Why Racial Equity (& Professional Development!) Matters in the Land of Zoom
By Mahogany Blank Director, oneTILT
The past few months, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into my professional development. I realized that until recently, I have not received formal support in my career trajectory. I’ve had your typical mentor-like conversations. I have been to a few conferences when the team budget allowed, only to take back minimal knowledge that I could operationalize. However, I can’t seem to recall a session, series of trainings, or a fellowship opportunity given to me just to support ME. How have I been groomed for leadership? How have I been taught to lead inclusively and consider all the identities of my colleagues around me? How much of these decisions around professional growth are rooted in the fact that I’m a black woman?
At the same time, I sit with the thought that 82% of my managers in my professional journey have been white men and women. We say that representation matters, and yet I hardly had that representation as a black woman. I saw my white peers attend more professional development than I did, even though I tried to advocate for myself. Over 3+ years I found myself passed over for promotion opportunities by those with privilege (white peers and peers who identified as men), even though our work product and education were similar.
So why am I sharing my personal journey with you all? Because as we shift the way we teach, the way we work, and the way we communicate with our colleagues, the issues that I mentioned above do not change. Currently, there are 5 Black CEO’s in the top Fortune 500 companies. None of those 5 CEOs are women. We live in what Dr. Tatum calls a smog — we’re consistently surrounded by implicit biases and microaggressions and components of white supremacy culture in the workplace- regardless of whether it’s on a Zoom call, an email chain, or behind the scenes in a Slack channel.
Now more than ever, especially given the tragic events that have affected innocent Black lives, my inbox is flooded with requests from people who are looking for help on their anti-racist journey. People are attending protests, visiting important physical representations of equity like Black Lives Matter Plaza (photo above), and buying from black businesses. But in addition to that — people want to bring the conversation to work. They don’t want to just bring diversity into the workplace, but to create systemic change.
Sound like something that would be valuable to you or a colleague? It’s time to put in the work.
oneTILT is launching Affinity-Based Peer Learning Communities this October. We know that learning looks different based on the skin you’re in. We’ve got space for white folks to learn in a space where they won’t feel judged and a space for BIPOC+ folks to heal and unlearn what systemic oppression has taught us. It’s time to build our people up to be leaders and create change in our organizations. As Dr. Tatum said “there is no such thing as passive anti-racism”. We have to be active about it. So email me, or keep reading this newsletter for more information of our upcoming opportunities to help you grow in your personal and professional journey.
