And when you look at these corporations, they chew us up, they spit us out, and they're done with you.
They just don't give a fuck.
Welcome to the Trill MBA Show, the career management podcast teaching black women how to become unstoppable at work.
I'm Felicia Ann Rose
Enuha, AKA the Trillest MBA, delivering the inspiring truth through strategies and tactics so you feel protected, confident, and ready to conquer your career.
Let's wrap up the show with Raslyn.
All right, Raslyn and we are back.
my God.
Blinds for you, sweetheart.
I feel like there's a lot of sun.
oh
yes, I just felt like God was shining on you.
And I think it's symbolic of the sunshine that you're in now.
So you have moved out of the country, but you are very much owning your own business.
You actively have clients, but then you've started a new venture called Notable Career Magazine.
And I want you to tell us.
You know, what is your mission and your vision for this new magazine that is for us by you?
But but it will be for us by us as this grows.
I'm so excited about this.
I mean, initially, all the things that I've gone through, everyone in my life kept saying, you need to write a book, you need to write a book.
And I just didn't have it in me.
Like, just, I can't keep rehashing the stuff.
you know, like people are always like, I don't hold any grudges.
I wish them the best.
I hold grudges.
I don't wish them the best.
Fuck them.
You know, they didn't give a shit about me and my energy is going to people like you, Felicia, that I give a shit about.
Right.
So I don't have space.
But I think that I started this because the stories I would hear, I felt like, well, mine isn't even that bad.
You know, there are women who were, you know, having to go through electric shock therapy after they left Target.
There were women whose hair was falling out.
All of us had our relationships impacted by these things.
And what I realized was I had a mom who at one point was the, you know, director personnel at the University of Minnesota.
My dad worked in corporate America.
He was in the top executive in his company.
I had parents who understood corporate America and what it did.
So when I would come and be like, here's what they're doing, my parents would be like, whoa, okay.
I think their first initial thing was
We had the same problems.
thought sending you to private school, doing all these things, you know, sending you to Howard, you'd have a different experience, same thing.
And I think that was heartbreaking to them because they really couldn't go in there and fix it.
Well, on the other hand, a lot of women that were being sent to me didn't, you know, their parents were like, please, I made $10 an hour and you're complaining about your thousand
dollar a year job.
You better make it work.
How do you go and ask your mom or your dad who's never been there, who think you're the problem?
Cause how do you fuck up this much money, goofy?
And you know, they're like, if I had the chance to make that, I'd never fuck it up because they don't understand what it's really like.
It's abusive relationship with corporate America.
think that we have.
And so I started this magazine, Notable, because I felt like
It wasn't about me and my story.
Well, I think this hopefully can be helpful to someone.
Like, I just wanted to provide information and for black women, because people kept saying, lean in and, you know, the memo and all these things and no disrespect to
anybody's, you know, thoughts about how this works.
But I just felt like that's not even going to work here.
Like, what are you talking about?
Because if the onus is always here.
And I think we do the work.
think we are introspective.
think we are like, OK, where did I go wrong?
Where did I miss these signs?
What could I done for me?
And I feel like it's just like, know, racism is constantly our problem.
And it's really white people's problem.
So what I want to do is just say, OK, A, you're not crazy, A, you're not alone.
But here are some things you should think about with regard to your career.
And it's not just
Oh, my white boss is fucking with me.
Although I do have an article about white women fucking with you at work because I felt like how do you do my first issue is about discrimination.
How do you talk to black women about their careers without talking about discrimination first?
And I just wanted to get over with because I think it's disingenuous to say to us, you just need to have a plan or you need a mentor.
You need to have an advocate.
And it's like.
Please, no one is gonna put their career on the line to fucking help me when this white bitch is fucking me.
She don't even, can't even take, do nothing with this white woman.
She couldn't even sit down and talk to me like, you know, the way you're treating Felicia, like we're all noticing it and you need to back that.
Right.
Yeah.
not cute.
No one's going to do that.
They're going to you.
So I wanted to have things like, you know, the next issue will not just be about discrimination.
They'll be you had a plan for your retirement.
Here are some questions you need to ask.
You know how your career can be impacting your friendships.
Like, you know, when you start making this much money or you're not and your other friends are making four hundred thousand dollars a year, you still make a 50.
How does this work when they want to go to brunch and spin like ballers and I can't, know, the things that affect us.
Do you need a 529 college savings plan or not?
You know, lot of people don't know that you can take out a college savings plan and use it for yourself.
Yeah.
You know, there's so many things that I think we're missing.
hmm.
Travel with your boss.
Please don't wear your Louis Vuitton luggage when you travel with your boss.
If you're traveling, you might can do that.
But if you're traveling with your team, here's how you should dress.
If you're traveling with your boss, here's how you should So those will be the kinds of stories that we have.
