As we all know, life can be difficult. It can throw unpredictable curveballs that many of us can barely navigate. Add to this the hurdles that society constructs, which a person of color must climb over and we have what can seem insurmountable, at times.
As we finish Black History Month, we must continue to reflect on the oppression that people of color face on a day-to-day basis, especially in the workplace. While challenges in the workplace are something faced by all people of color, one of the most oppressed groups is Black women. According to a study conducted by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, more than 60% of Black women have expressed how they’ve been personally impacted by racial trauma within the workplace. Black women are continuously faced with systemic barriers constructed by society, which not only impact their relationships within the workplace but it also affect their work as a whole.
Fadima Konate, an investment banker at JP Morgan Chase & Co, shares her experience as a Black woman working in a predominantly White male field. She expresses how, “Black women often face barriers to securing a seat at the table in corporate settings.” She later goes on to explain how the “voices [of Black women] are not always acknowledged, valued or taken seriously” in corporate settings.
It has been proven time and again that racism and bias within an institution can cause both physical and emotional damage to an individual. Psychologist Kia-Rai Pritt of Cleveland Clinic states that institutional racism contributes to a sense of “powerlessness” that Black women commonly feel in the workplace, and that this “can cause substantial stress and anxiety and make employees feel both physically and emotionally unsafe.” Having unstable physical and mental health directly impacts the work of an individual, and it is important to understand why this happens. When we view this from the outside, all too often it is through a lens that lends itself to stereotypes that are traditionally made against Black women about their “dramatics” and “hostility.” Such stereotypes only reaffirm already held beliefs.
Not only are Black women constantly fighting with the diminishing of their physical and mental health, but they are also constantly fighting against the insensitive comments made about their appearance. For decades, natural Black hairstyles and texture had been labeled as “unprofessional”, causing Black women to resort to using chemical relaxers to “tame” their fizzy afros. Only recently has action been taken to protect Black women from this kind of bias in the workplace. In 2019, Congress passed the C.R.O.W.N act which prohibited race-based hair discrimination in the workplace. Even though this legislation has sparked a series of changes throughout a handful of states, including Maryland, microaggressions that focus on hair prejudice within the workplace are still ongoing.
Another issue that Black women combat is wage disparity. According to a 2024 report conducted by Inica Kotasthane and Miranda Peterson of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Black women were paid 66.5 cents for every dollar paid to White men. This is corroborated by a report by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) that states, “Black Women working full-time, year-round are paid 69 cents and all earners (including part-time and seasonal) are paid 66 cents for every dollar paid to non-Hispanic white men.” The fact is, this information is essentially stating that Black women work twice as hard as White men just to receive only two-thirds of the wages. This pay gap not only discredits all the hard work Black women do in the workplace, but it must also crush their spirits.
As the years progress, the voices of Black women that have been carelessly ignored in the back of a broom closet are gradually becoming louder and louder. The path to reaching equality is not nearly close to being attained, although the path to it is starting to get a bit clearer.
