Minda Harts - The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table

I N 2012 , I was living in Los Angeles and trying to cope with the death of an unarmed black teenager named Trayvon Martin. I worked in a predominantly white environment, and no one in the office was talking about his death. Up until that point, I had never seen myself as an activist. Not in a Rosa Parks type of way. I did launch a grassroots campaign called Broke or Vote to get more middle-class and working-class people to the polls during President Barack Obamas second campaign, but that was the extent of my activism. I guess you could say I had been going through life with my head down; black women are often told to do just that, especially in the workplace. Even though I saw bias all around me, I knew I could never rock the boat and speak out on it. I mean, who would care or do anything about it? But something about Trayvons death touched me at my core. Maybe its because I have two younger brothers and plenty of black male cousins, and I know how easily one of them could be in this same situation. I am sure his death caused many of us to question how we could help. Then out of the blue, one of our administrative assistants asked me to join her for a march that was taking place in honor of Trayvon. She also asked if I wanted to buy an oversized hoodie that had Trayvons face on it, and as she walked away, she said, I figured you were the only one I could ask. Now I can only speculate on what she meant, and I joked around later with friends about this white woman giving me a Trayvon Martin hoodiedid she do that because I was the only black woman in the office? We (people of color) always question why others do some of the things they do. But I know she meant well!

Now youre probably wondering what this story has to do with The Memo, but it has everything to do with how I came to find my voice in advocating for women of color. I ended up going to that march and there were tons of white men and women marching, and it hit me. We need to be on the front lines of our own issues. I still wasnt sure what that meant for me, but I was constantly questioning where I fit into this advocacy equation. Fast forward a year and some change, and I was working on the East Coast. The verdict was out: George Zimmerman was not guilty. I cried that night as if I could feel the pain of Trayvons parents. And mixed in with those emotions, I was going through my own personal hell of working in an environment that was less than equitable. It was on that night that I realized I had to do something. My advocacy wouldnt be on the front lines with the Black Lives Matter movement; my advocacy would be inside the workplace advocating for women that looked like me. I had to fight systemic racism in a way that was authentic to me and that would allow me to use my expertise. Mellody Hobson would later use the term corporate Kaepernick, and I felt like I was something like a Kaepernick; addressing the inequalities that we often are scared to address. I had no idea what I would do or what it would look like, but I knew I had to do something!

Around the same time, Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg came out. I was heavily into professional development and consuming every business and self-help book I could get my hands on. After reading countless books, I realized that race or intersectionality was rarelyif evera topic of conversation. And the books I was reading and the content I was consuming were being produced by white women. It started to become very problematic for me to never read about the experiences of women of color at work. We were completely left out of most narratives. So I decided my form of advocacy would be to create a platform that served our needs and highlighted the challenges women of color face in the workplace. Again, I had no idea how that would look and wouldnt until 2015, when I was forced to write a business plan for my unnamed company. All I could think about was Shirley Chisholms quote, If they dont give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. And on a train ride from Washington, D.C., to New York City while listening to a Drake song called Trophies, through my earbuds came the lyrics Did yall boys not get the memo? And that line hit me like a ton of bricksthe workplace has not gotten The Memo: women of color deserve a seat at the table, and we are coming for those seats! It took time to build, but in the fall of 2015, I launched The Memo newsletter, and from there my business grew to include career boot camps, a speakers series, and an annual awards event. My activism was kicked off by Trayvon Martinhis death showed me that there was advocacy inside me waiting to come out. I went from someone who was fairly shy at times to someone speaking about the inequalities women of color face and challenging the lean-in doctrine. And in those days, Sheryl Sandberg could do no wrong, so most white women just looked at me sideways, but my message was resonating with women of color all over the country.