It feels like I need to explain myself.

Some of y’all who I love dearly were a bit perplexed at how outspoken I am regarding the decision to reverse Roe v. Wade.

Family and close friends know I’ve been the “little liberal” pretty much my whole life.

But here’s something you don’t know…

As I’ve gotten older and learned more about the world, especially our society here in the South, it’s become clear how social constructs, policies, and laws are designed to protect institutional racism.

Yup. I said it. It’s about race.

It’s time we all start speaking up for southern Women and our fellow Americans

America was built on the backs of our colored and Native fellow Americans.

Womxn and trans people of color are twice as likely to need access to reproductive healthcare than their white female peers.

And the states (especially the South) that are most likely to ban abortion have much greater proportions of people of color.

At the Bans Off Our Bodies rally yesterday, I heard from one woman who had to take out a loan, such as that loan on the same day, to drive from Macon to Atlanta to get her abortion. Georgia has 150 counties and only 20 clinics providing this care.

And there 17 counties in Georgia with no OBGYN, let alone a doctor.

The decisions coming from SCOTUS are strengthening the chokehold the patriarchy has on our fellow Americans, especially poor people in the rural South.

Reversing Roe to increase a “domestic supply of infants” might as well have said, “make more poor people to keep labor cheap.”

I am not here to cast judgment. No, I am not the Supreme Court, a talking head on a conservative media platform, or a preacher at a pulpit.

I am a writer, making an observation about how this patriarchal society we live in is completely screwed up.

These reckoning moments have been defining points in my adult life.

On Nov. 9, 2016, when the world awoke to Donald J. Trump becoming the next president, the emotions poured out.

In 2018, when Stacy Abrams lost her first contest to Brian Kemp.

In 2020, when three states were still too close to call because, despite years of recognizing his deplorability, half the country still voted for the impeached president.

On Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters, QAnon followers, and our radicalized fellow Americans stormed our Capitol with the intent to harm our democratically elected Congress.

And on May 3, 2022, our U.S. Supreme Court made it known they intended to reverse the ruling on an individual’s right to privacy, which is what Roe v. Wade’s judgment was truly about. The number of y’all who reached out directly is countless (even on work channels), and many of you posted on this very platform.

Because y’all know we can do better

That’s what this whole journey has been about, here at Pretty Southern and for my adult life. Although some sources want you to believe that being ‘woke’ is a bad thing, the thing about being wide awake, when you can see things as they truly are, you cannot go back to sleep.

For some of us ‘woke’ liberals, we have not only the ability to see the forest through the trees, but to also recognize what each tree is made of, to see the predators lurking in the forest, and the sunny skies above.

What’s in that metaphorical forest, and the great beyond, is what binds us all together because here we are trying to navigate a trail.

And for some of us, we are so lost.

So now we have to think about how we get better from here

How do we find a path to healing together?

Please know that I’m speaking up because I care about you, your neighbor, our home, and all our fellow Americans.

I’m proud to stand up for all womxn and our fellow humans in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Our home is the birthplace of the social justice movement. This beloved community recognizes the oppression we will continue to face if we stay silent.

Find your way to fight back. Vote because our rights depend on it.

Healthcare is a human right.

No justice. No peace.

It feels like my adult life started the week of 9/11

I was 16 years old and sitting in my high school math class when the intercom came on announcing the first World Trade Center building being hit. Our teacher turned on the tv and we watched in horror as another plane barreled into the second tower.

If you’re old enough to remember, you’ll never forget where you were when you first heard the news on September 11. It’s a collective trauma we share as adults.

Everyone knows what came next: 3,000 of our fellow Americans dead, thousands of troops heading to Afghanistan, tracking down Osama bin Laden, and the start of this endless war on terror. We praised and prayed for our military and first responders who answered the call that day and continue to do so.

In the spring of 2003, my senior year of high school, President George W. Bush held a rally in our gymnasium which was supposed to be a talk about the economy. As editor of the student newspaper, I got to attend.

Harrison High School is in Cobb County, one of the richest and reddest districts in Georgia. The president’s speech about being pro-business lasted all of two minutes before he said:

“And that’s why we need to go to war in Iraq.”

The gym erupted in applause. At the time, Governor Sonny Perdue sat on stage next to our school’s principal beaming, wearing nearly identical suits, their legs were crossed in the same manner until they stood clapping for W.

What I didn’t know is something we’re all coming to realize now – Cobb County is the center of poor decision-making in Georgia, from its COVID-19 response, to pilfering tax dollars for projects like the new Braves stadium.

Special interest, big business, and Big Oil are collectively what’s caused Iraq, Afghanistan, and the conflicts across the Middle East to become our modern Vietnam. These unwinnable wars resulted in countless tragedies due to mismanagement.

In the two decades that have passed since September 11, I’ve come to understand so much about the way the world works that I wish I could have told my teenage self. We live in a time of constant disruption. And society decided that my generation would be called ‘millennials’ for coming of age in this post-Y2K world.

But I think my age bracket, the 30-somethings who were nearly adults on 9/11, and the 20-somethings who were old enough to understand what was happening, we’re not millennials y’all because we know what life was like in a pre-September 11 world.

So this year, on Sept. 11, 2021, here’s what I believe my generation should be called.

We are the Generation of First Responders

We’re the generation that has spent 20 of our formative years remembering the tragedy of 9/11. Twenty years ago, we watched our fellow Americans fall from the towers, and last month we saw Afghanis clinging onto planes leaving their country.

We saw the first mass school shooting at Columbine in 1999, then years later we continued to cry, pray, and rage over the mass shootings in Newtown, Parkland, Pulse night club, and countless others, despite no changes in the laws to prevent deranged people from hurting our fellow citizens.

We are the ones who continue to march and protest for the same causes that our parents and grandparents did, hoping for peace in a violent world.

We recognize that our fellow Americans who are brown, black, Muslim, AAPI, and anyone who looks different than those in charge are still fighting for equality.

We want to create meaningful change for everyone, especially those whose voices are continuously ignored.

We’re the generation that grew up with Captain Planet and increasingly hotter years, where the first glaciers officially disappeared, polar bears starved, and the Great Barrier reef died off.

We’re the generation of Ferngully watching the world burn, scorching plants, animals, and our fellow humans.

We’re the generation that’s eating plastic because there’s so much of it in our oceans, rivers, and fisheries, thus in the food we put in our mouths.

We are still consuming fossil fuels at an insatiable rate with a mass shift to renewable energy still years away.

