I hope you saw the interviews featuring these two beautiful African-American sisters this weekend. Both of these amazing women illuminate class, intelligence and sophistication that place them in the same realm of honor as Lena, Diahann, Cicely, Rosa, Michelle, Shirley, Barbara, and countless others. However, their message is clear and something that I stand with them in my daily battles in corporate America as the only woman of color (and the only person of color) where I work in the technical space.
It is mind boggling to me that in 2021, the color landscape of corporate America looks the same as when I started in the mid-90’s. Like Regina so eloquently stated, we have to keep pressing forward with the Black Life Matters movement lest they forget and we are back at square one.
I wonder how a white man would feel going to work everyday with thousands of black people and be the only one that looked like him. Needless to say, most would not survive one year, much less over two decades. (Remember that Regina King was a child actress and a very successful one. She weathered that storm beautifully and unlike most, did not succumb to the evils of child stardom but prospered in it, graduating from USC, building her own successful production company, and oh yeah, winning an Oscar along the way.)
I stay the course in hopes that the corporate landscape will not be this way for the next generation. My hope is that my daughters and granddaughters will see many other women who look like them and that those women will join them in being their peers and managers and directors and vice presidents and presidents. Wow, what a great day that will be!
Bridget