Speaker 1: Hey Va, fam. I can't tell you how excited I
Speaker 1: am to introduce today's for this week's guest, she is
Speaker 1: someone who I feel like I just don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: embarrassed to say that I wasn't familiar with her work
Speaker 1: until more recently. But when I tell you I am
Speaker 1: now a super fan, I am now a superfan. Her
Speaker 1: name is Minda Hearts. Minda is a workplace and equity consultant.
Speaker 1: She's also a best selling and award winning author of
Speaker 1: books like The Memo and Write Within, which both have
Speaker 1: become just Trevor treasure troves of insights and strategies and
Speaker 1: real world tips for women of color struggling to find
Speaker 1: their place in the modern day workplace. So you've got
Speaker 1: to check out Menda's books. However, she's also got a
Speaker 1: brand new book coming out as well that we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about called You Are more Than Magic for
Speaker 1: young adults, and that's going to be released the spring.
Speaker 1: I think, like, right now it's out, you can go
Speaker 1: buy it right now. You Are more Than Magic. Menda
Speaker 1: is also a professor at NYU WAG. She is a
Speaker 1: frequent guest on MSNBC, and she's been featured all over
Speaker 1: the place, from ABC to Fast Company, Time Magazine. She's
Speaker 1: a sought after speaker for companies like Liberty, Mutual, Nike, Google,
Speaker 1: You know, no big deal. She's out there, and in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, she was named the top voice for equity
Speaker 1: in the Workplace by LinkedIn. You can also check out
Speaker 1: Menda's podcast called Secure the Seat. She is our podcast sister. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so definitely head over to menda hearts dot com and
Speaker 1: check out all of her incredible work. After the show,
Speaker 1: check the show notes. We'll have links to all of
Speaker 1: her amazing content where you can find her books. But
Speaker 1: for right now, Menda is joining us on Brown Ambition
Speaker 1: minda welcome.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you so much for having me. Big
Speaker 2: fan of you and Tiffany, thank you for the work
Speaker 2: that you do.
Speaker 1: Oh likewise, how long have you been in this space?
Speaker 1: And why haven't I heard of you? This is my
Speaker 1: I know it's my fault, but I want to know
Speaker 1: all about how I know people who are usually in
Speaker 1: your space have fascinating stories, and I want to hear
Speaker 1: sort of like your origin story of how you came
Speaker 1: someone who is now getting hired by the likes of
Speaker 1: Google and Nike to hopefully come in and help them
Speaker 1: fix and better retain and develop and grow women of
Speaker 1: color talent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well, thank you for highlighting my work, because,
Speaker 2: like you said, everybody may not have read the memo,
Speaker 2: they may not know it right. And sometimes as black
Speaker 2: women and brown women are were erased in different spaces.
Speaker 2: So it's podcasts like yours, it's us amplifying each other
Speaker 2: so that people know that this work exists, so we
Speaker 2: don't have to suffer in silence. But it really the
Speaker 2: work that I started doing. I started back in twenty
Speaker 2: fifteen when it wasn't as popular to talk about, you know,
Speaker 2: how black women and brown women were experiencing the workplace.
Speaker 2: And it was shortly after I had read Cheryl Sandberg's
Speaker 2: book Lean In that I thought, wow, you know, there's
Speaker 2: some great advice in this book, but it's not talking
Speaker 2: to me. It's not talking about the experiences that I'm having.
