• Host – Michele Heyward, Founder, PositiveHire
• Guest – Krystal Atha, Founder, CEO, Sembramos

In this particular discussion of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, we talked about managing underrepresented people specifically black employees.

We focused on what racism looks like with this Twitter thread which was shared all over Facebook and LinkedIn. The white man who wrote the thread shares his personal experience managing two black employees. He identifies who his manager wanted him to manage them differently from white employees.

This Twitter  thread highlighted the real awareness of this white man in a major power dynamics at play. Even though no overtly racist thing is said or done, the behaviors towards the black employees were different i.e. racists. While the actions were NOT illegal the white male manager knew they were NOT right.

The reason that the decision is so difficult is that we are under the umbrella of white supremacy, we either have to sacrifice and put ourselves at as a barrier to the harm and possibly take the brunt of it, or we don’t and allow the other person to take the brunt of it.

Allies must select the latter of these choices.

That is what happens under the umbrella of white supremacy and that’s why we need to root out racism, which is what allows the suppression to exist so we pull it out by the roots, and that’s tough.

The organization needs to step up and it needs to start at the top in the c-suite. Literally at every level people can take action but fear of retaliation. As they know truly what has to happen in organizations to make them anti-racist.

From: Women of Color in STEM Chat

For career-wise, what does it look like when you bring in women of color in the racist workplace?

It’s really important to understand the journey as depicted in this post. There are several exit points on the path women of color have while working in racist organizations. At each microaggression is exit point for women of color. The reality that women of color are deemed the problem and have created issues so their exits are self preservation. 

“Everybody’s focused on increasing their numbers of underrepresented employees, but they’re not focused on the fact that their culture is not set up or not created, to where blacks and women of color feel welcome or where they feel as though they belong.”

From: NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

White workers are typically born. They seek their jobs. They’re hired and they’re not monitored. Then they just left to climb the ladder. But when a black worker is born, then seeks a job it’s a different story.  Once black employees are hired, they are over monitored. Think about the Twitter thread we just talked about. They’re fired. Black employees gotta go back to job seeking and then earned that circle until you find some break in the system where maybe you get promoted.

This just shows a great representation of a lack of retention or career advancement for black employee.

It’s really important that whenever you see racism happening to interject yourself. It’s painful to sometimes put the mirror up, but look at the information. Do it intersectionally! Do not just look at gender alone. But look at race and at women i.e. black women who are queer and black women who are queer and mothers and having some other marginalized identity.