarification means I’m slow to learn, thus confirming the belief that I don’t belong in this world. It’s like an imposter syndrome that feels reinforced by white people not only outnumbering me, but also being more comfortable in their skin each day. Most white people can comfortably assume that all disciplinary action is a reflection of someone’s work. As a Black person, it often feels more like a confirmation of what was assumed already: that I’m not enough — smart enough, capable enough, quick enough — and that I never belonged in the first place.
Jessaye provided another very eye-opening experience around Black leadership, clarifying that just because a leader is Black doesn’t mean that they empower other Black employees. In fact, one of Jessaye’s most discouraging leaders was a Black woman.
In one of the departments I worked in, our manager — who is a Black woman — made other Black employees feel embarrassed by being condescending when they asked questions during meetings; sighing, rolling her eyes, or cutting them off. I worked under her for several years and noted her lack of patience with black coworkers versus consistent pleasant engagement with white coworkers. At one point I even provided her feedback via email around this which she never implemented. It felt hurtful that in a corporate environment which doesn’t often reflect black women, she was not only refusing to act as a leader or mentor, but she actively seemed to fear other black people moving up around her.
She has since been promoted to a director moved up and is now the only Black director in the building
When we all transitioned to working from home because of COVID-19, my boss showed no patience for people who struggled to get better wifi or to balance work in a home full of extended family, some of which they now simultaneously needed to care for. My boss was a childless black woman with an affluent husband, had a personal office, and she didn’t understand people with multigenerational families struggling to figure out an at-home working schedule. Her inability to understand the struggles of working from home in a lower income bracket continued to reinforce her lack of apathy for BiPOC and the struggles they often face in the corporate world. How can you be an effective manager if you don’t understand the struggles of the people working under you?
At this point, Llew built upon this additional reason why having leaders with alternative life experiences is essential. He said,
That’s a whole other component of WFH — living with extended family and having to care for not only children but nieces and nephews and often elders, and sharing a living room office space with 4+ people. Some people lose the only privacy they may have when they work from home. And not only that, it results in less access to leadership, less access to important career-changing or work-enhancing conversations that may be casual, impromptu interactions. You know what I’m talking about…
We see it in the news: there are a lot of companies now doubling down on WFH because “it works” — but that shift would negatively impact a lot of people.
The example with Jessaye’s Black female boss was particularly surprising for me. I optimistically assumed that Black women would want to lift one another up. I asked Jessaye why she thought this happened and she shared with me a fascinating component: that when there are too few Black people in the room, it often feels as if there’s only room for one.
I’m used to looking around and not seeing myself represented. When I as a Black person look around a room of white people, I don’t take myself into account. When I see another Black woman who stands out in contrast to all the white faces, I start to wonder “Do I stand out as much as that person does? And if so, who is more acceptable?” Meaning, who stands out less? Which one of us will be seen as the less refined, white one? Who will be reduced to the more “ghetto” coworker? The least assimilated? Because there cannot be two Black women who are similarly white-safe in the same room without competition. There is still a hierarchy — and internal racism within the Black community to avoid being seen as THAT employee; the slowest worker who comes in disheveled. Who’s style and behavior could be seen as “ghetto?” Who doesn’t know how to code switch — know when to act white and when to act Black — and therefore might be the “blackest woman in the room?” There is a hierarchy, and you want to be the one that people trust more.
Justin shared his experience having once been hired despite his Blackness and then elsewhere, with the alternative intention of learning from and utilizing his Blackness.
Earlier in my career, I was hired by an agency that believed they were racially blind. It was a majority white organization in a majority white industry. Working at this company was the first time I had noticed my Blackness in the professional world, and it was because it was the first time I felt that my Blackness was made apparent to me by being taken away from me — because of my want to assimilate.
I was made to feel like “everyone can succeed here” meant that I could make it so long as I tried it their way, but that my opinions/views/experiences — though potentially useful — certainly were not considered as assets.. It was hard to be open and honest about who I was: how where I came from made me who I was. This made it so difficult to build authentic connections and relationships with my colleagues. Because my authentic, true self; a young Black man who grew up in public housing, wouldn’t fit into the model of what an ideal employee and cultural-fit was. I, at first, didn’t understand why my being there felt so *forced*. I was trying SO hard, but my performance still slipped and started to become poor. The job just wasn’t clicking for me. I felt like I was an outsider begging to be let in, both socially and functionally. At the end of it, I blamed myself. Looking back with a tactful eye, I know I could have accomplished more if my authentic self was deliberately and intentionally taken into consideration when leadership was attempting to improve my work habits. I can now see that who I was wasn’t attributed to teaching me how to do this job well.
