Two Important Tips To Navigate The White Corporate World As A Black Woman

You need to be on your guard at every moment, most people do not want you to be successful.

In 1994, I was hired to manage marketing for a publishing company. I was the only black person on a team of about 30 employees. I was also fresh out of university, a little bit naive about the corporate world I would say.

I thought that I was being paid the exact same salary like all the other junior managers working there. I was also convinced that being black wasn’t a problem for my older white colleagues, I was horribly wrong on both fronts.

New Ideas

I came into the company with a lot of new ideas, one being to digitalize a lot of their editorial content. They thrived in the print world and were reluctant about a move into digital. I could already feel the winds of change — may be fuelled by all the energy, optimism, and potential of a young graduate.

I also knew that I would encounter resistance because I was advocating for and bringing about change. But what I didn’t realize at the time, was that I myself — a young black, educated woman, was already too much change for the homogenous all-white team that had been in place for more than 30 years.

Giving everything for the job

The managing director who had hired me was clear from the start — I had been hired at a managerial level and I did not have to clock in at the start and end of each workday. I was pretty happy to have landed a higher-level role right out of school but realized soon enough that this managerial role meant that I didn’t get any overtime pay like some of the staff that had been there longer.

I didn’t mind though, I planned to work for as long as needed to be successful in the role. I wasn’t married yet and had no children, I could invest all my time in my job.

Are you trying to cheat the company?

The manager hadn’t communicated to the rest of the team that I had been hired on a managerial contract. One morning when I had been in the job for about 2 months, the receptionist came to my desk:

“I’ve been watching you. Why don’t you ever clock in and out? Are you trying to cheat the company”, she said accusingly.

I looked at her in surprise.

“But I am on a managerial contract, I was told I don’t need to clock in and out”, I responded calmly.

“You can’t be a manager dear, please clock in and out or I’ll report you to HR”.

She turned around and left.

I sat there at my desk feeling a mix of stress and anxiety. Why did she think I was trying to cheat the company? Why was she so aggressive to me?

Trying to set the record straight

I went to see the managing director that afternoon to express my concerns. He confirmed I didn’t need to clock in and out and called the receptionist into the room to discuss what had happened earlier.

She walked gingerly into the room and sat at the chair opposite me. The manager asked her to explain what had happened.

To my total surprise, she broke down and started crying.

“Rebecca yelled at me when I asked her to clock in”, she said in between a flood of crocodile tears.

I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing.

“I didn’t yell at you”, I said calmly.

“Oh yes you did, and you’ve done even worse. You act as though you are some big shot manager around here when you’re not. Who do you think you are, you are fresh out of school and you think you can come here and make all these big changes. You should be reporting to me”.

She was crying profusely now, I could see the managing director falling for the act. He went over to her side of the table to console her. Minutes later he helped her up and walked her out of the office.

I sat there in total astonishment.

You are a bully

When he returned, he was no longer the friendly collaborative boss I had spoken to prior. He had changed.

“You can’t make people cry in the office,”, he said.

“But I did nothing wrong.”

“You saw her cry, didn’t you? You made her feel that way, she must have felt bullied to react like that. I don’t want to hear anything more from you.”

I was shocked, I couldn’t believe I wasn’t even given a chance to defend myself.

I could tell that it was no use arguing any further. The receptionist had shown white fragility and he had defended her against the angry black woman. I was being wrapped into the stereotype despite not being like that at all.

I learned my first rule that day: Never make a white woman cry in the office. Your white boss will always side with her.

Lower pay

A white junior manager joined the team a few weeks later, and we got along well from day one. One day over lunch she said that she was going to ask for a salary raise. I was surprised because she had only been in the company for 3 months.

“Yes, I think I deserve a raise, I’ve finished my trial period. I mean I can’t survive on my current salary.

She spat out the figure as though in disgust and my heart sank. She was making USD 1000 more than me. I had one more college degree and more work experience than she did.

I slept on the matter for a few days but couldn’t help but feel how unfair it all was. I again went to meet with my managing director. My objective was to ask what I needed to develop to reach the same level of salary like the other white project manager.

He was however offended and asked how I had found out about my colleague’s salary. When I told him she had shared it with me, he threatened to fire me on the grounds that it was illegal to share salary data.

I learned my second lesson that day — never find yourself in conflict with a white man in the workplace, that could spell the end of your career as a black woman.

I will never forget the painful lessons learned

I needed the job so I decided to accept my lower salary and continue to work. I felt increasingly demotivated though. I was putting in long hours for much lower pay and for no other reason than the fact that I was a black woman.

As I tried to digitalize the company’s work, I faced a tsunami of opposition from the lifers. They went out of their way to make sure I wasn’t successful. I was on my own with no support whatsoever, alienated because I was different.

In the end, I executed on one of the key projects I was hired to manage and started looking for my next professional challenge. But the painful lessons I learned in that first job are ones that I will never forget.

Thanks a lot for reading my perspective.