We are the first generation in 100 years having to deal with a global pandemic. Our friends are the parents of small children who grow up wearing masks, like the n95 mask, to school because the adults in charge mismanaged the spread of COVID.

We are begging our family, friends, and loved ones to do something as simple as go get a shot, but ideology and self-interest prevent them from doing it for public health. With voluntary contributions from doctors like walk-in gynecologist and so on, many walk-in clinics are being established in various areas of the country which will be very easily accessible to all nearby people. Click here to know more about them in detail.

We are the ones who will be responsible for stopping the spread of infectious diseases, disinformation, and working to prevent more disasters.

We’re the generation that has to act. We have to be the first ones to respond.

There’s so much to do, and it feels impossible to fix these massive problems. But it starts with courage. Are we as brave as the first responders on 9/11 to step up and answer the call?

We can start by speaking out. We can take time to understand the ways we can change the world.

We can put forth the good effort, our money, and resources, towards actions and missions that are helping heal our broken society.

We continue to pray for our troops, our first responders, and for our politicians in charge, but God gave us working bodies and minds that also need to do more.

Professor Conrad Fink told my class of journalism students at UGA that it was our parents, the adults, who made this world and it would be up to us to report on the state of it, then help to change it.

It is truly up to us now, this Generation of First Responders.

Nothing about this world is normal. We are constantly facing a new normal. Our anger and fear have been normalized because it’s the only way we can get through the day.

We were not the first responders. The first wave of responders were the heroes of September 11, those who wear a uniform with honor, and our healthcare workers.

We are the next wave of responders. We are the ones who are willing to do the hardest things. We don’t have to be collectively scared but can get through anything if we put our hearts and souls to it.

So in the next 20 years, I hope we can build a better future. I pray we can come together as Americans, the same way we did on 9/11, where it wasn’t about a red team or blue team but truly one nation under God. Indivisible. With liberty and justice for all.

Editor’s note — this editorial cartoon is by the incredible Mike Luckovich of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It’s stuck with me in my mind and heart over the last 20 years

2020 was a Year of Reckoning

In the last few years, I started a fun tradition with Michelle Khouri — Founder & CEO / Executive Producer at FRQNCY Media. As we wind down the past year and roll into a new one, Michelle and I catch up to discuss a theme for the coming year.

In 2017, it was the Year of the Warrior. It followed a year of awakening, kicking off a time to truly start fighting for what we believe in, pursuing our dreams together, and reaching for the highest achievements without fear of failure.

2018 — it was the Year of the Butterfly, expanding on that Warrior mentality into a beautiful evaluation, followed by the Year of the Reaping in 2019 when the seeds we planted had grown and ready for harvest. Michelle wrote to me saying that our hard work would be manifested into reward.

For 2020, that theme continued into the Year of the Reckoning, searching for a more profound power and aiming to live in an ever-present harmony, Michelle wrote. Little did we know what 2020 would have in store.

As a fan of Michelle and her work, it has been amazing to see her words ring true as she’s seen continuous success with FRQNCY Media, taking on producing prodcasts for heroes includingDiane von Furstenberg and Jane Goodall.

Getting to watch a young business owner like Michelle pursue her dreams, tell stories, and create jobs is just one of the many things I love best about this industry. Learning about company formation in Indonesia is beneficial for an entrepreneur dreaming of starting a business there. On a personal note, for me, 2020 was also a year of professional growth. I took on a new role as VP of Marketing at Curricula helping to scale a startup I mentored through the Atlanta Tech Village.

There were still happy moments of growth in momentum in 2020 despite being a year of challenges.

And if 2020 taught us anything, it’s to fix your potential problems before they come a-reckonin’.

2020 was an arduous 52 weeks. Every problem we had as individuals, in our work, and as a society was exacerbated by the Coronavirus.

But even before the onslaught of the pandemic, I was taught a very important lesson in the mountains of Jackson Hole. I suffer from weak ankles — a problem I’ve consistently put on the back-burner instead of pursuing physical therapy — and went skiing where instead of pacing myself on the Greens, I took a very icy Blue and sprained an ankle (thankfully it wasn’t worse).

Instead of moping about the cabin unable to ski, we found other activities which included heading to the top of Jackson Hole resort to Corbet’s Couloir where this photo was taken.

It felt like I left a piece of my heart in those beautiful mountains. Even with a bum ankle, I wanted to stay longer and keep exploring. Leaving Jackson Hole, we came back to Atlanta on March 8 only days before the whole world went into the Great Lockdown over COVID-19.

All of the plans we’d made for the year, including my sister’s wedding, were scrapped due to the need for social distancing. March and April were months of so many unknowns while the lockdown continued. Then my job opportunity came about bringing good work to do instead of worrying about the world around us.

And a busy late spring was followed by a tumultuous summer as COVID cases started rising, then the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery gave rise to a renewed civil rights movement.

Coming face-to-face with the issue of racism has presented its own moment of reckoning for Pretty Southern as a brand. What we set out to do in questioning ‘What does it mean to be a Southerner in the 21st century?’ means to question everything when it comes to societal norms.

A fellow member of our Pretty Southern squad, Jenn Ciccarelli (who some of y’all might remember from her Game Day Prayers or when she broke the internet in Charleston when her post went viral) shared these words which summed it up pretty well:

The death of George Floyd forever changed something inside me. I’m sorry it didn’t happen sooner. I’m working to ensure that guilt is never a burden, and instead is the fuel behind an effort to make up for lost time. In searching for words that might fit the current state of my insides, I thought about settling on altruism. I am trying to live myself as selflessly as possible (probably also to make up for lost time) and giving is the most compelling of good energy…

2020 was a shitfire year but I’ve repeatedly said it wasn’t without its magic. We have seen what happens when we come together for our communities and we stand up for what’s right. Change just takes one person and few a ripples

Over here at Pretty Southern, this meant offering support and giving a platform to voices needing to be heard. Both Quay Bowen and Kyiah Oliver published beautiful, heart-breaking editorials about what they’ve faced as black women in the South. Quay’s On the Topic of Equal Opportunity and Kyiah’s testament to how African American women have been treated for quite some time are both worth reading again to remember the mission we’re on as a collective force for good.

Thinking ahead for this new year, I found these wise words from Stefanie Diaz, who saw her own good work come to fruition in 2020 by becoming a Partner at Zane Ventures (here’s Stef’s feature in Hypepotamus). Stef and I first met in 2017 when she had me on her show, Mastermind Your Launch on Business Radio X (y’all can replay it here).