Annette built upon the importance of acknowledging and empowering differences. She said,
This is where inclusion is key. It’s imperative that differences are leveraged and valued. Every person hired should feel a sense of belonging and feel like they have already earned their seat at the table. Adding differences for the sake of differences is taking a step backward.
Positive change:
Justin’s professional and cultural experience was very different when he joined Flocabulary.
When I joined Flocabulary, it was immediately made apparent to me that a) they saw I was different from them and b) they recognized they needed my voice to be a core driver to internal change and influence into our product, how we hired, and more. They gave me the platform to empower my voice. Not only because I was Black, but because they knew the organization as a whole needed my voice. They knew I could provide a unique value and they wanted to utilize it. I was truly a culture add.
Empower and galvanize. When you empower someone, you give them the mental space to grow and you amplify their voice. When you galvanize, you give them the tools to enact actual change.
Stop Gaslighting.
Personal experiences:
Gaslighting can take countless forms, but any action that uses denial, misdirection, contradiction, or misinformation to make the recipient doubt themselves falls into this category.
Jessaye brought up an experience she has had countless times since moving away from Massachusetts.
Since I’ve moved to Texas and expressed to groups of people I’m from the North East, and I was raised to believe Texas isn’t very friendly toward Black people, particularly men are comfortable responding that they grew up in a town or have visited a town that is known for lynching or being racist. For instance, “Yeah, my grandfather grew up in this small town in Texas and they had a literal sign there that said, ‘No Niggers after sundown.’ And the conversation just ends there.
That has happened to me several times. Someone will enthusiastically mention that someone was lynched in their hometown just a couple years ago or that their community takes pride in not having Black people. When you’re talking to a Black person about that, it’s a horrible feeling for us. What am I supposed to say in response? Why would you bring that up? Particularly when it is almost never followed up by, “That’s a part of our history that I’m ashamed of.”
Jessaye and Annette had both had both personally experienced the “angry Black woman” stereotype. Annette shared,
I was once told my facial experience and body language in a meeting came across as “angry” or “disgruntled” it made me overthink myself so much that I purposely tried to come across as more “likeable,” “overtly expressive” and bubbly in meetings. I did this just so my calm, direct, demeanor would not be misinterpreted as “angry” or “upset.”
Jessaye’s example also served as an instance of colleagues highlighting their lack of exposure to Black culture and pointing to it as an excuse for their behavior. Jessaye said,
A colleague of mine identifies as a poor white male from the farm who hadn’t met Black people until he went to college. By highlighting that ignorance, it actually empowered him to say things to me like, “Don’t be that angry Black woman.” As if because he called himself an ignorant white man, calling me an angry Black woman was no longer a foul.
After hearing Jessaye speak to this example, Llew shared:
I have worked with white colleagues who have made seemingly disarming jokes about their whiteness. It’s an interesting device because it takes you a bit aback, like what they’re projecting is “I’m woke to myself being white or from the farm and not with it” and that can discourage you from further interrogating, and from asking questions about their whiteness, about what does that really mean to the person, how deep does this awareness go. Usually not very deep.
“I’m woke that I’m not woke.” Like the idea of not seeing or interacting with Black people until you were an adult is a reason to keep the race dialogue superficial and non-confronting because “how could I possibly understand as an ignorant white person?” Which suggests the person doesn’t have any interest or respect for our culture. It’s really a defensive posture for him or her, to ward off further questioning and conversation. But the same person will feel comfortable interrogating you about your blackness.
I had a colleague who did this, and I had to point out instances of the ways he treated me, and my other colleague who was a person of color, that demonstrated a lack of awareness and insensitivity that had begun to impact a project we were working on together.
And the project itself has a racial focus. Although this white individual specifically kept saying he did not want to be the “boss,” he managed through interactions to impose a presumed hierarchy with himself in charge. In this day and age, it didn’t make sense for him to lead a project where race was the focus. As persons of color we were made to feel that part of our primary responsibility was to recruit other POC into the project. We were starting to feel colonized into the imposed organizational process. And this became even more complicated when a female colleague of color complained that ideas she had been pushing for, for a long time, suddenly became “our” (male) ideas somehow, without acknowledging her. She stood her ground on that instance and she was right — I had been part of that unintended sexist conspiracy. And we both were being undervalued and manipulated into certain functions because of our race. It was a fascinating learning experience.
Positive change:
There was a positive ending in one of Llew’s experiences, in which he and his colleague spoke their minds.
In the end, after being confronted, our white colleague offered to step back and hear our ideas for a complete reevaluation of the project, especially around our roles and his. He came with a heartfelt and thoughtful apology.
For our part, my colleague and I admitted that we had let the oppressing inequities in this process go on for too long. We were co-conspirators in our own way by accommodating for the sake of peace and progress until we finally went off the rails.