If you start to feel like you're being marginalized at work and you're not moving up, you're not moving down, what are some things you can do?
I wanna have those kinds of conversations and resources.
And I think the second part to that is, as a publicist, as I mentioned before,
There aren't a lot of black women who get to, who are ever even called to be interviewed and they're experts.
They're great in their field.
They'll never be in a magazine.
They'll never be in the wall street journal.
They'll never be there.
And if we don't make 30 under 30 or 40 under 40, the truth is by the time we really amass money and stash in our career, we are in our forties.
So we miss out the white girls are VPs at 28.
We're not.
Yeah.
really want this to grow to a place where, you know, I have like a 40 under 40, but it's not 40 under 40.
I have to figure out, you know, the notable, I don't know, but where I'm celebrating black women who may be over 40 or under 40.
You know, maybe there's these teenagers who have, you know, lemonade stands, whatever.
I just wanted black women to feel like they had a space.
where they feel celebrated for their accomplishments.
Like I want to get to the point where, know, hey, if you do something amazing, I'd be like, hey, you know, spotlight of the day is Felicia.
Like, look at the shit she's fucking doing, bitches.
Like, it can be done.
I want that for us.
You know, I want, you know, to have the BET Awards for Notable where we're up there getting, hey, girl, that robot you made, amazing, amazing.
You know, and I want to get there.
You know, and so that's really why I did it.
I was just so tired of the same story regurgitated over and over and over again of how they were using us.
And even when we get to be entrepreneurs, we have white clients, they get smart and, you know, do things that trigger.
Like I had a client trigger me, you know, where he asked for something and I was like,
Well, you know, the deliverables are this.
So what do you want me to take away to do that?
He was like, you know, I want this by Monday.
And I was just like, whoa, whoa.
Like I just had this like, I don't work in corporate anymore.
I shouldn't be feeling like this.
And so I think that, you know, even when we're on our own, we still have to deal with things.
So I did it because I think notable, the name, like I think who we are is notable.
all the achievements and accomplishments and amazing things we've given to industries is notable and there's nobody celebrating this.
Watch this on LinkedIn.
Hey, look at where I went.
I mean, I went, oh my God.
And I mean, I have to put my stuff on LinkedIn for the magazine.
But if you want to piss me off, have me reading through LinkedIn, I'd be like, please.
I hate it for us.
Yeah.
The other part of it is, and I think we touched on it a little bit, like the seat at the table, they keep telling us that we need and we have all these people seated at a table
and we're still getting beat up in these jobs.
I had a black woman reporting to the CEO at Target.
I'm getting beat up for helping her do something.
Like I'm getting beat up and she's there.
When I was at Invesco, there was a black man who I
thought I was cool with reported to the CEO.
I was scared to even go to him when this stuff happened because I couldn't trust it.
And everyone would say, he don't care about black people.
He just cares about himself.
know, even though I thought we had this, I was afraid.
I need to keep this job until I can't keep this job, right?
So what does this seat at the table even mean?
Because these DEI people or these people who are in these high places oftentimes
When you look at their team, their own team, not the company, their team, their team, black women still aren't paid correctly.
They don't have the right titles.
You know, if you can't make changes on your team, then how does the rest of the company expect you to do anything?
And for me, the only thing you need to do is make sure I'm paid commiserate with my fucking skill set.
Like if in D.C.
they says we make 45 cents on the dollar.
Why?
Yeah, that's crazy.
So if as a DEI person, like I read all these, here's what we're doing.
If I don't see pay equity in there and here's what I did starting with my team, I don't want hear it.
So it's not that kind of magazine.
Like I'm not about to be like, oh, amazing.
I'm not going to shit on black women either.
I'm just no gotcha.
It's not going to be,
I'm gonna, know, ooh, you think you're doing this in here.
I'm not doing that.
If you're on there is because I want to hear what you have to say.
I think you're, you know, I have something or I want to celebrate you.
Like I'm not even going to bring people on there.
I know I'm full of shit.
If I accidentally have someone who's full of shit on there, my apologies in advance.
did not know.
Because there's some people out there and on the surface you're like, my God, they're amazing.
And then you start hearing the things and you start learning the things and you're like, oh, they're just good at personal branding.
Yeah.
You know, my mom said to me, you know, are you worried that your magazine is just you writing everything?
Like it just says buy Rasmus.
I said, what you want me to do by the editors or something?
You know, what you want me to change it to?
She said, well, you think that that, you know, makes it less credible.
I said, it be just like a better podcast.
And I had people on.
said, I'm interviewing experts is not my opinion because some of the things I don't agree with.
But I don't know.
Is there stuff I don't think that I would think that way?
don't have their background.
So there's a lot of stuff I'm writing about that I don't necessarily think is, you know, how I would look at it.
But I am free.
And I can say things that other people can't.
I can name names.
can say, Ontario was my boss at Invesco.