Stefanie shared these wise words at the close of 2017…

Honor your journey. Shift blame to blessings. Shift regret to gratitude. Because the evolution you’re in (however hard it may be) is pointing you towards your next treasure, and love is the key that will unlock the chest.

Things have really come full circle to 2021

Working with so many wonderful humans, hearing their thoughts and listening to their wise words has helped me so much on my own journey with its destination unknown. This brings us to the theme for this year.

2021 will be the Year of Expansion

When I continued our annual tradition and asked Michelle what the word for 2021 would be, she first reflected back on 2020 and how it was a Year of Reckoning for sure. So many good things happened but there were challenges like we wouldn’t believe. So 2021 will be the Year of Expansion.

To quote Michelle directly: “What I feel with the word ‘expansion’ is that it’s not going to be altogether comfortable because it represents expanding our minds, our hearts, our definition of things, what we think is good vs. bad, what we feel works and doesn’t.”

“Ultimately, we need to break out of the prisons we built and expand into a new way of being. It’s going to be magnificent but a journey in-and-of-itself.”

I am so thankful for these words, for Michelle, Jenn, Stefanie, Kyiah, Quay, and all y’all in the Pretty Southern squad. All of our years to come will have their challenges, but we’re here to get through them together.

Breonna Taylor was killed by three plain-clothes police officers in her home on March 13, 2020.

 

She was in bed, unarmed, and shot fatally after the officers entered her home using a no-knock search warrant. She was an emergency medical technician and 26 years old. No arrests have been made in Breonna’s case.

Her story did not begin to make headlines until the weeks following the murder of George Floyd. There was a literal outpouring of support across social media platforms demanding that something to be done; that the officers be arrested and held accountable.

Breonna Taylor’s name was said during protests in line with countless other names of people whose only crime was the color of their skin. Then things began to get silent; the posts slowed, the hashtags became less frequent. The light attached to her story seems to be dimming.

This is not right.

I am not here to rehash the events of what happened to Breonna Taylor, nor am I here to be irate and curse the masses for not taking this more seriously.

I am simply here to tell you how this feels.

However, that is not as easy as I thought. I thought that I would be able to sit and write about how enraged I am and use a very eloquent stream of words to convince you to stand with me and bring awareness to this case and demand action, but honestly, this is hard.

It is difficult to watch this story slowly grow silent and really pinpoint how I feel. If I am being honest, I am disappointed that this is happening, but not surprised. The treatment of Breonna Taylor, even in her death, is a testament to how African American women have been treated for quite some time.

As an African American woman, I do not have to look too far into history to see how society has reacted to my existence. I just have to look at my grandmother, Toyin Salau, my friend who has to take a very specific way home, a former First Lady, my aunt who rewords an email “because of how it might come off.”

Honestly, I feel too many emotions to put into a concise sentence or collection of sentences.

So I decided that I needed more voices.

Below are some statements that I collected from some of the African American women in my life. I ask that you not only read their words but sit with them.

Hear them, take them in, respect them.

Testimony #1, age 23

“It makes me feel two things. On the one hand, it makes me feel hopeful because I see that there are people who care. I see that there are people who want to be sure that this is just not another story that is pushed under the rug. People are literally using their voices, their platforms, signing petitions, and calling officials. There are public protests and things of that sort that people are engaging in to make sure that justice is served; in order to make sure that the officers who murdered her are arrested and charged for what they did. It makes me hopeful to see people not letting up. It makes me hopeful to know that there are people who genuinely care about African American women.”

“On the other hand, it makes me-it grieves me. It makes me feel saddened because of the fact that this has to be held up by Instagram posts & a hashtag. It shows on one hand that African American women in this country are definitely a marginalized population. It brings up feelings about Toyin. She went to the police. She did what she thought she should do in order to feel protected, and she was failed. With Breonna Taylor’s case, I feel like if there wasn’t so much pushing by the public, her story would be one where she was failed. So, it grieves me to know that this has to be the case for an African American woman’s life to be valued.”

Testimony #2, age 24

“In regards to the Breonna Taylor case and how it makes me feel, knowing that we’re constantly put lower than anyone else. It makes me feel like we’re never going to catch a break; we’re never going to get a chance to breathe. We’re never going to have ourselves put first by other people, especially not people outside of our race. Even people within our race; Black men and some Black women who have been brainwashed by white supremacy and the men of our race.”

“It makes me feel like ain’t nobody got us but us. It’s just Black Women v. The World. It makes me feel like we are forever going to be the other, even within our own race because we’re never going to be put first.”

“It’s never going to be us lifted up by the masses.”

Testimony #3, age 40

“The case of Breonna Taylor is disheartening. It’s already challenging to be African American. It’s a double plight to be African American coupled with being a woman.”

“For her family to have to deal with this injustice and cruelty for 124 days to date  I believe is like experiencing her death over and over again. It’s like being punished for something that already pains you.”

“A search warrant shouldn’t result in an innocent human being fatally shot. Something has to CHANGE. We can’t forget about her. Say her name.”

Testimony #4, age 23:

“The main question that comes to mind is ‘Who will weep for us?’”

“We are brutalized in more than one way by more than one group. We have to think about the trauma and pain we deal with as Black women in families. In our own households, on our own jobs, our micro-aggressions.”

“The situation makes me feel powerless as a Black woman that no one is there to aid us when we need it.”

“We’re still being harassed on all fronts and we need to look beyond Black Lives Matter and do something for ourselves. For our daughters.”

Testimony #5, age 23:

“It continues to make me feel unsafe, especially when I am located where people say, and I quote, ‘the further East you go in Tennessee the more racist it gets.’ Being in Middle Tennessee, I’m in this melting pot of allies and people who don’t like me because of my skin color. It still has me at a standstill.”

“When I have to talk to the police, I don’t know what they’ll say or do. Hell, they came into her house and killed her in her sleep. Could that happen to me even though I live in this ‘nice apartment complex?’ Could I be the next person that wants to go home and they think I’m up to no good?”

“Could I be the next one?”

“So it has me with my head on a swivel because it boosts the you never know what could happen aspect.”

“As a Black woman, we are the most hated, most uncared for people in America, so it’s kind of hard for you to sit up here and go through this type of thing. It’s heartbreaking. It’s being blown over at this point.”

