The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table

by Minda Harts

But networking and advocating for yourself look very different at work for women of color, especially if you are the only person of color in the office.

Women of color make up almost 14 percent of the population, and companies can’t seem to find one or two women to recruit, retain, or advance?

Being a woman of color in predominantly white spaces is not an easy feat. I often had to replay the old skool song by Mya and hum, “I can’t / let you / get the best of me!” because each day was a struggle.

Women of color are not encouraged to speak out on situations that involve race, and when we do, HR isn’t always the most welcoming.

mean, where do the broken hearts of women of color go when we can’t take it any longer?

There is a responsibility that each of us has once we enter the room and sit in our seat, and that’s to fill the table with other women of color.

The right social capital is better than any glass of sweet tea on a hot summer’s day.

The internal networking game has to be played if you want to get ahead.

Office politics are systematically ruthless. Office politics enable 45 to hire all his family members for positions they are not qualified for.

Privilege is a helluva drug!

ahead. Women of color have a lot of burdens to bear just rolling out of bed; our names and hair shouldn’t be among them!

When folks don’t stand up against racism, then I consider them accomplices. You can’t support me and remain silent!

For years, my feelings would go ignored because their response was always, “I don’t see color.” And if you want to know the cheat code for unlearning racism 101, you’d take that entire sentence out of your lexicon.

There used to be this rumor that we were living in a post-racial America, which meant racism no longer existed.

For women of color there is an imaginary line, and if we cross it and label someone racist or prejudiced at work, we might as well kiss our careers good-bye.

Just because you didn’t actively participate in slavery doesn’t mean you haven’t perpetuated the same generational stereotypes, ideas, and behaviors.

As a teenager, I learned the hard lesson that no person of color is exempt from racism, and as an adult, I relearned the same lesson.

The warning signs were subtle at first. You know the signs: being dismissive, cc’ing people on emails that have no business being cc’d, and going to my manager instead of coming to me.

We still try and push through the microaggressions; we do this because we are often working as “the only,” and when you are in isolation, you don’t have anyone to validate your feelings.

Deciding to stay or go is something that many of us battle each day.

can be uncomfortable to talk about money, but it’s even more uncomfortable when you have to dodge the bill collectors because you don’t have enough income to pay your bills.

I was in my twenties, and no one had sat me down to discuss the wage gap; hell, I didn’t even know there was one.

And women of color who “make it” feel this pressure (sometimes self-imposed and other times imposed by our families) to help take care of everyone else.

Women of color often carry the weight of taking care of other people, usually at the expense of our healing, goals, and development.

As women of color, we often feel like we have to hide our ambition. Stop that! We are high achievers and want more out of our careers, and that is okay—don’t hide it!

Never dim your light in order to make someone else feel comfortable.

To thrive in the workplace as a woman of color, you need an Empire State of Mind, even when the environment will have you feeling like adopting an Enemy State of Mind.

Adopting an “I can make it anywhere” mindset will keep you standing strong on the days you feel like running out the door in tears.

For so long we have learned to function in a dysfunctional work environment, and it will take an intentional shift in our thinking to replace self-doubt, insecurities, self-criticism, and other negative thoughts.

Toni Morrison said it best, “If you want to fly, you have to give up the sh––that weighs you down.”

Representation isn’t some charitable act; it’s an intentional action that has the power to shape our mindsets and even the thinking of generations.

In fact, women of color endure a lot in the workplace: we do not have the privilege of representation, and we have to continually battle doubt about whether we belong, because we don’t see many of us in leadership positions.

There are future generations of women of color counting on us to finish this race and make it better when they arrive! Please don’t bite the apple and leave the garden before your time. Develop mental toughness to stay on your path.

As women of color we have this extra glass ceiling, an extra layer of pressure to be perfect, that non–women of color will never have to crack, and I like to call this “invisible perfection pressure.”

Women of color are constantly expected to survive in a dual workplace mode: performing our job function to perfection while trying to demonstrate to white people our valuable contributions that would allow for more meaningful roles.

Experiencing this invisible perfection pressure day in and day out will make anyone question themselves.

Resist, resist, resist the urge to give up on your career goals because of this invisible pressure.

There are many workplace factors that contribute to women of color questioning our worth, ability, and sense of belonging in environments that continually inflict us with moral injury and invisible perfection pressure.