She was racist and she dogged me and I won a million dollars because of her racism.
Yes, I can say that.
Those are the facts, I read it.
You know, when the judge gave his order, he said, I was a rainmaker.
He said she was a rainmaker.
She came in there and did things other people couldn't do.
You can't make this up.
I can say those things.
Other people can't.
And even the women that I interview, when they tell me for their magazine, they tell me their stories, they say, please redact that company name.
Even though they haven't sued them, they don't have a contract because we're still afraid.
afraid and that's one thing I want to get away from.
I I'm kind of gagged right now.
where they're making non-disclosure agreements where they're voided.
Yeah, that's going to be great.
You know, when you're in the midst of potential litigation.
In civil litigation, should say nothing.
I deleted social media.
I did not talk.
People thought I had disappeared and I didn't give two fucks about it.
People who needed to know where I was knew who I was, but there is no way I was going to risk some white juror going through my social media and me being like, women are staying
on black women's groups.
You know, like I didn't want none of that because I uh
hear the story and be, that's it.
You know, they couldn't come in and find me on nothing.
me, they know I do the podcast.
They've been known I do the podcast.
And in fact, they said that the reason why they let me go is because I do the podcast.
And they were like, and she should be happier.
I like my job.
My last performance review was the highest rating you can get in the company on a performance review.
So it doesn't make sense for you to say that.
And then you listen to my podcast.
So like, know they listen to my podcast.
They've told my attorney, they listen to my podcast.
think it makes sense because how dare you follow your dreams and do something outside of this mundane nine to five when I don't have the guts to follow my dreams and I don't have
the time to do that.
I think it's always goes back to putting you in your place and take your ability to support yourself and teaching you a lesson.
And I think that
That's why I say it's such an abusive relationship.
It's like an abusive boyfriend.
It's like, you know, I can leave him.
You know, you almost got to make him quit me so I make sure you don't stop me afterwards.
Right.
I mean, you know, tete a tete that you have to do.
Nobody is going to help you have a perfect life, Alisha.
That's something my mom taught me.
So if what you need to have a perfect life is this creative outlet, they're going to make that hard for you to do.
You have everything but a man.
No one's going to introduce you to a man.
If you have everything but a job, ain't nobody going to tell you about no openings.
Whatever they think you need that makes you have in their eyes a perfect life, they're going to make it hard for you or make it so they have no help in getting that.
thing is, I don't make money from doing this currently because I am a marketing executive.
That was my chosen career path.
I have a whole MBA from Indiana University, Kelley School of Business.
I had a whole fellowship to go to school.
At the time, it was the second ranked marketing program in the country.
I do this because of all the things that I've...
The same reason why you started...
Notable Career Magazine is the same reason why I started this show because I was hitting my head up against walls just in situations where I'm like that that really just happened
and like I can't be the only one and I was also learning ways to try to get around it and try to maneuver better and I wanted to share what I was learning and I wanted to give
people hope that
Hey, we can go through all this shit and then on the other side, there's another side and you will be okay.
And as I found that every situation I had gone through and I'm getting emotional because it's hard to lose your job and you being a single parent, you get it.
You have to provide for your child, right?
And for me, I don't have parents.
My mom and my grandma, they're gone.
I have to...
make sure shit gets done.
And then for you to take away the way that I pay my bills because of some pretextual reason around, oh, we thought you'd be happier.
You see, you know that that's not it.
That's right.
I know that's not it.
I mean, I was the only black person left.
think that what happens to us should actually be criminal.
Yeah, I think it is.
And I think to manufacture problems that render someone financially unstable or in financial ruin or, you know, feeling financially insecure should be a crime.
I mean, I think that
What happens is to it really stops us from the ability to really grow in our career and see ourselves, right?
Because every turn you're scared to do this.
If you say this, you did it, but you just you can't even be yourself.
And I think to some degree it does make sense because we are always trying to appeal to this humanity that doesn't exist in them.
Yeah.
And when you look at these corporations, they all went away from ethnic diversity to gender diversity.
And you know, that's not us.
They want us there for these numbers.
They chew us up.
They spit us out and they're done with you.
They just don't give a fuck.
And I think what happened to me was I was sad.
I was hurt.
was like, fuck the, what am I going to do?
Like when I, you know, lost my job,
They were so dirty that Invesco's policy was when you got fired, had till that ended that month to have your benefits.
So they fired me on the last day of the month.
So my benefits ended that day.
I they did like super dog shit where I was like.
You know, people were like, well, if you sue other companies and look, you know, I said, well, if a company looks me up and sees that I stood up for myself and they don't want me,
I don't want them either.
And I hate that you're going through this and you don't have your parents there and you don't like, mean, I'll be here for you.
However you need me.
You know, an EEO investigator and an HR person, I mean, if you need it, we got it.