“Overall, I’m a ball of emotions; of fear, nervousness, anger, on edge all of the time. Just making sure that I’m safe, my friends are safe, my people are safe.”

“It’s a lot of emotions. It really is a lot to bundle how you feel in a couple of sentences. It’s a longer conversation that needs to be had.”

Testimony 6, age: 23

“As a Black woman, it can be difficult to unplug and remove yourself from the gruesome news cycle in which people, women, who look just like you are experiencing and succumbing to state-sanctioned violence in a variety of ways.”

“In the past few weeks, this feeling has only intensified, leaving Black women who stay on top of current events in a whirlwind. It is extremely scary, exhausting, and overwhelming to consider the dozens of ways that Black women could die simply for existing, but the most distressing thing is the ignorance and often naïveté of non-Black people – women included.”

“As Black women, we do not have the option to be disengaged on topics of racism, sexism, gender-based violence, health disparities, and police brutality because our livelihood depends on the eradication of these things. It is disheartening to watch your non-Black peers, and sometimes your Black ones, disregard your struggles and attribute it to individual acts/actors.”

“It is my hope that the re-iteration of the Black Lives Matter movement brings actual justice for Breonna Taylor, Toyin Salau, Sha-Asia Washington, Riah Milton, and Brayla Stone and that we work to eliminate further harm to Black women by dismantling and re-building these violent systems through active anti-racist work.”

Testimony #7, age 22:

“When I think about Breonna Taylor and her case, the outcome of it, and how it transpired, I think about how it mirrors and reflects the experience of Black women. Even in her death-her death was kind of the platform to create a new law in the city of Louisville, however, the original offense of her death has yet to be acknowledged, has yet to be investigated, and has yet to be resolved. She has yet to receive the true justice that she deserves, yet they were very quick to put in law into effect so that people do not go through what she went through. However, the woman who literally lost her life, she didn’t give it. She was asleep. Her life was snatched from her in such a brutal way for this law to be made against no-knock warrants, but here we are months later and her family is still grieving with no justice.”

“Her family has a hole to fill that they can’t fill because the justice system has once again failed a Black woman. We failed another Black woman whose name fell on deaf ears. We failed another Black woman who made way for other people to be saved later, yet her life doesn’t matter to that degree. We failed another Black woman.”

“We failed Sandra. We failed Breonna. We failed so many Black women in the past and it makes me wonder: when will it stop?”

“When will we get it right? When will we make the decision to stand up for Black women after they have stood by so many significant figures over time? When will we make the decision to stand behind Black women as much as we stand behind other people of color? When will we not be on the back burner? When will we actually be considered a member of a society that we helped create?”

“When will we become essential?”

Testimony #8, age 46

“As a Black woman, I feel hurt, I feel angry, I feel disappointed. I also feel sorry. I also feel, as a mother, how it feels for a mother to lose a child. As it pertains to this story about Breonna Taylor, I think so many people don’t look at the Black woman as valuable. I look at the story- I’ve been listening to the story and how the police haven’t been charged, and how she did nothing wrong to put herself in a situation where she should have died at such a young, early age.”

“The Black woman is not defended; she’s not taken care of, she’s not provided for. So many Black women are already struggling to try to make ends meet without Black men. So many of us are struggling and have such a hard time dealing with life in general without the assistance of the Black man.”

“We are not valued enough.”

“We are almost invisible in comparison to other women; the Chinese woman, the White woman, the Indian woman. Any other race is valued more by their men than the Black woman. I’m not saying that all men don’t value us, just some of them don’t know how to love us and treat us. I feel that this era that we’re in that the Black woman is just not valued enough. We are not loved enough. We’re not getting enough love from the people around us, we’re not getting enough encouragement, we’re not getting enough help, so we have to be a ‘strong Black woman.’ We’ve got to work hard and strive hard, but we don’t always want to be the strong Black woman.”

“We want to be vulnerable.”

“I just feel like it’s already hard enough for the Black woman. It’s already hard enough that we don’t have our men, we’re raising our children alone, we have to work two and three jobs. It’s already hard enough for us in this society.”

“We have to be the stronger ones, we have to work harder at trying to accomplish things, and then when we do accomplish things, we are not given credit for the work that has been done.”

“Breonna was establishing herself; she was making her mark in the world. She was becoming a Black woman of substance; she was trying to make a way for her family and herself. She was taken away too soon.”

“She was working towards her goals of becoming a Black woman that other Black women can look up to.”

“I feel like what has happened to Breonna, and other Black women who have been taken out prematurely, makes us have to be strong enough to deal with the fact that this could happen to me.”

I could be in my own home that I’ve been working hard to achieve, I’ve been working to have the best things for my family, for my children, for myself, and not even have peace in my own home without it being abruptly interrupted to have my life snatched away from me.”

“Breonna Taylor’s life was snatched away from her. She had no idea that that night would’ve been her last night. It’s hard already for Black women. Every time I hear about what has happened to the Black man and Black woman to keep us separated and keep us down I feel so… I just feel like no one sees us. No one can see us as Black women.”

“No one can see us.”

“It’s not like closing your eyes and not being able to see someone, it’s looking directly at a Black woman, and still not being able to see her.”

Being Black in America is hard. Being a Black woman in America is exhausting.

Day after day of providing, helping, and putting others first, and still not being able to be valued, appreciated, or even seen. Breonna Taylor should still be alive, and even in her death, she deserves the same respect, support, and justice as other African Americans who have had their lives taken from them.

Fight for her. Stand for her. Tell her story. Then do the same for the African American women in your life.

Arrest the killers of Breonna Taylor.

Editor’s note – photo credits to Julieann Tran

Editor’s Note – a brief intro to the powerful words by Quay Bowen. We connected with Quay through a marketing group on social media. After hearing her story, we asked Quay to share her experiences with our audience here at Pretty Southern. It has been edited with her approval and based on the personal history of what she has experienced as a Black woman in the American workforce. Our mission at Pretty Southern has always been to question what does it mean to be a Southerner in the 21st century, and to share stories that may otherwise not have had a platform. It’s been an honor to work with Quay and we hope you respect her for sharing her truth.

I chased the American Dream, what I got was a nightmare.

My name is Quay. In 2011, I graduated from a top 20 college with a 3.67 GPA (3.9 if you count transfer credits). I have a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience and Human Behavioral Biology with a minor in Science, Culture, and Society. I also have an Associates in Psychology (High Honors) and a concentration in Media Studies.

