You’re In Danger: Black Women + Girls in The Workplace

It’s something from both personal experience and observation that I have come to understand. Black women, we do not belong in corporate workplaces. I believe this is also spiritual to some degree—that this is true. It’s in every way much like throwing ourselves to the wolves by entering those places, only to turn around and then have our younger girls be “trained” to assimilate and enter said places without any protection. No. The buck stops with me. This has long been my journey—to help support creating safe workplaces for Black women and girls through my businesses. I want to change the standard for women and girls coming up, so that we too deserve to be heard and protected. Doing this means doing things differently, expanding both the approach and how we decide to essentially do business from the inside out.

I remember when I began putting the pieces together. I remember thinking about how Black girls are forced into assimilating into a system that literally doesn’t offer us any protections in return. Instead, our ideas are stolen, our creativity—again, stolen—only to be used and profited from by other non-Black coworkers, leaders, and businesses. I also have to consider the fact that most of us are being pushed out of the corporate system in droves, not to mention the many bad experiences we’ve all either personally had or know someone who has. I had to take a step back and realize, Wait, something is happening here. There’s a “reason,” and nothing, I believe, is merely by chance. Where Black women are suffering job losses, could it be that we need a new perspective on how and the way in which we work? Specifically, one being that we shouldn’t be working for that system? That, with every job loss, spiritually, we are being provided an opportunity to choose a new way, a different way?

I will say this: the most growth, the most healing I’ve ever experienced, has been in the past three years, when I was able to walk away from the corporate world for good. I even now see how it was part of my creative block, and the only way to escape that corporate monster was to walk away and trust. Now, does that mean this is for everyone? No. However, I will say that because of the lack of stability any job can provide, we should be working together to create and generate money together. What I mean is, I understand that every Black woman may not be an entrepreneur or even want to be, but could essentially contribute in support of one in some way—whether it’s working within a company or supporting in some other way. This is about building not just for ourselves but for the future of our Black girls.

Why continue to allow our Black girls—and even ourselves—to be exposed to the corporate world of abuse? Instead, why not offer women and girls another option, where Black women and girls can thrive through not only gatekeeping our own creativity but also our economic power?