Our friends at Consume Media shared this footage from John Lewis filmed at the Davis Academy in 2017.
The Atlanta-based production company posted this to Instagram and thanks to founder, Leo Falkenstein, for allowing us to share it with our community here on Pretty Southern.
Congressman John Lewis was a true American hero and warrior for justice. It was an honor to work with him back in 2017 for The Davis Academy’s “Rise Up” video. His words ring truer now than ever. May we all speak up, speak out, and make a little noise. Rest in Power #johnlewis
“When you feel something, you have to act. You have to speak up, speak out, and make a little noise.”
We are all feeling the loss of this great man in a time where there is still so much work to be done. His legacy will always be with us. America, and especially the South, are better because of his work.
Here’s the full transcript of this meaningful message from Congressman John Lewis:
“It meant everything to me that I grew up as a young child, seeing things that I didn’t like, that I thought were wrong, and that I wanted to do something about it.”
“It gave me this feeling that when you feel something, you have to act. You have to speak up, speak out, and make a little noise.”
“I’ve always felt for many, many years, that the children will lead us. The young will lead us. The young will teach us, and show us a better way…”
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
My birthday is coming up and it’s making me feel all sorts of feels. I’d hoped to have a big blow out party (dba “The Revival”) as Kevin and I are also celebrating 10 years of owning our house + 10 years of marriage this fall.
I said a lot of hurtful things in the early years of our marriage, partly because I was young (I was only 25 when we got married) and the other because I was stressed the f*ck out. Kevin quit his full-time job to start Exomotive only a few months into our marriage, and I was also unemployed at the time (on severance from AutoTrader’s layoffs) and had just launched Pretty Southern.
But we were able to work through it, like so many other things.
He’s always been an early bird, and I’m a night owl. He’s an introvert, and well, you know me. We continue to find new common ground depending on the circumstances. He’s my favorite travel buddy (pre-COVID), we learned how to ski together, cook together while listening to ridiculous music on Alexa (no joke – last week it was Zydeco while making shrimp etouffee in the Instapot).
What I’ve seen from other relationships, knowing way too many 30-somethings who already got divorced, is that they fail to evolve from the fun times they had in their 20s to the next level of their relationship. I called it The 10 Year Curse. Like they partied together in college, got married because they’d already been together for five years, then split after a couple of years of marriage. Or on the opposite side, they dated their senior year, lived together for seven years, then get married and a few months later end up in couples counseling or got in touch with a divorce lawyer because maybe they never should have gotten married in the first place. Either way, they failed to make it to the decade mark of their relationship. This rule has a giant asterisk for if the couple has children, though not always the case. And for child custody and divorce matters, legal help coming from a child custody and divorce attorney in this field like the professionals from Sisemore Law is very much needed. If the marriage is still salvageable, then it’s best to undergo marriage therapy.
My idea of The 10 Year Curse was legitimized by a researcher named Jennifer Petriglieri. I listened to her interview on the ZigZag podcast last fall (ironically when I was driving to Athens for one of Jonesy’s cancer treatments) which she expands on in her book Couples That Work. Jennifer’s thesis is there are three (3) phases she discovered a couple must navigate to keep their relationship and career intact. Kevin and I made it through our 20s and Phase 1 (which you and Anthony are now in) and I’m interested to see what happens now that my partner and I are both in Phase 2, our mid-30s (LAWD help us!)
I also can’t help but think of our dear Mr. Fink and the journey he and Mrs. Fink had. His wife was truly his partner, following him around the world (or staying home while he was on an adventure) but Sue loved Conrad so much, and he loved her. I remember seeing them on a date on a Friday night in Downtown Athens. They must have been in their late 70s at that point, but they still looked so smitten with each other. Then at his memorial service in Athens, and at a few other Grady events since then, she (kind of like Edith Hollander) just have such a misty look in their eyes as they speak of their beloved husbands.
Full disclosure: Lindsey and I both attended from the same journalism program at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication; however, I’m a few years older and have watched Lindsey’s career take off since she graduated in 2014.
Some good news: in addition to her first novel being published, Lindsey was a recipient of the John E. Drewry Young Alumni Award which recognizes a Grady College graduate of the last decade who has experienced a successful early career.
Here’s a bit more about Lindsey’s success so far
“Lindsey Rogers Cook works as an editor at The New York Times where she teaches reporters and editors about data, and about how to make stories pop on digital media. She graduated from the Women’s Leadership Program at Yale’s School of Management in 2019, a program designed for women in management to prepare for future leadership roles. She also taught data journalism at the graduate level for American University, as an adjunct professor, both in Fall 2015 and Spring 2017. Previously, she worked at U.S. News & World Report as the data editor for news.”
Upon seeing the good news about Lindsey’s first book coming out, we caught up over email and are happy to share Lindsey’s stories (literally!) with the Pretty Southern squad.
Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from originally? After UGA, what compelled the move from the South to New York?
“I was born in Atlanta, raised in Georgia and attended the University of Georgia, so Georgian all the way. After graduating as a journalism major from college five years ago, I headed to Washington D.C. for a job at U.S. News & World Report. From there, I got a job at The New York Times as a digital editor and moved to New Jersey. Leaving the South was never my goal, but so far, it’s where my journalism career has led me. My entire family and most of my husband’s (he’s also a UGA grad) live in Georgia so we come back often.”
When did you start working on this book? How long did it take from idea/concept to completing your manuscript?
“I started working on the book in 2014, the summer after I graduated. Originally the idea was sparked by a dream, which is how I get many of my writing ideas. Since childhood, I wanted to write a novel, and I figured, why not now? I had never taken a creative writing class (still haven’t) and had no idea how to go about writing a book, so I just sat down and started writing. I would put the book down for months at a time, then come back to it, particularly when I was feeling homesick for Georgia and my friends and family there, all during my first jobs at U.S. News, through covering the 2016 presidential election, planning my wedding and many things in between. My husband was in law school at George Washington University at the time, and we’d spend most weekends working together at the law library (him studying and me writing). It took me three years to write and edit it, over which time, the concept, characters and plot changed dramatically since I didn’t outline at all.”
Where did the original inspiration come from for How to Bury Your Brother?
“The idea originally came from a dream, but was inspired by my family’s own experience with opioid addiction and overdose and the death of a close family member. None of us found letters like Alice does in the book, but Alice’s journey was inspired by the questions that come up after suffering a loss like that — mostly, why. The answer is slippery and impossible to deduce, but through the book, Alice gets some of the closure we didn’t.”
“My family has been incredibly supportive while I wrote this book — it’s dedicated to my grandmother, who has read it dozens of times. I was worried about their reaction at first since addiction is such a personal and in many ways, shameful issue for a family to deal with. But, I’m glad that during my own path to publication, Americans have become more open about addiction and mental health. Reading and discussing this book has helped my family have some difficult conversations about addiction, talk more openly and, ultimately, get some closure, and I hope it prompts similar conversations for the many families who have lost a member due to the opioid crisis.”
What’s your writing process like? Do you have a dedicated day/time to write?
“I don’t have a regular writing routine. I’ll go through periods where I write a lot, and some when I write nothing. For a long time, I wished I could stick with a writing routine and was sure that’s what a serious writer was “supposed” to do. But, I’ve decided to embrace the ebb and flow of my creative process. A great read about all the different work styles of creatives is Daily Rituals: Women at Work by Mason Currey. I keep it in my office as a reminder that there are many ways to be a writer.”
“For both my books, I sat down and tried to write as much as I could without stopping. I admire writers who can start with a chapter-by-chapter outline — it seems very civil. For me, it’s too overwhelming though. I write until I’m too angry and annoyed and confused to go on, then stop and try to untangle what I’ve written. When I’m done with the first draft, I try to outline it. My characters often surprise me while writing, and the endings of both books have been a surprise to me.”
How was the journey of working on the novel to finding an agent and publisher?
“A bit painful, to be honest! Until I started looking for an agent, I knew VERY little about the publishing industry and how it worked. I read Before and After The Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Your First Book by Courtney Maum this year, and it’s a fantastic resource I would recommend to any first-time writer. It’s easy to get sucked in to researching all the oddities of the publishing industry, and avoiding it during the writing process helped me stay focused.”
What advice would you give to an aspiring writer? Would you share some of your secrets to success?
“There’s no right or wrong way to be a writer.”
“Read a ton. Read diverse voices and genres and places and opinions. Read books you love and books you don’t and think about why. Take a book you love and make a chapter-by-chapter outline, tease out what the author is sneakily doing to your soul. I usually read about 80 books a year, and I learn something about writing from every book I read.”
“Write down EVERYTHING. My friends, family and coworkers are familiar with me writing things down that make me laugh, interesting stories, good dialogue or fun facts. I get ideas from everyone I meet and write them on notecards that I shuffle through when I need some inspiration. I can always find one to use. Try it. Perhaps it will annoy those closest to you, but whatever, you’re a writer now, see point one. Read the journals and letters of other writers. I love all the weird observations made by David Sedaris in his–they remind me that everything is copy and that often, truth is stranger than fiction.”
“Join a writing group, preferably one for debut fiction authors. Just make sure you agree to be tender and supportive with each other as you’re writing your first books. I joined a group of fellow journalists while I lived in Washington, D.C. and their encouragement, deadlines and feedback was essential to me.”
“There’s no such thing as an aspiring writer. If you write, you are a writer. Period.”
Before the Coronavirus outbreak, were you planning a book tour or to travel to the South? Where have you been sheltering in place?
