ONE QUESTION
How Can I Be My Authentic Self in the Workplace?
On gender and race, and being who you really are
Q: I’ve been a token hire for most of my career. Sadly, the folks I’ve worked with haven’t seen the value-add that my onlyness brought — they were more focused on fitting me in, while I was more focused on not failing into the negative stereotypes associated with my race and gender. How do I show up and effect change without being retaliated against?
A: I feel you.
And so do a lot of other people. I think of the actress Gabrielle Union who was hired by America’s Got Talent only to be told her hairstyles were “too black.” I think of women technical leaders at Google as they read the now-famous Damore manifesto which used false data to assert women were genetically incapable of mastering tech.
These people, they add up. Demographically speaking, in America, women represent 52% of society, blacks, 12.7%. Which is not to say that all women or all black people feel like you do. But we can put our thumb up to match demographic data to those who get tokenized, to approximate how many people feel like you. And… it’s a lot.
And that’s the point. You’re not alone. Even though in that corporate room, it feels like you are isolated. It’s like in…
