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In my heart, I have always been creative. As a child, there was a lot of joy in creating. I would write screenplays and novels. I would perform poems and raps. If God had given me the gift of visual creativity, I likely would have been a painter or photographer too.
As I got older, many of those pleasures were lost in my attempt to chase what America promised me: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Over time, I started to equate the toll of “moving on up” to a joyless, shapeless experience. My career journey has washed me up on several shores, trying to find myself. In all of my travels, I have found as a Black Woman, the American dream was impeded by the never-ending pursuit of recognition, access, and livable pay.
A few years ago, I learned that my great-great-grandmother picked 600 pounds of cotton for less than a dollar a day. When I heard this story, I quickly began to navigate two powerfully opposing feelings: pride and sadness. Too often, this is the story of Black Women’s Labor in America. We swing between the pendulum of insurmountable pride and a sense of deep, sullied sadness. We are proud of our ability to overcome, overachieve, and do more than everyone else with so little support and resources, but so damn sad that we have to.
I saw the burden of my hyper-resilience reflected in the stories of my grandmothers and my mothers. I saw the burden of limited support in my friends and peers who were chronically ill and struggling at work before work. I saw the burden of hopelessness in the Black Women who had normalized their abuse and torment at work. Our current curse is to stand upon the shoulders of women who hold up an entire community, an entire economy, and an entire country, while the people who need you the most throw stones at you.
But there is a cure, which is a potion of joy and community. My goal (and the strategic goal of Auclare Vision) is to do more for the women who raised me, the women whose shoulders I’ve cried on, the women who supported me when no one else gave me a chance: Black Women. My dream for us is to know rest, breath, and peace.
This year and beyond, we are focusing all of our attention on uplifting and promoting Black Women. Our firm has been distinct in helping our clients bring their personal journeys to the professional world, and we hope to continue that work with a strategic focus on uplifting Black Women in every facet of their lives.
Statistically, Black women face more hurdles in the workplace than any other group, but we will not let that define us or our work. Toni Morrison said, “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” It is now time for Black Women everywhere to stop defining themselves with other people’s definitions. We are going to change the narrative.
Our firm will continue to make work enjoyable for everyone by ensuring work is enjoyable for the most vulnerable people at work: Black women.
Join us as we continue to build a safe community for Black women through our career coaching, training, and community memberships.