During my time in college, I started a charity, held grassroots fundraisers for nonprofits, worked on organizing committees for large-scale conferences, worked for a kids show, was the keynote speaker for several fundraising galas, helped organize college tours for aging out foster kids, and connected student groups with foster care organizations for tutoring efforts. I did all this while working full time at Blockbuster and raising a kid.

This may sound conceited, but when I graduated, I thought that if I didn’t go to med school, I would be able to walk into my chosen career path and take the industry by storm. That wasn’t the case. I struggled to find an open door to start a career. A decade later, I am still struggling.

Since entering into the “professional” workforce, I’ve experienced often horrific instances of workplace racism in nearly every company I’ve worked for: from bosses screaming at me “why are your people so stupid!” to coworkers hiding vital computer systems needed to do my job aside from making surveys for kids and laughing as I hobbled around the office on crutches (I’m disabled) looking for it ‘til I cried from the physical pain; to being told by supervisors they “preferred uneducated black people to educated black people because at least uneducated black people knew their place.”

I was asked to write about these experiences and follow it up with how I feel we can fix the issue of racism in the workplace. When I wrote it all out in a first draft, I stopped at 12 pages and still wasn’t halfway through my experiences. Yes, this is a complicated issue, and I can be a bit long-winded, but 12 pages? No one should have so much experience with racism in the workforce, especially at only 36.

This video from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah does a pretty good job of summing this up

I’m sharing all this to illustrate how exhausting it is to be black in America.

I honestly feel that we cannot talk about fixing racism without first addressing what it looks like, how it festers, and the systems in place that marginalize people of color and reinforce white supremacy.

At the end of the day, the remedy to every instance of workplace racism that I personally experienced big and small can be summed up with one sentence: Don’t be a jerk to people. Better yet, treat your black (and other people of color) employees and coworkers the same way as you would treat them if they were the person signing your paychecks.

For this essay, I want to talk about discriminatory hiring: an issue that has far greater real-world consequences in the lives of people of color that are more traumatic than, say, having to submit one’s self to daily hair sniffing by the office manager at your place of employment because a nurse at a rural clinic repeatedly claimed it stunk. Then having the entirety of the female staff at the office also sniffing your hair trying to figure out if it had a smell since the manager couldn’t smell anything.

Yes, that really happened to me and as confirmed by basically everyone in the office, I didn’t stink. The nurse was a racist and being racist. I was too young and too naive to speak up for myself and none of the white women in positions of power decided to speak up for me. As I said, it can be exhausting being black.

Photo credit Julieann Tran

Obviously, workplace racism can humiliate and isolate people of color in the workforce; but discriminatory hiring can exclude them from it. It perpetuates poverty and ultimately has the potential to turn fresh-faced rising stars coming out of college, ready to build their career, into bitter middle-aged adults who have to accept their dreams have died and are willing to take any job life throws at them in order to survive.

Let’s talk about affirmative action and quotas

My first experience with Affirmative Action and quotas came long before I entered the “professional” workforce. I was a waitress at Applebee’s. My manager was a black guy with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. I was talking about applying to a two-year college. He shook his head and said, “Do you know why I work here?” I made a joke about discounted riblets. He then told me that he had a Master’s Degree from Duke and nobody would hire him. No jobs.

This was echoed by another black man in an online chat forum back when Myspace ruled the internet. I was bragging like the obnoxious 20-something that I was (at the time) about how I made it through my two-year college with a 4.0 GPA and without even going to high school and how I was “gonna get into Harvard.” He laughed and said, “I have a degree from Rutgers. Guess what I do for a living?” He was a manager at Walmart.

I thought to myself, that was a “them” problem. I was special, smarter, and more determined to succeed. They must have made bad grades or dropped out or something. That wasn’t gonna happen to me. I held on to this thought for a while.

A few years later, as a senior in my not-Harvard but equally prestigious and super pretentious fancy private college, I met with the only black professor in our program’s department. I think I wanted to talk to him about getting into one of his overbooked classes on developmental psychology and cognition. We hadn’t even started our meeting when he began talking to me about race and science. He said bluntly, “You know how I got this job? It’s because I’m black.”

I honestly couldn’t believe he was saying that. It actually irritated me because I felt he was diminishing his own accomplishments. But he broke it down to me. My college looked at its staff, saw it didn’t have any black people in the department, and thus hired one.

Was he the best man for the job? Yes. But that didn’t matter, they only wanted him because he was the best black man for the job. The school would later bring in its only Latinx woman to the department as well. An employment lawyer can represent workers in employment disputes. Visit HKM’s website for more employment law information.

I didn’t equate what the professor said at the time to what the down-trodden Duke and Rutgers graduates had told me. Then, a few months later, I was just hanging out with my honor’s thesis adviser (an older white guy) after some experiment trials.

I don’t even know how the conversation came up, but he randomly said that I was going to have a hard time after I graduated. “You’re a double minority. Nobody’s gonna want to hire you because Affirmative Action means they can’t fire you. Hell, I wouldn’t hire you. You’re a black female. I already have one of those.” It was a kick in the gut.

As frustrating as everything these men were saying was at the time, they were genuinely trying to prepare me for what it was going to be like for me as a black woman in the professional world. They weren’t wrong.

Why Affirmative Action is a problem

Affirmative Action is a program meant to help minorities get access to fields they had been previously excluded from; yet, instead of creating opportunities, it was used to continue oppression. Once a company met their “token” quota, they didn’t have to bring on any more of those people.

Because Affirmative Action led to quotas, it indirectly pits minorities against each other for career access. A minority in a leadership position would be less likely to bring on another younger, cheaper, minority into the company for the sheer sake of their own job security. It created a Black Swan dynamic. If you’ve seen that movie, you know that can be pretty cutthroat and entirely unnecessary.

Furthermore, when companies limit their diversity hiring to a few tokens of any demographic, it creates environments where unintentional racism festers unchecked.

For example, having a white male coworker giddily come up to the one black employee to tell a ghetto name joke. We get it: L—sha, Orangello, Lemongello har har har. By the way, this also happened to me. Multiple times at different companies. Seriously, it’s super exhausting being black.

And there are workarounds for Affirmative Action. Instead of having the black guy, it’s a “White Latinx” who still meets the quota without going “too ethnic.” Maybe rely on people of Asian descent to fill a company’s diversity quotas; after all, they’re the “model minority” (I’ll get back to that statement in a bit).

