Black Women don’t fit, we Add
A couple years back I opened the results of a recent training participant survey to find: “While it is clear that she has a command of the content, I find Danielle’s delivery to be pithy at times.” Pithy…pithy…what does that mean? I opened up a new browser because I’d never heard that word used in that way before.
The subject matter of the training was exploring the history of Structural Racism in the US - at the height of the summer of 2020 protests for George Floyd. You’re damn right I’m pithy.
In reading and re-reading the remark I was reminded of a similar experience earlier in my career when I was a relatively new and somewhat junior staff person delivering a similar racial equity training in the San Francisco Planning Department. I’d been the lead on developing the content as well as tasked with preparing our training team to deliver it for the first time to a room of 12 senior leaders. After the three, half-day, training sessions we’d opted for hand-written anonymous feedback forms to capture what went well and what could be improved. The form didn’t ask for specific feedback on individuals, but instead on overall content and experience. As I thumbed through the feedback forms I came upon one that didn’t contain much feedback other than “While knowledgeable, I find Danielle’s delivery to be condescending at times.” I checked with my colleagues to assess the accuracy of the feedback, from their perspectives - was there something for me to learn in this? They all confirmed that they witnessed no such thing and offered to filter future feedback forms for microaggressions or other individuated feedback.
I learned two things from these experiences:
Speaking with confidence, clarity, and intensity about an issue I am not only deeply knowledgeable about through my graduate studies and professional experience but also my lived experience as a Black woman was not welcomed by everyone.
No more anonymous feedback forms. If you have something to share, stand on it.
Confidence sounds like condescension when you don’t respect the messenger. Whenever I’m supporting folks who do community engagement I emphasize the fact that “messengers matter” and to folks with unexplored biases - I am the wrong messenger. Someone softer, more willing to soften the blow instead of speaking truth to power would be easier to receive. That despite all my education and my in the field experience - my expertise is inherently received differently than a CPA discussing the appropriate tax strategy. Again, confidence sounds like condescension when you don’t respect the messenger.
When I left the Planning Department after nearly two years of advancing racial equity work the Planning Director said to me, in a room of my superiors: “You pushed us and challenged us in a very specific way, and had you not led in the way that you did, we would not be where we are today with this work. I thank you for being brave and courageous and for your contributions to this department.” Brave. Courageous. Now those were words I could hang my hat on. Another leader called me in agitator but in the most positive way possible. Agitator - I really shook stuff up.
There have been many, many times in my career that I have simply held up the mirror to dysfunction, bias, missed opportunities, pain-points, and growing edges (because that was my job) only to be met with resistance, scapegoating, exclusion, redirection, and out and out hostility. Many of my experiences have left me feeling like I don’t “fit” into anyone’s organization. It is why I have become an entrepreneur twice over, now, all before the age of 40.
As I sink into these experiences I am reminded that I actually have no desire to fit into anything (like a true Aquarius) - but my life’s work is, absolutely, to add. To add criticality, higher standards, intellectual honesty, loving accountability, compassion, knowledge of a better way, inspiration of possibility, a safe space for others to let their guards down.
For many Black women, we are in a constant struggle to contort ourselves into boxes that are simply too restrictive for the expansiveness we possess. We are asked to fit. Fit the definition of what leadership “looks like,” fit into the organizational culture you are being asked to change, fit into a way of being in the world that necessitates us playing small, being palatable, easy to digest.
If organizations really want to transform - they must stop viewing Black women as something that needs to fit but instead recognizing that when Black women join your team - they add. Black Women Add. We are a resource, an asset, we challenge you to know better and therefore do better.
But, like many resources in our capitalist society, we are instead viewed as expendable, exploitable, and exchangeable. So, while Black Women Add - we must adopt a decolonized view of Black women - we must be protected, honored, appreciated, seen for our inherent dignity and worth.
This reality is currently fleeting for many Black women working inside of organizations large and small, mission driven, and not. So while we are working with these organizations to be better and do better - let’s create a space for us to connect, fellowship, and cultivate restoration. Black Women Add is a weekly drop-in space for Black women from all walks of life, stages of their career, places in their lives, to spend an hour in a compassionate and pragmatic space with one another. I’ll be there to create and curate the container - you just bring yourself.
