Recently I found myself reading an intriguing email written by Emma Hinchliffe for Fortune Magazine. It was a recap of a Wall Street Journal article regarding Sheryl Sandberg, and how the Lean In billionaire and publicly-touted thought leader for women equality and inclusion in the workplace, used her executive position and power to suppress the speech of another woman in a workspace harassment case. The hypocrisy of this entire situation once again had me rethinking the self-help industry and questioning why we as Black women continue to listen to privileged white thought leaders who have never fought the same battles as us and whose intentions are always framed from a WASP perspective vs one that can positively impact marginalized and indigenous women of color.
Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer at Meta (formally known as Facebook), has built an empire around gender bias and equality and inclusion in the workplace. Yes, she’s the only adult in the room, but she is also telling us, “Do as I say and not as I do,” meaning we need to lean in and fight for equal rights in the workplace as long as it doesn’t involve her man, his company and their money. Sounds about as WASP and entitled as a privileged white woman can get. But where does this behavior stem from and why do we, as Black women, continue to fall for these false, self-help gurus?
The propaganda that white media and society in general pushes in front of Black and marginalized women is filled with a bunch of hypocrites pretending to understand the plight of all women, when they really don’t. Tell me how a woman worth $1.7 billion dollars and earns over $25 million a year can relate to a 5 figure or 6 figure salary employee in Corporate America? They function under the guise of ‘women empowerment’ and lure us in with persuasive messages that leap from the pages of polished websites. But how does a woman who has had the world handed to her on a silver platter, understand the struggles of an oppressed Black woman who has had to fight for everything that she has? How can someone from a world where women have it all because they willingly submit to silence and white male dominance, begin to educate a group of women who came out of the womb using their voices to fight for not only themselves, but their families and communities, and continue that fight all of their lives?
Unfortunately there is this implied fantasy that Black women don’t know ourselves or how to use our voices. This propaganda is rooted in the fallacy that we all grew up in broken homes, with uneducated parents who didn’t encourage us to see ourselves in a positive image, or what it means to be Black and how to leverage our voices in a world that constantly tells us we are wrong and white is right, (Tatum, 2003). We are then brainwashed, believing we don’t have a voice and based on this dangerous assumption, these well put together white thought leaders are planted within our circles and communities. And like the million billboards for liquor brands that line the streets in Black neighborhoods, we are continuously bombarded with messages that try to convince us that we, like white women, need to discover how to remove ourselves from a world of submission and silence, and learn how to speak (hooks, 2003).
But I always like to look at what isn’t being said or in this case, taught. As my thoughts continue to roll around in my head, I pause and reflect back on all of the Black and Brown women who have legitimately advocated for the rights of marginalized people and think to myself, “How in the hell did someone like Sheryl Sandberg become the expert for women in the workplace?” Sadly, it is because society- both Black and white – choose to celebrate and support the illusion of a pure white woman, while denouncing anything with melanated skin. Think about it. When you walk into a public library or scan the self-help section at Barnes & Noble, the faces staring back at you from the eye-catching book covers are women with pale skin who have never had to speak up, because by simply showing up, their white skin spoke up for them.
This isn’t just about false prophets like Sandberg. No, it’s deeper than that. This self-help B.S. we are inhaling is rooted in fear- the fear that white men have of all Blacks; that we will one day become the dominate race in this country. Times have changed, and that means the tools of oppression are changing too. I say that, to say this…never forget who aided white men by providing false allegations and performative tears that got many a Black men killed – “silent white women who are the mothers and grandmothers of the very women who are now trying to empower us.”
Let’s keep it real, Black women are not fighting to be seen or trying to emerge from a systemic suppression of silence. Yes, we are trying to lift ourselves up from an oppressive state that has held us back since the Mayflower’s disembarkment on Plymouth Rock, but that is not the same as the suppression of silence while women are trying to overcome as they remove themselves from under the thumb print of dominate male lovers and spouses. Instead, what needs to take place is we as Black women must continue to work diligently to change the direction and inflection of our speech. We need to work overtime in learning how to use our voices in more compelling ways where no one can resist us being heard, (hooks, 2003). What we don’t need is another wealthy white woman telling us how to dare greatly or lean in, because those skills have been handed down to us, since before 1619.
Because we are fighting for two different types of equality and inclusion, it makes perfect sense when the ideology and teachings of a privileged white woman don’t align with Black women and we find ourselves struggling to make what they are teaching, work within our daily lives. It also becomes hard to comprehend when the very women who are telling us to lean in and speak up in the workplace, have taken on the characteristics of the same WASP men who suppressed them, using their newly gained privilege of speech behind closed doors as a mechanism to silence the voices of other women.
Was I shocked to read how Sandberg used her privilege, power and voice to silence another woman in the workplace? The answer is no. At the end of the work day, when we remove the veil of the Meta, self-help billionaire, we’ll discover what we’ve always known; white women like Sandberg are still weaponizing their womanhood to support white male dominance and American capitalism by any means necessary.
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Dr. Carey Yazeed is a behavioral scientist who specializes in psychological safety in the workplace. In addition to being a sought after speaker, she is also 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.