White Man vs. Black Woman — A Story of Adam and Lisa
Workplace diversity has to be intentional —and that’s OK.
Let me tell you a story — a story about Adam and Lisa.
Adam was born in the early 1980s in Manhattan in a White family — his mom a lawyer and his dad a finance executive in a Fortune 500 firm.
Lisa was born in Cleveland, Ohio around the same time as Adam — her mom a cashier at a nearby Walmart, and her dad a door-to-door salesman. Both her parents were Black.
Adam went to the best of the schools — his parents ensured they lived in the best of the school districts growing up, while Lisa went to whatever school she ended up in as a result of the neighborhood her parents could afford a house in. Often, they were switching houses looking for lower rentals, and at times even living out of a caravan.
Lisa’s parents wanted her to have a better life than their own — so they tried their best — they sometimes succeeded, but the odds weren’t always stacked in their favor.
Adam’s family’s (no pun intended) household income was about 5x of what Lisa’s parents earned. Adam had no distractions growing up — his parents ensured he had the best-in-class everything. Lisa, however, went through phases where she saw her parents struggle — her dad had clinical depression from all the stress he went through in making ends meet, and briefly even had a phase of alcoholism as a result. But, he was a good guy, so he came out of it — but Lisa saw the struggle her parents went through.
When it was time for college admissions, Adam went to an Ivy League school while Lisa went to the nearby Community College. Adam focused on getting good grades, but focused on extra-curricular activities and building an “all-round” profile so he could land the best of jobs.
Lisa focused on her grades, and wanted to ensure she came out top of her class — she was always a bright and focused kid so that wasn’t too hard.
Adam majored in Finance, Lisa was fascinated by law — so she managed to get a JD from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law — that was the best she could aim for, given their resources, and the proximity to home. She wanted to stay close to her aging parents. Adam got an MBA from Wharton.
Eventually, both moved out. Adam landed at a top investment bank in New York, while Lisa managed to start as an Associate at a Chicago law firm.
Adam flew through his analyst years — it helped that his father was a bigshot in the finance world and knew people he worked with or worked for. Lisa scraped her way through the ranks — starting as the junior associate supporting a Partner at her relatively small law firm.
However, her tremendous hard work and dedication took her to a bigger law firm, where she joined as a Junior Partner, 12 years into her career. She’d made her career dealing largely with finance-related stuff — providing legal counsel in M&As and other Wall Street deals.
Eventually, at about 15 years into her career — as she was approaching 40 years of age, she got an offer to join at one of the investment banks that she’d worked for as a lawyer — they were offering her the position of Senior Vice President.
Adam was a Managing Director at that same firm. Lisa took the offer, moved to New York, and in a year, she was promoted to Managing Director as well.
We were suddenly in the year 2020. Lisa had bridged the gap and handled the cards she’d been dealt with in fine fashion — and made a place for herself.
Adam had been luckier but had also made the most of his resources, and ended at about the same place as Lisa.
Now, there was a promotion up for grabs. Adam and Lisa were both in the running for a Partner position at the firm. They were both talented — both probably “deserved” the position equally. However, the firm was also now focused on enhancing diversity in their Partner population. Lisa was a Black woman. She every bit deserved the promotion, probably Adam did too. However, there was one seat.
Lisa got promoted, Adam was left behind. Adam was unhappy. He didn’t take the fact that he lost the race too well — and started claiming how “diversity” had caused Lisa to win. This was far from the truth — Lisa deserved the promotion every bit as much as Adam did, if not more. However, the focus on diversity was the final straw.
Was it unfair? In the mind of Adam, yes. In an objective world, No.
Why, you ask?
Well, the “system” for the longest of time — decades, in this case, had worked against Lisa and favored Adam — none of them had complained. Lisa never complained, nor did Adam. Adam never went ahead and offered his dad’s influence or his white privilege to a Lisa. Lisa never wished she was white or a male or had the means that Adam’s family did.
This ended us in a world that was tremendously tilted — unnaturally so. In a workforce with roughly 50% women, we only have 10% or less at the top positions. In an America with ~15% Black population, we have less than 5% Black people at the top of the ladder.
This needed fixing. Fixing that is often deliberate and intentional. Fixing that was out to correct the wrong of decades or centuries — but we couldn’t wait that long to make the correction. So, the focus on diversity wasn’t a wrong that was happening against Adam — it was a “correction” that was just undoing all that had been done all these years.
A penalty kick in football (soccer) is unfair, is it? Nope. It is a near “free” goal that is awarded in lieu of a “penalty” or a foul committed by the other team. You still need to kick the ball into the goal to take advantage of it. You need to be in a position to be able to take advantage of it.
The diversity that tilted things in her favor for the promotion was Lisa’s penalty kick — she had done every bit of hard work to be in a position to convert that into a goal.
We can fix workplace diversity by fixing things at the entry level but also by rapidly fixing things at the top level. Because when the boardrooms and the decision-makers will have a fair distribution of the human population — in terms of gender, race, and all other factors, only then will we have long-term sustained equality — the kind we should have always had in the first place.