But I did have parents who said to me.
we would rather sell everything and have you go to court than for you to buy out of this.
And the day before I went to court, my attorneys pulled, I'm thinking we're having a strategy meeting and like how things can go to Mara, blah, blah, And there was this thing
called a rule 69 and the rule 69 Invesco put on me was basically we're going to offer you $800,000.
You take it, you sign this thing and we give it to you.
If you don't,
and you go to court, even if you win, say you win, but you only win $600,000, you owe them $200,000 plus all their court fees.
If you lose, you owe them $800,000 plus their court fee.
do you understand how that's a thing?
Basically, it's to not clog up the courts, right?
Because if the judge sees this was a good offer.
He's going to say you wasted the court's time.
You should have taken it and they penalize you because it's hopefully stops people from just, you know, whatever.
And I'm like, what?
We talked to other people and they said this is a good deal.
And I said, were they black?
They said, no, I said, I don't give a fuck what any white people you talk to said about this.
I don't give a fuck.
We are going to court.
got to get yourself fucking ready for tomorrow.
And my mom's sitting there with me and she's like, you know, you know, black mom.
And they were stunned.
And I called my dad and I was like, let me tell you what these motherfuckers did.
And my dad said, well, do you need new lawyers?
And we just said, no, they're going to get it done.
That's when he said, I will sell my home, all my car.
If you lose and you owe them, we'll just own for life together.
He said, but you're going to.
He said, "'Cause fuck them." And that was my family's thing.
Like, no, they need to sit on this motherfucking stand and feel bad like you felt bad.
I want you to be at home, you know, with a bloated stomach and, you know, palp interpretations, because you're gonna be on this stand figuring shit out.
I want you to have to look at me while you're lying.
and see what you did.
I want you to see the jury's reaction because my boss wouldn't let me pick my son up from school when I got back from FMLA, which I always did.
And I still worked in the evening.
And I remember the jury's face.
They said, well, why would you stop her from picking her son up from school?
Because my son said, I'm not playing basketball anymore because I can't get a ride home.
Like, it really affected my whole life.
And she said because she didn't deserve that.
oh
And the women, even the white men, I had all white people in my jury, one black woman.
And she went to the same hair shop as the black attorney they hired to pretend like they're diverse.
So I was really like Republican black judge who went to the girls' hair shop.
It was a lot.
Their faces were like, no, that's crazy.
They did such things.
And I think that's where I want black women to get to.
They don't give a fuck about you.
They don't care about your kids.
They don't care about the parents you're taking care of.
They don't care about the fact that you don't have parents and you're grieving.
You can't even take off work when people die the right way.
They don't care.
And so we've got to get to this point where we look at litigation, even though I know we're not always protected under the law, but they count on you not suing.
Yeah, they do.
And that's one thing attorney and Nita is really working to bring together tools as well.
And I've been working with her to get us all to a place where litigation is no longer a barrier because we are going to have to fight this in the courts.
We're going to have to because these companies won't change.
They don't understand change.
And I think what's most egregious is the whole
If you settle, they put in there a clause that usually says something to the effect of there was no wrongdoing found on the part of the company.
And you agree to that.
if you settle in choir in court, but you can negotiate that.
And that's what people don't also know.
We need to start doing that.
you have a voice in this too.
And I think what we do is we go into these situations and we let them happen to us.
And I think that, you know, when I got fired from Target and I started working at US bank and it's in the same building, my actual office was actually in the US bank building when
I worked in Target.
So I'm in there having lunch and I remember seeing the director, the white guy, we were in a restaurant and I,
I don't know, like I felt like I saw him, but I wasn't sure and I didn't care.
And I felt like he was looking at me and he wanted me to, so he could.
And I thought to myself, motherfucker, you are not my boss anymore.
You not want me to make eye contact, because I'm going to go all the way off in this motherfucking salad shop and I'm going to look crazy, but I'm going to feel better.
So don't even, you know, I didn't know if it was him.
I felt like it was him, you know, and I felt like I was this to see if it was me.
And I'm looking and he's looking, you know, I'm looking at the thing.
I think that Caesar salad with chicken looks real good.
And I could feel, you know, I'm an ignorer.
can ignore, but I could feel it.
And I felt like I don't work there anymore.
And I had to keep telling myself that I don't work there anymore.
Fuck you.
I don't work there anymore.
And I think we still feel, oh, they didn't like me.
Oh, they rejected me.
Oh, you know, it happened to me.
Yes, it did.
But now you have leverage and control, too.
They don't want you talking about this shit.
I went to court.
can say whatever the fuck I want.
I didn't sign shit.
It's public.
I pulled it up and read it myself.
Google it and have it.
But I'm telling you, like there were even things with my attorney, you know, was why he didn't understand everything.
Like I'd be like, like even when I said the guy was like, we wanted to make sure people were comfortable with her.