Annette pointed to the notable roles of companionship and a shared dialogue, both of which were also demonstrated in Llew’s example. It’s difficult to confidently identify — and call out — examples of gaslighting until you receive confirmation that your experience isn’t specific to you.
ERGs or Employee Resource Groups help to provide a safe space where people of similar demographics could share experiences and compare stories. Often, I would share my experiences in ERG meetings only to find other black employees had experienced similar interactions in their peer groups. This helped to confirm that my experiences were not unique.
Actively work to dissociate the word “diversity” from “lowering the bar.”
Personal experiences:
Justin has experienced this not only in the workplace, but even while in Grad School.
If you were an educational opportunity program (EOP) admission, it was similarly regarded as being a diversity hire or the outcome of a required quota. We were perceived as having had an easier time getting in and that we were dumber than others. In actuality, it’s a representation of increasing accessibility.
At one of my companies, their initial response to not having POC in the room was to bring them in, at whatever cost. This was met with resistance and rightly so, because it felt like we were hiring Black people for no reason and without the experience to be empowered or utilized. Wouldn’t it be creepy if someone grabbed a Black person off the street to come into your office, and then just asked them to just sit there and say nothing? Not only is it lowering the bar of entry but it’s lowering the bar of participation. You now did yourself and this person a disservice because they don’t have real opportunity for development as an employee or student.
Don’t view my Blackness as a liability but rather as an asset to be considered when orienting the work we are brought on to do.
Positive change:
But Annette could point to how some well-respected companies are inspiring change.
Leslie Miley stepped down from leadership role at Twitter due to lack of diversity. He decided to forgo his severance package so he could speak freely about his experiences. Positive change comes from the leadership level and it is the freedom to speak without consequences about these negative experiences. He mentions the idea of diversity and “lowering the bar” in this post.
Begin to wholly reconstruct business processes with your least represented employees and end-users in mind.
Personal experiences:
I’m sure you’ve seen it before. Someone is promoted into — or even kept in — leadership despite specific “flaws” because they have “so many” redeeming qualities. However, when this flaw includes mistreatment of, or a lack of respect for, Black colleagues, the repercussions might be greater than you realized.
Jessaye shared a story about a colleague of hers who has since been promoted into a leadership role within the organization:
Having the white male coworker who disingenuously plays the devil’s advocate type of role, and watching him proceed up, was really painful. For instance, when Donald Trump won, he thought it comical that anyone was upset. He said to me, “Within your bracket of income, what do you have to worry about?’ and “You’re not an immigrant, so this doesn’t affect you.” He felt comfortable telling me something shouldn’t affect me because of my salary, and without consideration for how any other aspect of my well-being or the well-being of those I know might be affected. He eventually apologized — not because he knew what he did wrong but because other people told him that he had pissed me off. And that wasn’t the end of it.
Upon discussing this upsetting interaction with a friend of mine, she shared with me that this same man found me attractive and refers to me as “Jungle Fever” behind my back. Even if he had called me an uptight bitch behind my back, that would have been less offensive than Jungle Fever. He is exoticising me, and it degrades me because we spent a lot of time together and he knows my depth, intelligence and professional contribution. Still, he has evolved his definition of me into a sexualized black interpretation.
The fact that he continued to call me Jungle Fever amongst his friends reinforces a complicit environment. It means nobody is calling him out on it and that he has a group of white people who either laugh, agree or at least don’t stand up against it. I didn’t even find out about this from a white friend until she and I were both annoyed with him and she let it slip.
What happens when I’m not in the room? How far does it go?
This colleague eventually became the team lead and then was promoted out of my department, despite me joining before him.
Justin made the following comparison to today’s business processes and structures:
When I’m under-served, you can’t ask me to eat a meal that you’re not putting on my plate. And if you do finally put it on my plate, I’ll be hesitant to eat it because I’ve never eaten it before.
It comes down to accessibility. The tools that have elevated white employees very well might not be relevant to members of the Black community. Stairs were not created with wheelchair bound people in mind, nor were standard laptops crafted for the blind. As with Blackness, neither of these other physical states — Blindness or Physical Mobility — are *handicaps*. It is simply that our convention of *ability* is not inclusive. It is slim. As with physical accessibility, professional accessibility, our conventions of what makes a good professional was not ideated with Black people in mind. Accessibility isn’t about degrading your standards, it’s about changing the standards.
Annette pointed to how COVID-19 has also put a spotlight on this need for change.
This reminds me of COVID and how a lot of Black people, and other people of color, are essential workers. When all these rules and regulations came out for social distancing, how were we protecting essential workers? Were we protecting essential workers? Or did we crown them with the term “essential” to make it okay for them to go to work every day while the rest of us worked from home? I agreed some roles are essential, but how did our country protect these essential workers?
