The Status of Women of Color in the Workplace

Written By: Yulkendy Valdez & Sonia BasSheva Manjon

Recently, Yulkendy Valdez reconnected with Sonia BasSheva Manjon, PhD at LeaderSpring Center, a 24 year-old organization out of Oakland dedicated to providing leadership development for Women of Color. We did a TEDx talk together, Why Women of Color are the Future of Tech, based on our research sponsored by Kapor Center, "The Need for Culture Change: A Roadmap to Advance & Promote Women of Color in Tech." What follows is an honest conversation, a year later after our TEDx was released, and we didn't hold back.

The topic: What do you think is the current status of women of color in the workplace? Have things started to change?

Sonia: I think that more things are being revealed. The data showed us what was happening in tech, which is not too far off from what’s happening in the workforce for women of color. What I see, read in articles, the experiences of women that I know, and the women we are working with in our cohorts under leadership development, is that things are really being exposed more at a greater pace in Corporate America, technology, and the social sector. I think what’s happening is that as women of color we are using our voices more, we’re not afraid of being terminated. One example is Timnit Gebru, (a well-respected AI ethics researcher) from Google AI. She held her ground in terms of her research and would not back down when asked to and was terminated from Google. Over 1000 people came out from Google in her defense. So, I think what’s happening, just like the me too movement, we are not going to be silenced anymore, when these things happen. So, I’m hoping as a result of this, technology companies and Corporate America begin to really take it seriously that they need to do some internal work in terms of their culture within these organizations.

Yulkendy: I like that you highlighted one of our pillars which is agency. It’s super essential now if you give the tools for a woman of color to display her agency, she will take it all the way, especially now in a time of innovation. But often we are not given that space and that platform. What I see still is a lot of talk on allyship. Being a champion and advocate for this work. But what’s not often highlighted is the basics of what type of relationships are really needed, which is still around mentoring and sponsorship, another pilar of our research. All this past year I was getting on calls with well-intended allies taking space saying how much they care about this issue – I live it! I don’t want to hear another 5-10 mins on Zoom thinking about how politically socially things are bad right now. We want to see action; we want to see folks actively mentoring the next generation. Naming them in rooms that they are not in and giving them the opportunity to thrive and succeed. That’s really the most effective tool against bias. We talked a lot about our third pillar – managing bias. Going beyond the training by creating more dialogue and actual space for folks to be heard and seen, which you talked about. For us it was really important to do this work and bring different generations forward. Do you still think that it’s important today in terms of making sure we are bringing both emerging leaders and senior leaders in this conversation?

Sonia: Absolutely! Last year right before the shelter in place locked us all up, we started an Emerging Leaders of Color cohort in East Contra Costa County, which is in California. We decided to continue, even though we couldn’t meet in person with the cohort. Over the year (2020), we experienced the level of self-empowerment through the mentorships and the real allyships that has happened between people in this cohort. One of our cohort members was terminated because of shelter in place and government pulling funding out of the social service sector, who decided not to fall victim to it and run for mayor of Antioch (a city in East Contra Costa County). We have another women in the cohort who decided she was going to start her own non-profit and provide mobile showers for the homeless, and has done that. So there’s something to be said about mentoring and coming together and really working together as women of color and leaders of color to realize our visions because they are a lot larger. I see women who are in the corporate sector, in technology, who are really marginalized because they are one of a very limited few. So there isn’t that network of folks who they can connect with on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, or on a monthly basis that keep them uplifted. I think while we are seeing a lot of bad behavior by tech companies and its being exposed, particularly when it involves women of color, we are also seeing these same women rising up and saying I’m not going to take this laying down, I’m going to advocate for myself and have my own agency about my future. That’s so empowering to see.

Yulkendy: It makes me think as you talk about the limitless dreams of women of color and how they can contribute expansively to all these sectors. But yet, we are still back to one Black woman in the C-suite who is leading a Fortune 500 Company (Walgreens). I’m talking about Roz Brewer who was previously at Starbucks. It seems like we are playing a game of dodge ball trying to keep the pieces and we’re not thinking long term about succession planning. It’s 2021, there should be more than one Black woman in the Fortune 500. We have a lot of work to do! Please continue to share our TEDx talk and support the great work LeaderSpring is doing and always check out what Forefront is up to. We want to hear from you about how you are feeling and how the status of women of color is changing.