And I was like, back over.
And he was like, you know, I don't want to confuse the jury.
And I'm like, Jesus, mother fucking Christ.
You know, that was even a battle.
If I hadn't had my mom there.
My godmother, they went every day.
My trial was over a week.
I mean, it wasn't like a day.
was a fucking shit show of shit.
And if I hadn't had my mom in there, like, uh-uh, no.
And a lot of things that we got is because I didn't have employment lawyers.
I got litigators.
I feel like me and my mom, my godmother, my dad, like between us, we're going to get the HR stuff.
We got all the stuff.
We can organize.
Like, we got that.
You need someone who's not afraid to go to court.
If your attorney don't have no money and you ain't got no money, you can't afford it.
You have to have a big enough attorney's office that can afford to go to court.
That's 60,000, sometimes $100,000 in fees to go into court.
I mean, I had to pay court fees.
I had to pay Xerox.
I'm looking at the thing like Xeroxing.
You have to pay all that back.
because they did it on a contingency.
You got to.
you did on contingency.
You know, it out of my settlement.
ended up having it.
But if I didn't win, I didn't have to pay it.
dream of mine is to have a nonprofit foundation that solely focus on helping Black women in litigation situations, like, and have a group of lawyers determine, like, which cases
that we would fund.
Not necessarily that we would get anything back, whether they win or lose, but just the practice of fighting, the exercise of fighting and not being afraid to fight because
there's a lot of fear around fighting.
think to our defense, it's the fear, also by the time we leave here, we're so beat up.
Yeah, that's true.
the mental, sometimes the physical capacity.
So I try to be very soft with them.
You can't fight.
They just can't do it.
And I understand it because there were times where I wanted to give up too.
You know, I just had parents who were like, girl, bye.
Should we make you some spaghetti and a chocolate cake and keep going?
You know, and I even, you know, the attorneys that I ended up with weren't my first attorneys.
I had a white man and a black woman attorney when I started.
And the black woman was so rude and disrespectful to me.
Actually, the white guy was who was referred to me.
He brings her in because he says he's a litigator, but she can help while I'm still working there.
And she was talking to me crazy.
And she was like, this isn't like television court, like just real, just rah rah, just.
Yeah.
And she was so disrespectful that the guy who referred to the black attorney who referred me to the white guy who brought her in, I know that sounds confusing, but anyway, he was
like, oh no, she shouldn't be talking to you like that.
And I was like, first of all, if I thought this was Matlock, I would expect you to have on a zero sucker suit and oh like, who are you talking to?
Like this isn't TV stuff, you know?
And this is what I'm still working on.
They're dogging me every day, like dogging me.
And she writes me.
I don't think you have what it takes to go through with this and take it all the way.
And I was like, what?
How did you get that from this?
Where are we going with this?
And so we were supposed to have a meeting, said to the white attorney, uh we need to have a talk because who is she talking to?
This is weird.
And so we were supposed to have a talk.
And then I couldn't make it.
So I was like, look, I'm going have to reschedule.
I can't make it.
And then they fired me.
They were like.
We no longer want to work with you.
We don't think you're this and that we don't think it was Invesco.
We sent them a demand letter while still working there.
That's what would not respond like they just wouldn't respond.
So finally, they're like they kicked it all the way up to the attorney and Gary.
She was crazy.
Why?
They kicked it up to her and they made a pact with her like they won't.
send anything else to HR and they wouldn't, you know, do anything to me.
Like it would be attorney to attorney because she was the attorney at Invesco.
So once Anne finally responded, they were like, we have her ear.
We should come back with another number.
And I said, no, because you already started with a number and they didn't respond to it.
If you give another number, you're just negotiating against yourself.
Let them come back with another number.
Then if we feel like I said, but you can't go back.
with another you that's how you coming down from some they have me okay well we're asking for this they don't respond okay what about this they don't respond whatever you can't do
that that's not so so anyway I didn't make it they fire me they're like we no longer want to work with you blah blah and I'm like what so I ended up finding these other attorneys
now while I'm going through litigation these two you know goofball attorneys
writing letters to me and my new attorney saying whatever I get from Invesco, they are to get a portion of it.
No, you fired me.
And so my attorney's like, you fired her.
Like, this is crazy.
He's like, well, we'll just let, know, they, and they're like demanding money.
We're going to sue you.
Like, this is a black woman.
I'm going to sue you.
Then they stopped emailing together.
Now she's like, he's like, forget her.
Just give me my money.
And like, it's just, we're like, we're not giving you anything.
So even after I won, I don't know if they knew if I won or not.
But they sent me a demand letter like, need to give us some money or whatever.
And I was like, I'm never giving you anything.
So I had to report them to like the board.
I don't even know what happened.
If it went through or not, because I ended up moving, you know, whatever.
But they were threatening me the whole and they fired me.
