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

by Minda Harts

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.

And we sure as hell ain’t taking any more advice from a white woman who claims to empower women when women of color make up less than 5 percent of the workforce at her company and then publicly states how she is struggling to find black and brown women to put in leadership positions and hopes to do better next time.

There is power and beauty in seeing what you can become!

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. Success is not a solo sport.

white women revere Susan B. Anthony. She did a lot of good for white women. I will not try and erase her contribution to women’s history. But Susan B. Anthony was racist as hell! She was quoted as saying, “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.”

She also said, “The old anti-slavery school says women must stand back and wait until the negroes shall be recognized. But we say, if you will not give the whole loaf of suffrage to the entire people, give it to the most intelligent first. If intelligence, justice, and morality are to have precedence in the government, let the question of the woman be brought up first and that of the negro last.”