What most companies have done since they were forced to stop excluding everyone but White Men from their ranks is to hire White Women who are technically also a historically oppressed group. Maybe this is why White Women have benefited from Affirmative Action more than anyone of any demographic. It’s done great for appearing to have diversity in the workplace, but nothing for changing the upward mobility of other disenfranchised populations.

Notice anything about this @HuffingtonPost editors meeting? 💃💃💪🏼💪🏼 pic.twitter.com/7sg4SyraPa

— Liz Heron (@lheron) May 20, 2016

Let’s talk about name discrimination

There was a study about a decade ago that showed resumes with “black-sounding” names were around 50% less likely to be called in for an interview than white-sounding names with the same resume info. This, of course, gave credence to the time-honored tradition of minorities needing to change their names to assimilate into “American Culture” and pointed out a glaring issue with hiring discrimination for those who don’t.

Let’s ignore for a second the fact that names like Jamal, Kiesha, and Malcolm were on the black-sounding names list, so-called real names with real cultural roots outside the black community but have been associated with black people over the years. Let’s also ignore the complicated history behind the origins of “black names” or the frustration Asians and Native Americans have vocalized about having to whitewash themselves in society, starting with their names needing to be anglicized even for social media.

Why are recruiters judging candidates based on their names and not qualifications? It’s disgusting and the ire of any black person whose parents hopped on the woke wagon in the 80s & 90s and rejected anglo-sounding names for their children.

My experience with this goes beyond just assuming that my thousands of resumes went unanswered because my name is “Quayana” / “Quay.” There have been a number of times since that study came out where I toyed around with the concept on Linkedin.

As an experiment, first I just changed my name from Quay to Quinn and took down my profile picture. That was the only time in my entire search that multiple recruiters like the PrincePerelson’s recruitment agency in Provo contacted me on LinkedIn about positions in their company. Not just in marketing/media, but in science and research as well. The most frustrating part of it was, these were jobs that I really wanted, so when I would send my resume with my real name and didn’t get callbacks, it broke my heart.

Then there was the time where I went full-on and changed my name to Quinn and my profile picture to a photo of a white friend of mine. Quay could send hundreds of LinkedIn messages; she’d maybe get two responses if she was lucky. Every single message sent out by young, white, and attractive “Quinn” got a message reply back, even if it was just to tell her there were no jobs available.

My friend and I came from the same background (foster care, homelessness, etc). That was reflected in the volunteer work and charity efforts listed on Quay/Quinn’s profile. It sucked knowing that if my friend had done everything that I did to better her life, she would have been able to completely transform it and achieve great success. It also killed me that no matter what I’d accomplished, I couldn’t.

Quinn was someone worth speaking to. Quay was invisible.

Why name discrimination is a problem

Sure, black people can technically change our names to be more “hire-able,” but why change such an essential part of one’s identity? Not to mention all the legal headaches with getting our school transcripts and degrees to match our new “job-worthy” identities.

The issue here is beyond perceived in assimilation, or the fact that people just think names like Jaquafious and Kamarisha are stupid. As a society, we do not see white people with names like Bretnyee, Ashleigh, Rainbow, and Neveah and automatically assume they are somehow “lesser than” because their parents got creative. So why do we assume Shamirah and Ty’nisha are?

Ultimately, it’s about the perception of who we feel will be behind the name. It’s about how people perceive others with and without “ghetto” names. Even when powerful black people with names like Barack, Kamala, and Condoleezza stand as counterexamples to the stereotype, “ghetto” is still the go-to schema.

With a name like “Quayana,” the go-to schemas for me is ‘Sha Nay Nay’ and ‘Shaniqua the Welfare Queen’ and I’ve been called them both by coworkers. For personal reasons, Quayana is not a name I go by, yet I’ve had white coworkers use it as an insult on learning it: “Whatever Quay-an-ah.”

There’s no way they could know the childhood trauma that’s associated with that name, but they damn well knew the racist implications of their mockery.

“Those jobs are for little white girls”

The above statement was told to me by a black producer of a TV show I worked on. My only official (paid) gig in the industry. We were talking about my stifled career and what I ultimately wanted to do in the industry (network tv development & acquisitions). For the record, my goals haven’t changed. I refuse to let my dreams die.

That producer chuckled when he said those words. He went on to talk to me about racial discrimination in media and told me the only way I would ever truly get into the industry is to “pull a Spike Lee” and make a movie on my own. Show the world I could do it all before I’d be allowed to do anything.

He contributed to this dynamic by skipping over me for every AP gig on his projects in favor of a young white woman. All of the researchers were supposed to AP our own subjects. To be clear, that was more of a sexual harassment/predatory boss situation for her than racism against me. She was advancing, but she was always complaining about how uncomfortable he made her — so maybe I lucked out?

Anyway, his words (and actions) were true. White women often reference the “glass ceiling” when discussing the frustrating sexism-induced limitations put on their career advancements. For black people, it feels more like a concrete one.

I remember my first “professional” position. Almost two years after graduation, while my white and white Latinx friends were already building careers, I got a 12-hour a week PRN registration clerk job at a children’s hospital. They called me in once in the year I held that role.

When I was finally called in, I noticed the doctors were all white or Asian men. The coordinators and supervisors were all white women, the lower-tier workers (receptionists/clerks) were all black. When I noticed this, I cried. Actually, I had a panic attack in my car. I was three years into my career search and seeing my future — it was one that I couldn’t stomach.

Never was this more evident than at the ‘hair sniffing’ research clinic. I interviewed for a research coordinator role. I was hired as a “patient liaison,” an arbitrary title that essentially meant administrative assistant / lower tier marketing position.

A fresh out of college white guy named “Dallas” was hired just months before me for the same level position (that I originally interviewed for). I had two years of research experience between undergrad internships and a year-long contract gig at my alma mater. I didn’t think anything about the mismatch. I accepted that was what the company needed at the time, and I desperately needed a job.

But then a year later when it became obvious the company needed another coordinator, I jumped at the chance of presenting myself for the role. I was told I didn’t have enough experience & they didn’t have time to train me on the studies. When I pointed out I already knew the studies like the back of my hand and the sponsors love me, they said they couldn’t go without a recruiter.

After a number of interviewees didn’t work out, I brought a resume to my office manager. The resume was for a fresh out of college white girl with a psych degree and zero experience. I thought she would be great to replace me as a recruiter so that I could move up. Imagine my anger when they were discussing her as the favorite for the coordinator position.