“Before COVID, I had planned to do some events in the NYC/NJ area and some in the South. All, of course, have been canceled. I’ve been sheltering in place with my husband and our two cats in my family’s home in Duluth, Georgia. We’re both working remotely and plan to stay in Georgia until it’s safe to travel.”
What are your favorite books / who are your favorite authors?
“So many! As I said earlier, I read a ton. And on top of that, I have so many unread books in my house, many of which I’m hoping to work through during shelter in place. I love finding authors with large back catalogs that I can work through. Some authors whose new books immediately find their way into my cart: Dani Shapiro, J. Courtney Sullivan, Zadie Smith, Ann Patchett, Claire Fuller, Celeste Ng, Lauren Groff and Patti Callahan Henry.”
What’s next? You mentioned you’re already working on a second book!?
“I sold my second book (unwritten) alongside my first, so I’m racing toward a deadline on that! It will be published in Summer 2021. The title still TBD, but it’s also a southern family drama, this time set in Memphis, Tennessee.”
Alice always thought she’d see her brother again. Rob ran away when he was fifteen, with so many years left to find his way home. But his funeral happened first.
Now that she has to clear out her childhood home in Georgia, the memories come flooding in, bringing with them an autopsy report showing her family’s lies, and sealed, addressed letters from Rob.
In a search for answers to the questions she’s always been afraid to ask, Alice delivers the letters. Each dares her to open her eyes to her family’s dark past—and her own role in it. But it’s the last letter, addressed to her brother’s final home in New Orleans, that will force her to choose if she’ll let the secrets break her or finally bring her home.
Everything I Never Told You meets The Night Olivia Fell set against a vivid Southern backdrop, How to Bury Your Brother follows a sister coming to terms with the mystery behind her brother’s disappearance and death.”
Thank you to Lindsey for sharing with our readers. You can support her (and indie book retailers) by purchasing How to Bury Your Brother from Foxtale Book Shoppe or Indiebound.org. You can also listen on Audible
Editor’s note–the following is a contributed column by Andrea Walker
It’s Day _ (I’ve lost count honestly).
For the first time in weeks, I wore jeans! Holy crap. I put on my tennis shoes and got in my car and went for a ride around town. With the wind whipping through my hair and my sunglasses hiding my makeup-bare face, I thought about how a woman should feel attractive in this crazy time.
How self-care used to be about getting facials from your local dermatologist and trying out skin care routines with things you buy from a medical esthetics products distributor, trying on gorgeous outfits we were going to wear for a date night or work, and our usual monthly maintenance trips to the stylist. If you want to try a neck lift botox in Louisville KY, you may view their service page to know more.
Those who would like to reduce visible lines and wrinkles may consider getting facial botox injections like those Botox in Bethesda, MD.
Aside from all that, my stylish work attire still hangs neatly in my closet, almost collecting cobwebs (let’s hope not). I look down at my non-pedicure toes and try desperately to paint them over and, to be frank, I suck at it. My uneven nail polish is a testament to my embarrassment at self-care. I also learned about this Glitterbels that offers nail technician courses teaching you technical skills for acrylic nails, gel nails, nail art and much more.
I’m doing good to make sure my eyebrows are still plucked and tweezed. I have to say though, my significant other does a great job at home manicures. I even offered to pay. I just didn’t really pick these skills up as things went along, as one would expect. I’ve been thinking about enrolling into esthetics school to sort that out as a matter of fact. I haven’t had the time to do so quite yet.
Also, I’m now running low on new yoga pants to wear and considered going to the nearby CVS to stock up (which reminds me, I need to see if they have toilet paper too).
How many of us just feel ugly, unkempt, and the need to feel pretty right now? try the legal steroids to help your body how you always wanted.
I’m sure some of you are doing the whole #WFH routine such as still dressing in your custom uniforms from Total Image Group while working at your office desk and wearing makeup during video calls, trying to maintain some sense of normalcy. And if you’re not, don’t beat yourself up for the lack of “productivity.” I wore earrings during a work call recently and I wanted to pat myself on the back. That was enough for me.
In our self-isolation, our ideas around beauty have changed. Instead, we are focusing more on our minds through books and podcasts. Exercising our bodies to feel strong on the inside and out. Looking less in the mirror and more at our family and home.
Look, there’s no one judging you but you right now.
You’re beautiful even in your second-day old yoga pants, all the blemishes, wrinkles, and non-pedicure toes. You’re beautiful anyway.
Let’s face it. Pretty isn’t the new normal anymore.
And that’s okay. Take care of your mind, your soul, and the people around you. That’s truly what makes you beautiful right now.
Andrea Walker is a true Southern woman having been born and raised in Alabama. She received her journalism degree from the University of Alabama Birmingham and spent several years in broadcast journalism before moving into marketing. Andrea is super passionate about mental health and women’s empowerment issues. At the time of this post, she’s quarantined with her significant other in Birmingham.
