38: BLACK WOMEN ARE STILL ENDURING RACIAL TRAUMA AT WORK

It was one of those rainy Friday afternoons, and all I wanted to do was leave the office early and crawl into bed. To help the day pass, I sat in on a meeting held by one of our board members who wanted to collect feedback on her upcoming documentary.

15 minutes into the clip, I felt my heart sink to the floor between my feet. My breathing became shallow, belabored air scratching against my chest. I felt the tears heavy and hot behind my eyelids while I watched bodycam footage of a white cop shooting a Black man in the back. I waited until the lights came back on, stood up shakily and croaked out, “Do not show this footage to another Black person without warning.”

Before I could even finish my thought, the board member interrupted to ask whether the clip made the documentary more impactful. I had no words. I left the room and found the nearest bathroom. I sat in a small stall and cried, and cried and cried. The tension of working at a white-led nonprofit that publicly champions BIPOC women at its forefront yet fails to realize this equity within its own staff has left me heartbroken. I feel isolated and alone, yet I know that my experience is not uncommon.

According to a 2020 Survey by Essence, 45% of Black women say they experience racism most frequently in the workplace. Moreover, the onset of the pandemic and working from home has actually exacerbated rates of racial harassment for Black women. The past year has seen the spectacular demise of the #girlboss, and many prominent media heads and executives have been called out publicly. However, as the social media shame of #CancelCulture pushes problematic leaders to quit or step down, there remains a deep longing for material accountability and reparations for women who, like me, are grappling with the impacts of workplace trauma.

As organizations across the country begin reopening their offices, organizational leadership must redress the harms inflicted by workplace trauma.

Historically, Black women have been disproportionately mistreated by institutional bias and discrimination. It starts in schools, where Black girls are six times more likely to be suspended than their white counterparts. When Black women surpass educational and fiscal obstacles to access higher education, they are met with bewildering student debt and staggering rates of campus sexual assault. By the time Black women enter the workforce, they have already endured the compounding oppressions at the intersection of gender and race. So when a Black employee is voicing their concerns, it is important to recognize that this stems from a deep historical memory that is triggered by repeated micro- and macro-aggressions.

Reparations for Black women in the workplace start with listening to Black employees and believing them the first time. If your employee expresses that a colleague made a racist joke, racial slur, commented on their hair or shared triggered media, trust them. Doing so ensures you don’t cause further harm in how you address them. For Black women employees, feeling heard and understood is paramount to building trust within an organization and promoting an open environment. Retaining and valuing Black employees is an active process of equity that challenges tropes of white privilege and requires employers to put their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies into practice.

When Black women voice their grievances, there must be systems of accountability in place that support them rather than cause them further harm. It can be terrifying for Black women to report incidents of workplace discrimination and misconduct. Oppressive systems have taught us to fear retaliation against the status quo, especially when deviation from these norms in the workplace may impact financial security. When Black women decide to speak up about their experiences, they are often retraumatized, questioned and/or gaslighted. Addressing the impacts of workplace trauma requires accountability from all levels of organizational leadership, beginning with your direct manager.

A 2020 survey conducted by the Gallup Center on Black Voices demonstrates that managers have a 70% impact on the variance within team engagement dynamics. By ensuring mid-level managers are trained on anti-oppressive approaches to management, we place the onus on them to name the ways in which they participate in inflicting workplace trauma.

In addition to creating open and safe channels for communication, employers must introduce material and tangible policies to repair trust. This can look a lot of different ways depending on the needs of the Black women in your organizational context, but a great place to start is by embedding sustainable tracks for promotion, professional development and mutual institutional aid. By putting your money where your mouth is, employers create a sustainable pipeline for upward mobility that fiscally and materially supports Black employees.

While employers and brands approach workplace trauma by hiring facilitators, generating reports and making statements, many of these gestures continue to perpetuate performative allyship. Activist and writer Sonya Renee Taylor describes this phenomena as “privilege comforting,” an effort of white privileged allies to assuage the anxieties of imperial capitalism with empty gestures that they can receive praise for as a reassurance of domination. Instead, employers must take action and implement changes with real-life impact. Organizational change leaders, from Sandra Kim to Frederic Laloux, share alternative decentralized models of workplace hierarchies that use an anti-oppression framework to management. While there is no one formula or solution to workplace trauma and its entanglement with white violence, it is on us to continue taking steps toward repairing the damages inflicted by this oppression.

When redressing the trauma caused by organizational violence, it is necessary to listen to Black employees with empathy, translate equity into tangible practices and policies, and follow through with accountable responsibility to build trust. When organizational decision-making is aligned with employees of color, we can begin to co-create solutions for an equitable workplace.

As white-dominant companies attempt to right their decades of wrongs and create equitable workspaces, I encourage Black women to set firm boundaries. If those boundaries are broken, I want to remind them that it is not their fault. It took me years of experiencing workplace trauma to realize that I did not cause it and I have the power to stop participating in it. At the end of the day, a job shouldn't make you cry for existing as yourself.