Why this is a problem

Here is where I should probably post a half-dozen links to articles about how “despite a drastic increase in educational attainment, degrees aren’t translating to jobs for African Americans,” especially black women.

Or how black and indigenous college grads are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as anyone else.

Or how educated black people have about as much of a chance at getting a job as a white high school dropout.

Or how White and Asian women are disproportionately represented in management roles while college-educated Black women are more likely to be underemployed or unemployed and have harder times finding jobs.

But the data doesn’t tell the full story.

One of my white professors once announced to our class that [my alma mater] prides itself on diversity hiring “but if you really look at the makeup of the employees, you’ll see most of the black people are still in the fields.” The painful reality is this is true for so many industries.

This isn’t a simple artifact of population size. If it were, you would expect at least 13% of any company to be black, 14% to be Latinx, and 3% to be Asian, Native American, or Jewish. Anyone who has ever worked in any professional realm knows that these dynamics couldn’t be farther from the truth.

If you were to go on LinkedIn right now and look at the ethnic makeup of coordinators and mid-levels of any major media company, you’ll see a sea of white faces with sprinkles of Asians, Latinx, and even less black people. If you were to look at the security guards, maintenance professionals, secretaries, and assistants that dynamic completely reverses.

It isn’t a question of skills or qualifications. It’s not a matter of college rank or degrees or experience. It’s about what kinds of jobs people associate with Black and Brown people.

Companies dismiss this discrepancy in their organizations by saying things like they’re looking for the right “cultural fit” when bringing on/promoting team members. Why then, isn’t this a problem in the service industry? Black people seem to fit in with “white culture” just fine in these roles, why not in corporate America? More importantly, what’s going on in “corporate culture” that results in African Americans being underrepresented or excluded at nearly every level?

Let’s Talk About the Limitations of “Networking”

Over the years, I have attended lectures and meetings where people in leadership at various companies who were supposedly looking to diversify their ranks. A lot of them spoke of creating “networking opportunities” for people of color, special events, meetups, and the like.

The problem is that networking rarely ever means getting a job from some random person you met at an event.

It means getting brought on/referred by someone who knew you growing up, or you met in college. It means knowing someone in a position of authority who took the time to get to know you or connected with you through a peer that can vouch for your abilities.

It’s the executive who sees promise in you and has the ability to bring you on to their team and is willing to train you on the ins and outs of the company because they knew you through your father, aunt, sorority sister, or brother’s ex-roommate from college.

From my personal experience, the problem with networking events is far greater than just not being remembered by an exec who was impressed by you enough to give you their business card. That’s frustrating but understandable. After all, you were probably one of 30 people they met in one night.

The bigger issue is what demographics are more likely to be given the attention by the company reps at these events.

I attended a networking event held by my alma mater in Los Angeles. It was a room full of people, all clamoring at the chance to get 15 minutes with executives. Almost all of the execs were old, white, and male. They chit-chatted with the young white guys, made extra time for the young white girls—well the pretty ones—and I got maybe a few seconds of their time.

I thought it was just me. That I wasn’t attractive enough or male enough or just too old (I was 34) to be taken seriously for the entry-level jobs people were hoping for. It felt like I was the only black person there, until I looked to the side and saw a group of black people seated at a table. Most of them were young and attractive, by the way.

I actually approached them thinking maybe among them was the one black executive I must have missed at the event. When I came up to them, I heard one of them say, “These white people ain’t trying to give us the time of day.” I left, crushed. How were we supposed to compete when people weren’t even giving us any attention?

If you do manage to get that much-coveted 1:1 at an event and are still remembered when you send that follow-up email, there is the added issue of whether or not you met someone who in fact can hire you. Or if you will end up passed on to someone else in the hiring chain… someone not as “woke” or “colorblind” as the person who you impressed.

I’ve experienced this so many times, it’s not funny…

But the best example I have for this is when I networked my ass off to get an interview at a Major Network TV/Film/Video Game production company. Eight years of struggle and a cross-country move, I finally found an alumn who was willing to cut me a break. She worked in HR and was able to get me an interview for an entry-level “coordinator” position at one of their new streaming outlets.

I prepared for days, including looking up the person I was to be interviewing with on LinkedIn to find common experiences that I could use for the obligatory chit chat. I showed up for the interview an hour early and sat in my car listening to Eminem’s Lose Yourself, rereading my notes I’d written on the company, and how my experience matched its needs and mission.

The woman I interviewed with didn’t even bother to ask me any questions other than “Why do you want to be an assistant?” So, I tried carrying the interview with the completely disinterested young 20-something who I was supposed to be replacing (she was getting promoted). She made it clear that I wasn’t going to get the job after our 15-minute interview was over. “If the team is interested, they’ll reach out. But I suggest you look for other open positions.”

I was later told that I wasn’t hired because I was late to the interview. I got to the office an hour early, sat in my car, then walked in the door 15 minutes before our meeting time. She was late.

I was also told that I needed more business development experience and the recruiter suggested that I try going through the mailroom or starting as a page to work my way up.

Every role I ever worked involved developing, revamping, or just boosting the output of struggling businesses, and I did a lot of that for free which, if anything, showed my passion for the industry. The job I was interviewing for was an assistant role. My white interviewer’s only experience prior to that same job? Teaching Hebrew school.

And while keeping a bunch of adolescent boys under control is a feat onto itself, it has nothing on leading research project development while simultaneously facilitating communications between infectious disease doctors and the DMID/NIH during the Ebola epidemic or even more relevant, organizing live conferences and working on a kid’s show.

So why was she qualified for the position, but I wasn’t? It was my one true shot at my dream job. My dream life. And it was shredded by some twenty-year-old who decided on first sight that I wasn’t worth being given a chance. I fell apart. I wasn’t just heartbroken, I was completely broken and had a rather embarrassing emotional breakdown that led to me becoming suicidal. I felt I’d never be allowed to amount to anything in this world, so why bother to try anymore.

If only that alumni contact was a hiring manager instead of an HR Rep, maybe things would have turned out different. Maybe I would have had a chance.

The Problem with Networking

They say “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I guess that could explain the discrepancies in job titles and unemployment/underemployment levels between People of Color—especially African and Native Americans and other demographics.

People tend to associate with others who have had similar life experiences and opinions regardless of race. Because race plays such a big factor in how communities are structured and people’s opinions and life experiences can be drastically different based on the communities they’ve lived in, it’s only logical that as adults, people will know and associate with people of similar race or socioeconomic demographic. The problem of discrimination occurs when those associations are what is necessary for gaining access to jobs.

