A few days ago I facilitated a panel discussion on how toxic workspaces impact Black women. During the discussion the following question was presented, “what has microaggressions, racism, and sexism cost Black women?” It wasn’t a planned question, so up until that point, I had never stopped to think about the price I have paid for being a Black woman in the workplace.
If I had to place a dollar amount on the numerous times I had been passed over for a leadership position after working in the field of social work for 23 years at various agencies, and watching a less qualified white woman be handed those positions, what would that be? As the question twirled around in my head I thought about the many financial limitations I had been faced with during my career, how I was forced to struggle and my kids had to go without. I remember how my ex-husband would often say, “I don’t understand how you are making the salary of someone with a Bachelor’s degree straight out of school, but you hold a master’s degree from a prestigious institution like Tulane with years of experience. Make this ish make sense, Carey!” And I couldn’t…until now.
As a former social worker, I can now admit that we were conditioned while in school to not expect a huge salary for the work that we would be required to do. I often heard from my white professors and then white colleagues, “We don’t do it for the money, we do this work to serve others,” when you talked about the low salaries. But what many minority social workers don’t understand is that the brainwashing is more for us than it was for our white counterparts who got the supervisory positions and became executive directors, along with the big paychecks. At least that’s how it was 23 years ago. I also didn’t learn about the pay gap that exists between Black women and white men and women in the workspace until I left the field of social work. The reason I was working so hard and still barely surviving was because it was literally taking me an extra 16 months to make what my white male counterpart made in a year!
The cost I paid included not being able to afford my student loan payments that went from borrowing $20K to get through graduate school to $60K when you add all of the interest that Sallie Mae charged me. This funnel effect then impacted where I would live and raise my kids, because now my debt to income ratio was too high. My credit report reflected that I was knee deep in debt and wasn’t bringing in enough money to cover living in a nice home in a decent neighborhood. For a long time we could only afford to live in a family rental house that was located in the ghetto, the same neighborhood where I serviced many of my clients. When Black women are underpaid it’s a subtle form of redlining, a way to keep minorities living in certain areas because of their “income.” The cost I paid included my kids not being able to get a quality education at some points in their lives because of where we lived. The cost meant sometimes being on welfare and receiving food stamps, shopping at thrift stores not because it’s trendy but a necessity, and robbing Peter to pay the utility company so your kids aren’t sitting in the dark. Yes, your family begins to pay the cost of you being a Black woman in Corporate America too.
During my 23 years in the field of social work, the most I ever made on a full time job was $50K a year. At some point my husband and I got a divorce and I was a single parent trying to provide for a family of three on this salary. I was constantly passed over for supervisory positions where the pay increase would have allowed me to breathe and finally stop struggling financially. It wasn’t until I left the field of social work in 2016 and began to work for myself that I surpassed the $50K mark. It wasn’t until I stopped “doing it to serve others,” reprogrammed my mindset, understood that a pay gap existed, and removed myself from the constant micro aggressions and daily racism that I began to thrive.
Now don’t get me wrong, the micro aggressions and racism are still there as a business owner. I have received emails from possible clients that contained micro aggressions and when pointed out, they said I was being too sensitive. I’ve been ignored when requesting meetings to discuss my services, but later noticed on LinkedIn a white, Asian or Hispanic woman who could pass for white bragging about doing a diversity training for these same organizations. I had to learn that white men tend to gravitate to people they are familiar with when hiring, even for contract services. This form of unconscious bias is called Affinity Bias – when people connect with others who have similar interest and backgrounds. In the end, I had to realize that I am always in control and that I can always walk away knowing that a great opportunity is right around the corner.
When we continue to talk about the cost Black women in Corporate America pay when dealing with microaggressions, racism, sexism, ageism, etc…it also takes a toll on you emotionally and physically. During my last job in the field of social work, I had to see a therapist once a week just so I could function on my job. I developed PTSD, and was on medications for anxiety and depression. Yes, it was that bad! Physically, my hair would fall out when I became stressed from the heavy caseloads and one time I had an ulcer the size of a golf ball blocking my large intestine! I eventually developed high blood pressure and diabetes. And let’s not talk about my need to eat whenever I became upset over the handling of a case or agitated with having to deal with another biases in the workplace. Fortunately I had a high metabolism so my poor eating habits didn’t reflect on my waistline, but whenever I became emotional, food served as a comforter for me, with candy and chips being stashed strategically around my office.
So what was my breaking point? What or who pushed me to the edge and I leaped? Karen, a white fellow social worker I thought I had never met nor talked too, decided to report me to the licensing board regarding allegations my past client was sharing with her about me during their sessions (I am still trying to figure out why I was the topic of this clients sessions with her new therapist for 3 years). As time went on, I remembered I had met this therapist during a job interview for a director position at a university. She was rude and I was literally dodging all of the micro aggressions she kept throwing my way. I remembered how she kept calling me by my first name stating that I didn’t deserve to be called a doctor. I remember her feeling threatened and insecure. She thought I was there to take her interim position, but I was actually interviewing for another position and had made it clear I didn’t want to work in her area (way before meeting her). Her resentment against me was woven throughout her complaint to the board. She stated that I was a horrible person who never needed to practice again and that her client was fearful I would retaliate against her for filing a complaint, so something needed to be done to stop me and protect her. Oh, did I mention that the client in question was a Karen too?
It was because of this incident and not being allowed due process that I walked away completely from the field of social work. I had paid the price – emotionally, physically and financially. I was tired. I knew I was good at what I did, but I didn’t have any more fight left in me on that level. So in January 2017 after taking a few months to regroup and begin the healing process, I brushed off the dust and reinvented myself. I ditched the brainwashed mindset and reassessed all of my skills and how they could be used in a new career. Moving forward, every move I made was still to help others, but it was now about the money too. Has it been easy? No.
At first I thought I needed to find another “good job,” but after applying for over 200 openings and only receiving 6 interviews – one where I literally had an anxiety attack because Karen from HR thought it was okay to go off because I couldn’t answer a question – I only received 2 job offers after all of that effort. One position paid $20 hr to work 20 hours a week and the other was for a department chair at a university in another state that paid $50K a year, but I would have to figure out the moving expenses. It was then that I learned all about ageism and how it starts in our 40’s and instead of looking at us as an asset because of our years of experience, companies tend to hire our younger, less experienced, white counterparts instead.
In the end, I decided to focus on building my own company which offers trainings on how to create healthy workspaces for employees and helps companies to understand the benefits of diversity. I also created a platform that allows other Black women to share their workplace stories through my two anthologies; Shut’em Down: Black Women, Racism, and Corporate America and Everyday Struggle: How Toxic Workspaces Impact Black Women. After 28 years I’ve finally figured out how to stop paying the cost and instead reap the benefits of being a Black woman working in America.
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Dr. Carey Yazeed is a behavioral scientist who specializes in work culture and work trauma. She is the author of Shut’em Down: Black Women, Racism, and Corporate America, Everyday Struggle: How Toxic Workplaces Impact Black Women (both were bestsellers on Amazon in the category of business conflict), and Unbreak My Soul: How Black Women Can Begin To Heal From Workplace Trauma. Dr. Yazeed is currently available for media interviews and to facilitate corporate trainings. Click here to learn more.