And I have the email, you know, I have everything.
Right.
We don't do any more.
You did it.
And I'm like, what?
And then still, after I won, they were demanding money from me.
and my attorneys and I had a huge law firm in New York, like they weren't the type of attorneys you were going to be honking.
And that's really what happened.
mean, so be careful with the attorney because A, they were trying to make me settle because they wanted that quick money and they were so rude to me.
Like, I mean, I'm paid every day and now I have this black woman.
I don't understand skin folk.
I'll never understand skin folk.
That it'll never make sense to me.
Raslyn, before we go, tell us how do we connect with you?
How do we support you?
Definitely want to amplify Notable Career Magazine.
You have some really great articles.
I think they're dope.
Shout out to Maren for connecting us.
Yes, so what are the things you need us to do to support and then any resources that we can send your way as you build to pour into us?
The email address for me is info at notablecareersmag.com.
And that's to share like, hey, I have an idea or like, here's what I'd like to know about.
Can you do an article on this?
Or I'm a subject matter expert in this.
And I love to share, you know, whatever.
and I've gotten a lot of women who are like, hey, how do I help?
do I, you know, and I'm like, girl, info at notablecareersmag.com.
But the magazine itself is www.notablecareersmag.com.
And I started it so I could be helpful and provide resources for black women who are just trying to figure out their careers, but also to give black women who are subject matter
experts the opportunity to be interviewed and talk about what they know and what they've experienced.
and all the things that they have to share that often get overlooked.
And so I called it notable because I think what we do and what we contribute to industries and companies and careers is notable and it deserves to be celebrated.
And also it's a double meaning.
It's no table because I think black women are tired of this table we keep being told about and
We know that having a seat at the table, the people who are there aren't even able to advocate for themselves, let alone advocate for the rest of us.
So it just doesn't make any sense.
So our notion at Notable is we want to knock that motherfucker over.
So there's no table.
And so there's an equitable workplace for everyone.
you know, while I say everyone, I'm really more concerned about black women.
I think if we have an equitable workplace, everybody else has one.
So I'm not into people of color.
It's not a woman of color.
is for black women.
That's the end of it I don't care what anybody thinks about it You know, I tell them you don't if you can't like the article because your boss might see it fine I'm okay with
that.
Just send me a little note and tell me you enjoyed it or something like that, you know Yeah, cuz I get it, you know
did too, and that's why, I mean, I struggle because I call this the Trill MBA Show, but I also understand I still work in corporate, my audience is still in corporate and
workplaces, and so we are trying to survive.
And unfortunately right now, what survival means is pretending not being able to be free in our own being and spirit a lot of times.
think though, you know, one thing I learned, I learned a lot of things.
I learned, like I said, they don't treat you better when you don't advocate for yourself.
They don't treat you better if your nails are taupe versus gold with diamonds on it.
They're not nicer to you when you're here straight or versus when it's natural.
You're going to get it at some point.
If you're doing anything dynamic, you're going to get it.
And I think if you go into your jobs with that understanding, then you're just not going to be as bothered until it's time to really be bothered.
I think you have to advocate for yourself.
We're just too grown to be letting them do us this way.
Yeah, we've got to fight back.
I've got to be like, excuse me, who are you talking to?
Why would you say that to me?
What does that mean?
You know, we let so much go and by the time we, you know, say our piece, you know, they have a different culture.
Their culture is, you know, you weren't taking responsibility.
Why didn't you say anything before?
Like even in my court case, they're like, why didn't you say that it was racial discrimination in the beginning?
Because I didn't want to get fired, bitch.
Because that's what happens.
By the time I said it, I meant it and I didn't give a fuck what was going to happen after that.
I just was like, what are they going to do, kill me?
I mean, I'm going to be dead if I keep letting them stress me out like this.
I was not sleeping, my cortisol was off the charts, my cortisol levels, I was gaining weight, then I was losing weight.
You know, like my son was like, mom, like he was worried about me.
And even through the court case, like he was texting me, I love you, mom, you got this, you know?
And I think I was just so in it and scared.
I was going to lose everything that I tried to be a good mom at that time, but I don't know if I was successful in that.
did the best that I could.
That's all he needed to do.
But I think like everything suffered, relationships suffered, like any guy that I was dealing with, like if he couldn't be like, fuck them, I'll pay all your bills.
Did I want to talk to him about what's going on at Mayork?
No, I don't, because you can't fucking self and help me.
And if you could, you're not.
So, you know, I'm not going to sit on the phone like crying to some dude who can't be like, fuck it, I'll pay your mortgage for the rest of the year.
What have you always wanted to do?
I would have started notable years ago if I you know,
in a different place.
But I think it does affect how you see people.
Your friends are tired of hearing about it.
They don't want to talk about it because they're doing great in their careers and you're not.
You feel a certain way.
