A November 2023 study conducted by a Harvard Kennedy School professor found that the increased exposure to white coworkers infringed on a Sista’s bag and advancement in the workplace — from biased performance reviews and offensive salaries to her refusal to work in a hostile environment.
In layman’s terms, Black women are catching hell at work with their white counterparts.
Elizabeth Linos, an Emma Bloomberg associate professor of public policy and management at HKS, partnered with Sanaz Mobasseri, an assistant professor of management and organizations at Boston University and Nina Rousille, an associate professor at MIT, to analyze 9,037 inexperienced new hires — Black, Asian, Hispanic and white men and women — in a large professional services firm over seven years (2014 to 2020).
One would think the incessant push for more diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in workplaces over the years would eventually improve Black people’s work lives. But Linos, Mobasseri and Rousille would discover the opposite stood for many Black women. The study showed an extensive difference in retention and promotion rates among white and Black women. According to the analysis, Black and white women have the largest turnover gap of 8.9 percentage points (51%), and it has much to do with the workplace’s racial composition.
Linos, Mobasseri and Rousille’s study found that increased exposure to white coworkers led to more Black women permanently clocking out (and vice versa).
Numerous factors play into this, from feelings of isolation and in-office racism to a hostile workplace environment that isn’t built on seeing the advancement of a Black woman. Participants in the study provided Linos and her collaborators with ways their interactions with white employees negatively influenced their work lives, from their performance evaluations to lack of opportunities.
The study noted how Black women who were assigned to majority-white teams were more likely to be labeled as low performers and have fewer billable hours, adversely affecting their income and obstructing any leeway for promotions. They also reportedly spend more hours training, preventing them from ascending the corporate ladder.
The compiled data revealed that many companies focus more on recruiting diverse people to appear to meet the DEI demand but aren’t concerned about retaining them.
So, no matter how hard a Black woman works to prove herself in her workspace, there will always be another factor that dampens her ability to advance in her career.
In October 2022, Nicole Moore, a former director of multicultural brand engagement for Planned Parenthood, sued the company with allegations of mistreatment and racism against Black employees.
Moore addressed how the company “publicly boasted” its dedication to racial equality yet “ignored reports by dozens of its Black employees of systemic unequal hiring ad promotion, more work for lower pay, overt hostility, and trafficking in stereotypes by leadership.”
Moore reported the organization’s racism numerous times, but instead of addressing her concerns, the organization placed her on a performance improvement plan before terminating her in November 2021.
The study also highlights how Black women experience harassment and are minimized in workplaces, leading to increased turnover and decreased promotions.
A prominent form of harassment in workplaces is racial microaggressions. White employers don’t need to scream out a racial slur for someone to know that they’re prejudiced toward a marginalized group.
Moore recalled in her lawsuit how Planned Parenthood’s former supervisor, Rachel Moreno, chastised her after soliciting ideas on how the organization could engage with people of color. Moreno, who most likely felt threatened by Moore’s intelligence, unleashed her microaggressions on the former employee.
“In front of other employees, Moreno “loudly reprimanded Moore for taking such an ‘active role,’ instructing her instead to ‘listen more’ and ‘remain quiet and observe,'” the lawsuit read.
Sometimes, racial microgressions aren’t as apparent as Moore’s experience. The Don Lemon and CNN controversy exemplifies how subtle they can be in the workplace.
The invalidation of one’s presence is a form of microaggression, mainly when a person interrupts another person mid-speech, ostensibly indicating the interrupted person’s words and thoughts are irrelevant.
Veteran reporter Don Lemon “left” the channel two months after he received backlash for reportedly “screaming” at his former co-host Kaitlan Collins for interrupting him on-air. A few aired segments showed the CNN anchor interrupting Lemon yet allowing co-host Poppy Harlow to continue her thought.
For example, Harlow and Collins continuously interrupted Lemon while debating and comparing US women’s soccer team players’ income to the men’s. But, the two white women allowed each other to complete their thoughts. Once Collins’ cried and threatened to depart from the network, Lemon’s nearly two decades with CNN became irrelevant, leading to his termination.
That’s another thing that works against Black women in the workplace — the infamous white women’s tears. Regardless of how hard Black women work, white women’s tears can obliterate their in-office reputation and career.
Author Luvvie Ajayi and Shay Stewart Bouley, Executive director of the non-profit Community Change, Inc., have publicly stated that white women weaponize their tears, cognizant of the destruction they cause to women of color. Pity from others fuels them.
A Black woman took to Reddit to vent about how she approached her boss to complain about her white coworker being engrossed in texting her boyfriend and neglecting her duties, adding she had to pick up her slack.
“He calls her in, and she starts CRYING and shaking as if she’s terrified and explains how she has been ‘very depressed lately and was trying to find comfort with her new bf…. blah blah blah I didn’t mean it,'” the anonymous Reddit user wrote.”
According to the Reddit user, the boss’s demeanor shifted, and he started acting “demeaning” toward her.
He told her she “should have more compassion for (her coworker) because she’s been going through a lot. Nothing happened to her. No repercussions, and now the boss thinks I’m just another evil Black woman.”