This was a point that Llew brought up during our conversation as well: the overwhelming way that the Black community has been impacted by COVID-19 and how that reality is totally different than the reality of all of us who are currently reading this story on — and working from — our computers.
Positive change:
Annette continued by sharing how she hopes this recognition around disproportionately impacted groups will lead to necessary change.
Through this pandemic, America had to face its ugly truth that many essential workers are minimum wage workers, in roles occupied by Black and Latino Americans. I’m optimistic that America realized that by the number of African American women infected by this virus, that there is an unfair distribution of minimum wage jobs occupied by minorities and that when a health crisis like this occurs, there is no real way for that demographic to protect itself while keeping the lights on.
Ensure access to tools and resources that will provide your under-represented employees with true opportunity for success and advancement.
Personal experiences:
In Jessaye’s case, despite outperforming her colleagues for years, numerous early mornings and weekends in the office, and consistently being praised for her work by leaders outside her department and colleagues within it, she waited 2 years for any pay increase.
My boss initially disregarded my work altogether because I was dedicating my energy to work rather than to social interactions with her. For 2 years, she “looked into” me getting a pay increase. When I finally started to speak up for myself, she really had an issue with it. And as we were both equally assimilated, it threatened her more.
Because Jessaye’s boss personally had no interest in advancing Jessaye’s career, her quality of work yielded nothing.
Justin spoke to his own experience struggling to rise up the ladder.
When I first joined one of my companies, I was vocal about my desire to eventually join the leadership team. And I promptly recognized that it would be difficult: not only because I saw no one like me up there but because I was told by my manager how few opportunities like that would even become available. I had already been told there wasn’t much I could do.
Fast forward 6 months into me being there. A white female colleague was being considered to become a leader within my team and it was clear why: she was #1 on the team. But upon closer examination, she had a resource that I did not. Because she and my boss were both white women, they were able to connect in a way that my boss and hadn’t. I had witnessed countless conversations that I didn’t have access to. Our skill gap was defined outside my control. Despite me asking to be a leader, and my white colleague’s specific desire to not become a manager, she had been selected.
I was not the only POC having this experience but at the time, I felt alone and therefore discouraged to speak up. This was because we had no existing platform or ERG through which we could gather and talk about all feeling this similar way. Despite knowing that the right response was to be up front, honest and vocal, I wasn’t able to do that at the time. Why? Because we had no Black leadership and few Black employees, the space didn’t exist and those conversations weren’t already happening. To speak up would be going against the herd, which is very hard to do. There had been no example to look to of that being done or panning out well.
Annette pointed to how the system is not yet built with Black employee advancement as a consideration.
It’s a common saying in Black communities that you have to work twice as hard to get half of what your white coworker will get. Without proper mentorship, or an ally in leadership it can be very hard to get ahead in your role as an African American. I’ve heard Black coworkers say they felt over recognized and over appreciated for small simple tasks and overlooked in grand impactful initiatives that impacted the company on a global scale.
Positive change:
Eventually, a Black colleague of Justin’s did step up. And it was a monumental turning point.
Not too long afterward, a white employee began using Black Slack emojis — an equivalent of digital blackface. This was an instance of bias that had evolved into discrimination. A tech leader called it out on Slack, asking the colleague to not do it. A side thread was also created in which colleagues were having a discussion around the injustice. Everyone leading this discussion, and the tech leader who called out the behavior, were all white employees.
One of our Black employees brought it to leadership, pointing out that even this conversion around race was being led by white men, rather than POC within the organization. It inspired a company wide conversation in which we all spoke out about the realities of our situations. It was the first time we had been encouraged to do so. Following this discussion and realization, leadership encouraged us to create a resource group, ensuring that we had their buy-in. It gave us the platform to create more resources for one another, and to speak up and highlight shared issues.
From then on, these occurrences were less frequent because the diversity arm that now existed consisted of both Black employees and allies. It was created by the Black employees, for the Black employees, but it wasn’t utilized just by us. Inclusion and belonging is for everyone but prior to this initiative, our group hadn’t felt that we belonged.
Annette succinctly emphasized a similar point:
Having a manager that understands managing diverse teams, specifically the struggle Black employees encounter when it comes to career progression, is key when it comes to career advancement for African Americans.
Despite knowing and caring for all of these people already, their stories still had the following affects on me:
- Shock that these experiences occur in today’s corporate America
- Awareness that I have [unintentionally] contributed to bias and/or oppression in the workplace
- Empathy for people of color and acceptance that as white colleagues, we’ll never truly understand many of their experiences (though we should continue to try)
- Encouragement to enact positive change
I hope that your experience has been similar.