But it came full circle for me because the people who shunned me when I was going through it ended up going through it and then come in to me.
let's do a class action lawsuit.
Aren't you the one who told me that they'd never mess with you because you're so connected.
Now you want to talk to me about a class action lawsuit?
No, thank you.
Like when I was coming to people, they were dogging me, trying to make me feel like something was wrong with me.
And these are the same people that wanted to hang with me, wanted to be a part of my projects.
And when I was really going through it all those times, I'm sure they were like, this girl's a problem.
She keeps being put on corrective action.
But I keep getting off it too and getting apologies.
So that should tell you something there too.
I wanted to look at it like that.
I think...
If you have these issues, think about being a contractor or a consultant where you don't have to go through these, you know, reviews and these like constant, you know, ery gotchas
that they keep trying to throw at you.
takes away a lot of their power over you in control.
And that best time I had was at U.S.
bank.
And I think it's because they were great to me, but also because I was a contractor.
You know, I had some level of control over how this was going to go because there are rules to engagement that they have to follow.
So there are for you to think about your employment.
If corporate environment isn't for you as an employee, maybe it's for you in a different capacity.
You know, I know that's easier said than done, but you have to start thinking offensively when you're going through these problems.
And I honestly didn't see entrepreneurship as an opportunity for me.
And my parents are like, we would have given you money to do.
And I'm like, thanks for telling me now after I've been beat up and uh abused.
I did have PTSD.
I think sometimes I still do.
Really abused and put through it and they allowed it and they helped them.
They gave them the tools to try to harm me.
You know, I don't have any sympathy for these people.
I don't sit and think about them.
But if they do cross my mind, I certainly don't say a prayer for them.
You know, so I don't give a fuck about them.
But I care about black women and I think we deserve a better life.
We deserve the careers that we work so hard for.
All the sacrifices we make.
Us getting a degree, us getting an MBA, us doing this is so much harder than the average person.
And I don't think we're given the credit for all the things that we've endured, all the ways we've had to twist and turn ourselves to fit into these places.
And it's still not enough.
And you're treated like a child.
You're treated like a little kid.
They talk to you like a nothing.
You can't stand up for yourself.
You can't defend yourself or you're not accepting feedback.
You have to let people play and lie in your face.
mom or be a friend or be a girlfriend or be a woman to somebody or you know help the church do whatever it is you do you still have to stand up and do those things that's a
lot to ask of us.
It is.
I'm wondering when we're all going to collectively come together and just revolt.
And I'm starting to feel the shift.
And I think just in the general labor market, I'm starting to feel a shift.
But I feel like in particular, we have every reason now to be emboldened, to fight, to come together and fight together for our humanity.
Yeah.
What we need, we need our humanity.
these jobs, we have to force a change.
And I think I don't know what that revolt looks like, but it doesn't look like a seat at the table.
Now that I definitely agree with, but I will say there are some black women who I've turned them.
They're naturally polished.
And I don't think that's a good term the more I think about it.
But that's the only way I can explain.
Like our friend, Marin, she is dynamic.
She does stand up for herself.
She is the consummate professional.
I've seen her in action and she does dope shit.
She has gone through her stuff though.
Right.
And she's found the place where she fits.
And I feel like there are places where bad-ass black women will fit, will be acknowledged, will be appreciated.
fit at Target.
We fit at all these places.
We just get bosses and there's this manager's always right attitude.
I think what Marin has encountered is great and I wish that for all of us.
I think you have a more male-centric place, which I think she's at a more man-focused place.
White men are a little different with us than I think white women are.
And I tend as a publicist to be in a more white female-led space.
If you get into it with a white woman, it's this two women caddy fighting.
They don't see the racial implications and how she trumps you, even if she's at the same level as you not your boss.
I think when I started working in finance, I did better.
Now I had this terrible white lady boss, and I think they're not gonna
not protect the white woman.
But in my, you know, maybe warped mind, when I didn't have to deal with her, she made herself have to be dealt with because she was jealous.
But if I hadn't had to deal with her, I think I would have been just fine at Invesco because it was male dominated.
Nobody was really that's the only person who was competing with me was this weirdo.
And really, I was making her look good because I'm her fucking employee.
You hired me, goofy.
So I'm making you look good.
But she did it that way.
And even there was one call where one of the guys said to her, look, we're running a global fucking organization here.
Like you need to get with the program.
And he was like, we are so tired of listening to undermine Raslyn.
We can only imagine how she feels.
And this was on a call with me on the call.
They really, the white men did at Invesco do what they could do in their work.
They're my business partners.
I didn't.
So I will say that in male, white male dominated fields, we tend to do better.
That's the consensus that I get.
I did, when I was going to write a book before Notable, I interviewed like 20 black women about their careers.
And I did a survey and I asked them, think about your best work experience, close your eyes.
What was it like?
And what was the gender and race of your boss?
