NETTA JENKINS
To start can you tell us a little bit about your cultural background and where you grew up?
Both of my parents are from Liberia and I was born in Providence, RI. When both of my parents came from Liberia they settled in the town of Johnston, RI and I’m not sure why. It was a pretty affluent white community where we experienced a lot of racism during that time. In fact, when I was 7 years old, I watched a white woman come up to my mother's face and tell her “Blacks don't belong in our neighborhood”. There were a lot of different things we experienced being the only black family in that neighborhood.
Did you ever talk to your parents about racism there— were they transparent about these issues?
Yes, I definitely did. As a young person I was angry, but I hadn’t really processed or made sense of what was happening yet. I just knew what was happening was wrong, and I was angry about it. When I went to middle school, I remember there was a male student that had said “I heard your family is from Africa, let me see how far and fast you can climb up this tree”. And that was a breaking point for me. I remember going home, crying my life away and my mother saying something pivotal “I didnt bring you in this world to cry about things, I brought you in this world to bring change”. That was the most powerful moment I had in my life, and I remember thinking to put an end to this I would have to be put in a position of power. I would need to do this by educating but I would have to have some type of influence.
What led you towards this career path?
In college my major was communications with concentration in leadership and heavy focus on behavioral psychology. I was very focused on human behavior and how people reacted to certain things and why we did. I really wanted to study that because I knew that I wanted to focus on ensuring that there was a quality, especially for people from marginalized groups, but in order to drive successful impact I needed to understand human behavior. While I was in college, I started my own company, and it was a casting company that was specifically for creating a safe space for women. To make sure they were safe because around that time, and even now, a lot of women that wanted to model/act were being taken advantage of. I did that run for about 7 years and unfortunately after a while my company was no longer sustainable and so I started focusing on recruiting. While recruiting in corporate America, I started to see large gaps within the talent pool, performance evaluation, pay equities, demographic of employees laid off/fired and impact of mistreatment certain marginalized groups were experiencing. I knew that was something I wanted to shift and create change in.
In all your experience, what has been the most challenging yet rewarding hurdle you have overcome?
The most challenging, which I think is with anything, is that it's very hard to change people's behaviors. Especially when it's deep rooted in their traits. I think the impact of trying to figure out, especially with executives, how do I ensure that they’re involved? And how do I ensure that strategies are being measured correctly and that there is accountability in corporations as well. I think the challenging piece is that. The most successful and rewarding hurdle is being able to launch initiatives in corporations that really helped propel someone’s career. There was a young Black female, that didn’t have a software engineering degree and came from a journalism background with an interest in tech. We were able through an initiative I ran called the Career Switch Program, she taught herself how to code and without prior experience was hired and now excels in the company she’s in.
What is a common error in the tech world when it comes to their hiring process in terms of alienating diversity hires?
I think it starts off with the gatekeepers, meaning the recruiters. If they’re not equipped to see the potential in someone they’ve spoken to that may not have all the bells and whistles on that person's resume, specifically if they’re Black or Brown, it is such a big miss. Also if hiring managers aren’t equipped with the tools to understand that its not simply someone coming from an ivy league school it’s much deeper than that. It is about understanding this person may not have all the bells and whistles but as a leader I have the opportunity to be impactful in investing in this person's development and training. To be the leader and say I have the budget to do this, the resources to do this and a strong team to do that. And hiring managers aren’t always willing to do that and they’re operating with a biased lens and it's unfortunate.
Then there is the point that white supremacy and racism exist within the recruiting process. That’s a big deal too because, if the accountability factor is a struggle within the organization and no one is being held accountable — you may have hired someone who is a racist or someone homophobic. Those people are then perpetuating these issues within the recruiting process and then it’s a never ending cycle.
When it comes to negotiating salaries, professionals of color are often pushed into feeling uncomfortable asking for certain numbers despite clear disparities from their white colleagues. What is an approach you recommend to gain the confidence and dissuade fear of losing that space/job?
My first tip is you shouldn’t want to be in a company that is not going to value you. Part of value is money. Especially when you're joining an organization, that's how people value and have titles in different levels. If hesitant to speak because they’re thinking that, you don't need to be part of that organization. They’re hiring you based on your capabilities and talent. Do your research and find that information out there that offers market value information. Join groups and speak with other people on what the going rate or salary for a position is. For example, I’m part of a group called Sista Circle Black Women in Tech and every person in that group contributes and we’re constantly asking each other questions and using each other as a source to know what the market is like and gauge what to ask for.
The Harvard Business Review spoke about how black men are able to capitalize based on gender in the workplace, but then are a minority in their race. This makes it so that although they can befriend white colleagues, there is a limit and they remain feeling alienated/isolated in the workplace. What are the ways that white allies can do the work to remove this alienation?
The first step for anyone practicing allyship is that allyship is very limiting because it’s not enough just claiming to be one. The next piece is to acknowledge racism in the organization. They should be ok in becoming a sponsor, to be a sponsor they have to be willing to talk about you when you’re not in the room. They should invite a person to a strategy meeting, or in a meeting saying “l have the expertise in this area but I think Michelle would be better fit for this”. Putting someone with the right capabilities in that room.
What sparked the vision for creating your business, Dipper?
Both my business partner and I worked together for a very long time and we were both executives leaning on each other as resources. We both saw, again, gaps and we both had a strong following receiving LinkedIn messages with people's situation of mistreatment and wishing for a space for them. We immediately thought there was a need for this guide to the best workplaces that really valued equity diversity inclusion and a platform that would showcase these reviews so people could be guided and stay away from these spaces. The space that would give a sense of community and that's what Dipper is all about. Ultimately we wanted business and companies to have data that would veer away from general data out there like black people experience racism, percentage of Black CEOs or managers in the U.S. is this. Not enough data that spoke about the impact on blacks with microaggressions pertaining to specific companies. It’s a miss and it’s unfair to not have this data and Dipper provides that.
It’s unfortunate, but for the Black community there's retaliation and that where we need white allies to step in. In the time of George Floyds murder, people practicing allyship are tired and want to speak up. I had someone who is a white man reach out to me through LinkedIn, saying he was practicing allyship and had compiled all the things done to Black or Brown people within his organization to get the information out there.
With a lot of white allies they don’t approve of what happened, but that silence itself is compliance to the mistreatment and injustices. Talk to us more about this issue:
What I say in a lot of my trainings that I conduct for corporations—Are you simply not racist or are you actively anti-racist? There is a big difference in that. Also, it's one level to say ok I'm going to bring in my colleague of color in this meeting because they know a lot more. Another thing is not only do they need to be in this meeting but advocate that they need to be a manager because they’re worthy of this promotion. To have this type of vulnerability and showcase that incorporation will show to companies that people will not take that BS and if they don’t do this they will lose talent and following.
What are some self-care tips for Black and Brown women/men tired from the pressures of being placed in the position to be a resource for their white counterparts?
They can simply say they’re dealing with a lot and I’m sorry I can’t articulate the steps you need to take but please reach out to HR/managers to bring this education to all of us. A lot of corporations are putting these pressures, especially to Black or Brown employees, when we are actually going through trauma. It’s not healthy. In a study, they showed 400-500 people of color had shared that microaggressions had linked to suicide so can you imagine the amount of people that could potentially be thinking of suicide at this time? Imagine having to train/teach while going through all of this.
This is a time for corporations to give Black/Brown people the space and say we will invest in hiring someone to train employees and no longer put pressure on Black/Brown employees.
