report noted the double bind faced by black
people: “As we have slowly made progress
opening the college gates over the past four
decades, black students are far more likely
to borrow than white students and borrow
in higher amounts.... Students of color are
contending with an increasingly expensive
higher education system against the
backdrop of centuries in which black and
brown people have been intentionally shut
out of the ability to build wealth and pass it
along to future generations. In other words,
many students are not just borrowing
against their future, but borrowing because
of the past.”
Those loans can feel like shackles.
According to the Duke and Insight
researchers, the median wealth of a single
black woman in her 20s with a bachelor’s
degree is −$11,000 (meaning that her debts
are $11,000 more than her assets and
savings). For married black women in their
30s with a bachelor’s, it’s −$20,500. In
contrast, a married white woman in her 30s
with the same degree has a median wealth
of $97,000. Even more shocking: Single
white women without a college degree have
$3,000 more in median wealth than single
black women with a bachelor’s degree.
Then there’s the crushing fact that
black women are, as a rule, underpaid:
We typically earn only 68 cents for every
dollar paid to a white man (while white
women earn 79 cents). And according to
the 2018 Women in the Workplace survey
conducted by McKinsey & Company, for
every 100 men promoted to manager, only
60 black women are promoted. Black
women account for less than 1 percent of
partners at law firms, according to the
National Association for Law Placement. On
top of this, many black female employees
are forced into the de facto role of “diversity
ambassador,” which involves extra work
to make our offices less hostile for other
black employees—often for zero additional
compensation, overtime, or bonus.
“Black workers are having to navigate
environments where companies say they
want more diversity but aren’t putting
resources or support into achieving that,”
explains Adia Wingfield, PhD, a professor
of sociology at Washington University in
St. Louis. Wingfield’s forthcoming book,
Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the
New Economy, explores how the healthcare
industry, in particular, relies heavily on
black employees to do the extra labor
required to make their organizations and
services more accessible to communities of
color. “Organizations are engaging in what
I call racial outsourcing,” she says. “They
leave the actual work of creating diversity
to the black professionals and rely on
those employees to make workplaces more
welcoming and supportive for people of
color.” Black women are often caught in a
catch-22 because “they want to be
supportive of colleagues of color, but at the
same time, the extra support work isn’t
usually compensated.” Many of the women
Wingfield interviewed said they were aware
their employers were taking advantage of
their willingness to be helpful.
Danielle, a friend of a friend, was working
as a litigation associate at a New Jersey
law firm when she was asked to serve on a
task force to create a diversity website and
publication for the firm. Although she was
honored to be part of the project, “when
you work at a law firm where there’s such
an emphasis on billable hours, diversity
work distracts from the billable tasks. Yet
that’s how the firm valuates associates.”
Almost everyone asked to serve on the task
force was a minority. Danielle didn’t feel
that she could say no: “It would not have
been looked well upon if I had declined to
participate.” The project involved
significant time and intellectual labor—none
of which, she feels, was factored into her
raises or annual bonuses.
Even when our companies don’t overtly
put that kind of pressure on us, we put it
on ourselves. Last summer, when I realized
that one of my firm’s interns was a black
student who had just finished his first year
at Howard University School of Law, I
immediately decided to take him under my
wing. As the only black attorney in my
department, I felt responsible for making
sure he succeeded at the internship,
introducing him to other potential mentors,
and connecting him with resources. After
he expressed concern about his chances
of landing a corporate law firm position for
the following summer, I sprang into action,
setting up informational interviews
with partners and senior in-house counsel
who’d be in a position to leverage their
network on his behalf. Over the next eight
weeks, I took him out for countless coffees
and almost-daily lunches; we even went to
a few legal galas. This was satisfying work
that I wanted to do—one of my mantras is
that it’s okay to be the first but it’s not okay
to be the last—but in hindsight, I recognize
that some of that time could have been
better spent on projects that might lead to
a promotion (and in turn a higher salary,Continued from page 117
and a faster payoff of my law school debt).
It’s frustrating that this extra labor is
something most of my white counterparts
don’t have to think about doing or feel
guilty about not doing.VERY TIME I GO to a
professional conference, there’s
a panel on wealth building, and
the advice is usually something
like, “Invest in venture capital!” When I
asked Anne Price for her opinion on the
best way forward, she said the conversation
needs to shift from personal responsibility
to more systemic fixes. “The bootstrap
narrative, in which we tell people that hard
work is the best path to success, diverts us
from what really landed us in this position—
and puts the onus on the individual to haul
herself out of it,” she says. “But black
women are already doing everything this
country has told them is important to build
a good and dignified life. What we need
to do is change the system.”
That would mean new, sweeping
policies like erasing student loans, or
subsidizing real-estate down payments and
closing costs for people in neighborhoods
historically discriminated against by lenders.
It’s encouraging that presidential
candidates are already talking about these
ideas; we’ll likely hear even more as the
2020 election approaches. In the
meantime, while I’m doing everything
I can to increase my net worth, I’m also
trying to change the way I evaluate my self-
worth. Not long ago, I told my therapist
about a recurring nightmare of struggling
to climb to the top of a mountain, only to
have a large shoe appear and kick me to the
bottom. I didn’t need a mental health
professional to explain that this represents
my fear of falling back into the poverty of
my childhood, but I did require her help in
dealing with the near-constant concern
it’s been causing me lately.
She encouraged me to stop blaming
myself for what I haven’t accomplished
and focus instead on what I have. She
also gave me a few useful tips: I now write
down small achievements (e.g., hitting
my savings goals for the month or paying
off a credit card balance) and refer
to them when I get discouraged. I try to
remind myself that I can ask for help (from
a boss or a friend or a financial planner).
And to find my own inspiring role models,
I’m developing relationships with older
black women attorneys who share
how they’ve made it to the top and how
they’ve managed their disillusionment
with the system.
All very helpful, right? And it cost me
only $400—the out-of-pocket price of a
month’s worth of counseling.@OPRAHMAGAZINE SEPTEMBER (^2019125)