And for the best experience, it was white male.
90 something percent worse experienced white woman.
So same like 90 something percent.
And some people had a black woman.
I mean, I'll do you know, somebody better Latino somebody at age.
I there was some.
the consensus was when they had white male bosses, he let them go because you can't knock him off his square.
He's worried about you.
No, not at all.
He's take on all the work because he want to go play golf and hang with the boys.
And, you know, like at Vesco, they order, you know, Popeyes every Thursday.
That's what they look forward to thinking about you like that.
So I did get my best bonus when I reported to Dan, even though he threw me under the bus with Melissa.
He did.
He and Elizabeth did together give me my raise, do what I put me where I was supposed to.
I mean, I should have been even higher than that, but we won't go there.
when I did go to him and say, I think I should be a manager.
You let these goofies be managers.
And he's like, I don't think you're ready.
Like, you know, he might do he came from NASCAR and now he's leading events at Target.
When were you ready?
You know, they get to have transferable skills come from NASCAR to Target events or, you know, and help oversee me doing fashion.
Right.
You know, who do you think you are?
But see, they get to decide so much for you.
We have to find that out, but I do think, you know, even with all my bad experiences, the best match is if you have to have a boss, a white guy and a black woman subordinate.
I think that is your best bet.
And I've had women say like when they have job opportunities, you know, if it's a white woman they're going to report to, they, you know, more than likely don't want to accept
the job.
Or if they do, they know they got about a year before it starts.
oh
women say, I will work for a white woman, but she has to be married, have kids and be a have a happy life.
And I try to discern that through the interview process.
She's unmarried and she's to talk to you until life is over.
And don't you be married and happy.
You know, they don't like it.
So I think, you know, there's just so much that goes into us in a job and all these mental gymnastics that we have to play.
You know, is she happy?
Is she married?
Is she going to fuck with me?
If she does fuck with me, who are my allies?
Like it's just crazy town and nobody's going to say leave Felicia alone.
He's good for the company.
And if you fuck with her again, I'm going to be looking at you.
no.
No, nobody says that.
mean.
So after you revolt, before you revolt, what is it we're asking for?
And I think it's just like Black Lives Matter.
We are marching and people are like, do do do, do do.
Like it's okay, cool for now.
And yes, George Floyd and all that.
And then like, as soon as they change the bills, all the DI people are out.
Like, I just think that
you know, yes, we need to root for each other and advocate and have some sort of plan of rebellion.
I'm all for that.
But I think when you have that plan, then when they come to the table and say, what are you asking for?
What are we asking for?
You know what I mean?
Like, how do you articulate what it is you want in this workplace?
Like, hey, don't be putting black women under white women.
Don't even for the first three years.
Don't I mean, like, how do you say that?
So here's what I say we need to ask for.
Leave us alone.
Like if you hire us, let us do the job.
Leave us the fuck alone.
Like.
Because you don't do the job the way they would do it, you're not doing the job.
But that's why you hired me because if you could do the job the way you do it, then you wouldn't need me.
You know, I had a boss one time, I used to write stuff and she said, well, I wouldn't write it like that.
I said, well, that's because your name's not Renslin.
Now, if you want it written how you would write it, then you write it.
But this is how I wrote it.
Is it wrong?
No, it's just, that's just not how I would have said it.
Well, then you write it how you would say it, because I don't write like that.
And her critique about me wasn't that much.
She said, well, your writing is really good.
My writing's good.
It's factual.
It's punctuated correctly.
Everything's right.
Why are you bothering me?
But if you said that to her, she'd say, I was just coaching and managing her.
But it was an uncoachable thing, because how would you have said it?
And what was wrong with how I said it?
And our culture is so different.
I just think it's going to be a problem, because we would say that's nitpicky.
But if you went to some people, they'd be like, well, she was just being a manager.
She was just trying to.
You can't win when you can't even come to the table and see the same things.
Okay, listen, thank you, Raslyn, for coming on the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
This was so much fun.
I hope it was helpful.
It certainly was helpful for me to talk about it again and to, you know, talk about how I started versus where I am now.
Because you're right, you do get to the other side painfully and with time, but you do get to the other side.
And hopefully you can find people in your life that you can talk to about it, can relate to it.
who can lift you up and offer support and constructive criticism where you need it.
And soft place to land when you need that too.
I, know, if anybody, you know, has any ideas for things that they wish someone had talked to them about in their career or things they want to know, like I asked one of them, she
said, how do I get a board seat?
Good question.
We'll talk about that.
You know, so those are the kinds of things like tell me what they're not telling you or what you need to know or what you feel you need to know.
to be the best you can be at your career.
Amen.
Well, Raslyn, thank you so much and we will definitely be in touch soon.
Thank you, my love.
oh
Well guys, that's a wrap on another great episode of the Career Management Podcast for Black Women.
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