Due to generations of discriminatory hiring practices, African Americans were kept out of just about every industry. When you consider that companies freely excluded people of color from their ranks well into the 1990s without consequence (and the fact that Affirmative Action programs led to Quotas and Tokenism), this literally means that most black people do not have the social collateral to enter industries through “networking.” Some of us do, but most don’t.

How are we supposed to compete when everyone else has between a 50 – 400+ year head start on “networking”?

If you don’t understand where this range came from, please consider the fact that we are not the only demographic to ever be discriminated against. From the 1920s-1970s, while other marginalized groups (Irish, Jewish, Italians, rural Southerners etc.) were able to gain access to industries that would have otherwise excluded them simply by changing their names and/or tweaking accents, black and brown people didn’t have that option. We couldn’t just change our skin color to hide our “otherness.”

This is where people typically bring up Asian Americans as an example of a once indentured and incredibly oppressed “Model minority” that was able to change their fate simply through hard work and education. After all, they can’t change their skin color or phenotypic ethnic traits either. If “Asians” can do it, why can’t Black people? Well, it’s not that simple.

This video from Adam Ruins Everything expands on the point

If we are going to achieve this level of integration of the workforce, similarly aggressive efforts have to be enacted to equal the playing field for Black people, nonwhite Latinos, and Native Americans.

At this point, the only government incentives to hire most of us are tax breaks companies get if we are veterans or on welfare and willing to admit it. Would you admit to something like that?

The Real Solution: Actual Equal Opportunity Employment

There are a few “facts” that I’ve been told over the years by the career coaches, resume writers, and career counselors that I have sought help from. Less than 10% of jobs are achieved through online submissions, 70-80% of jobs aren’t published online. It’s all who you know.

I have also heard more times than I can count from people at companies that I sought to work with that the jobs I was applying for were already filled (or at least the managers had someone in mind) before they were even posted. Repeatedly I’ve been told that the only reason they are posted online is for companies to “look like” they are meeting EOE requirements.

How is that in any way fair?

Given the aforementioned issues with networking “access” faced by African Americans and other people of color, how is this in any way “equal” opportunity?

Right now, black people are the fastest-growing population group entering college with black women in particular leading this surge. We’re also still the most likely group to face poverty.

Even when you exclude Black people who haven’t gotten degrees and only focus on people who have graduated college — or even better — finished grad school; or if you exclude black people who go into fields like social work and teaching (known for low pay), we’re still the most likely group to live below the poverty line.

Why? Because degrees are not enough. They’re not translating to jobs for us. They’re not translating to upward mobility within the workforce.

Is this to say that everyone in every industry is racist and actively working to keep black people out of the game? Of course not. But there are systems in place that perpetuate this sad reality and it all begins with discriminatory hiring practices. True equal opportunity has to be created.

In an ideal world, this would mean 100% of available positions would be posted on-line, first come first served, the most qualified candidate gets the interview, and a color-blind hiring manager selects the best person for the job regardless of socioeconomic status of the applicant.

Do you have any idea how many times I was asked “what do your parents do” in interviews when I was fresh out of college? How is a foster kid/ex-street teen supposed to answer that question?

I doubt we will ever achieve that, but until we do, we need recruiters and hiring managers willing to go the extra mile to ensure they are committed to getting as close to EOE as possible.

We need recruiters willing to go through resumes that flooded their inbox after a job was posted, not people trying to find their way around doing that with buggy applicant tracking systems and preferential hiring through “networking.” We need accountability not quotas

We need recruiters who judge people based on skills and education, not names. We need hiring managers who will understand the difficult struggle faced by brown and black people in the workforce and who will recognize that not every company is as “woke” as theirs is and that maybe Latisha had to start off in another industry or in temporary/ freelance jobs because she couldn’t afford to just sit around and wait for the “right job.”

When I reflect on my difficulty starting my career, I can blame the obscure name of my interdisciplinary major. Maybe it sounds too “sciency” for recruiters in media. I can blame the fact that I had to leave jobs for pretty disgusting race-based bullying and thus making me look like a job hopper. I can even blame it on the fact that I came from a disenfranchised background and lacked vital industry connections.

But none of that justifies a 10-year struggle to build a career. It’s normal for people to work outside their degree fields and people change careers all the time. And quite frankly, f*ck my background. It doesn’t define me. It shouldn’t derail my ambition. If anything, I should’ve been commended for my dedication to succeed, not held back for not having “the right pedigree” or told I should “just be happy [that I] got an education” — both actually said to me.

I got an IGCSE online tuition free trial with TWINS Education so I could go to college. I made the grades, often higher than most of my classmates who came from exclusive prep schools. This is what people have been telling me and my generation was needed to succeed ever since Sesame Street.

But the reality is, hard work and education don’t actually matter when someone from an affluent well-connected family gets first dibs at all the jobs whether or not they worked hard in school.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that the way to decrease poverty and suffering in a demographic is through educational access and well-paying jobs, not “social programs.”

Maybe if we fix the hiring process, we can fix the poverty issue, and maybe if we fix the poverty issue we can fix the issue with “unintentionally segregated” race makeup of neighborhoods and thus fix the educational funding discrepancies between predominantly black and white school systems. Then maybe the issue of petty crime and drug rates in “urban” communities will decrease as well.

And if that happens, there will be even less justification for police targeting of Black and Brown kids.

Maybe then we’ll stop hearing so many stories of young black men and women being killed by cops. Or at least we can end people easily dismissing those deaths based on preconceived notions of Black & Brown people being criminals, or just “ghetto” thugs and welfare queens who don’t want to work.

If we want to break the chokehold white supremacy has on this country, it starts with changing how we hire.

Closing Editor’s Note – we are so thankful to Quay for her willingness to share her truth. We ask our readers to respect her showcase of strength. Any negative or pejorative comments posted will be deleted.

If you would like to make a difference, please consider donating to these organizations supporting kids in the foster care system:

Multi-Agency Alliance for Children (MAAC) helps kids of all ages through funding them for group homes when the state either does not or won’t pay the full cost of the placement.

CHRIS 180 provides housing and mental health services for youth in foster care from 8-18 and have an independent living program for kids who have aged out of care.

Covenant House supports homeless teens who have aged out of the foster system, DJJ (juvenile justice) custody, or have nowhere else to go with safe housing.

To keep up with Quay’s story, you can follow her on Twitter.