Speaker 2: And so I really just thought about, well, what about
Speaker 2: women in the work and why aren't we talking about
Speaker 2: all women? Why are we just talking about women in
Speaker 2: dominant majority? And so I really just set out to say,
Speaker 2: let me start creating content around some of the pain
Speaker 2: points that we experience and I started doing that by
Speaker 2: a blog in twenty fifteen, and then eventually started doing
Speaker 2: these career boot camps in New York City around black
Speaker 2: and brown women how to negotiate stuff like that, and
Speaker 2: then eventually the books came. But it really my origin
Speaker 2: story was sitting in my car Mandy crying after fifteen
Speaker 2: years of being in corporate America and saying, is this
Speaker 2: what my life is like? Is this what I have
Speaker 2: to do to survive in the workplace? And I wanted
Speaker 2: to make the workplace better than I found it, And
Speaker 2: that's exactly what I've been trying to do.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, So I mean twenty fifteen that's when we
Speaker 1: launched Brown Ambition, and I loved the idea that we
Speaker 1: were like and obviouslytificansight here, but she's always here in spirit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love the idea that the memo was taking off
Speaker 1: and broad Ambition was taking off. And you know what's incredible.
Speaker 1: I know you mentioned until more recently, maybe it wasn't
Speaker 1: as popular to talk about being black women and women
Speaker 1: of color in corporate America. But I've never been so
Speaker 1: proud of the work that we did back when in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, when it wasn't you know, as popular when
Speaker 1: the all the media attention wasn't there and we weren't
Speaker 1: on all the lists and stuff, because it was like
Speaker 1: we set the groundwork and planted those seeds. Tiffany always
Speaker 1: uses that analogy of planting seeds so that when like,
Speaker 1: I feel like your phone must have been ringing off
Speaker 1: the proverbial hook. You know, after the summer of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: it seems like a lot of because there's so few
Speaker 1: of us. It's like, okay, who's a person of color
Speaker 1: and who can talk about the workplace and about women
Speaker 1: and okay, men to heart's done, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And like who's podcasting about it? Brod ambition and like
Speaker 1: two other people? Right, So I mean it must feel.
Speaker 1: How does that feel? How does it feel to now
Speaker 1: have like all this attention and do you feel like, okay,
Speaker 1: like I've laid the groundwork for this, I'm ready for
Speaker 1: this moment to capitalize lack of a better word, on
Speaker 1: this newfound interest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, Mandy, it's bittersweet, right, And my
Speaker 2: life did change a lot after the unfortunate death of
Speaker 2: George Floyd because to your point, when companies were starting
Speaker 2: to scramble and like, what are we going to do?
Speaker 3: They're like, who's out there doing this? Right?
Speaker 2: And when the old saying is if you stay ready,
Speaker 2: you don't have to get ready. I was already doing
Speaker 2: this work, and it was I had the memo had
Speaker 2: came out six or months or eight months before George
Speaker 2: Floyd somewhere around that time period, and so it was
Speaker 2: just like the perfect culmination of Yes, I've been talking
Speaker 2: about this, and let's dig in more. Now let's move
Speaker 2: to some demonstration and not just talk. And so things change,
Speaker 2: you know. I remember coming off the road in February
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty doing my last in person speaking engagement,
Speaker 2: and I didn't know what life was going to be
Speaker 2: like once COVID had kind of shut things down.
Speaker 3: I was living in New York City and then.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden things were a little slow, and
Speaker 2: then just the calls were coming. And I've been busy
Speaker 2: ever since.
Speaker 3: In a way.
Speaker 2: But what I'm happy about is we finally get to
Speaker 2: center black and brown women in the career narrative the
Speaker 2: way that it should have been centered all along. Right, So,
Speaker 2: now that I do have the microphone in many spaces,
Speaker 2: I make no apologies for it, because I'm like, this
Speaker 2: is what needs to be said, this.
Speaker 3: Is what we're going to do.
Speaker 2: And if there are women who haven't yet found their
Speaker 2: voices in the workplace, I hope that our stories will
Speaker 2: inspire them to activate their voice. Because we all have
Speaker 2: a voice, we just have to decide how we want
Speaker 2: to use it.
Speaker 1: It's such crazy timing and like serendipitous timing that your
Speaker 1: book had come out right before the pandemic and the
Speaker 1: murders of George Floyd, Brown and Taylor and the list
Speaker 1: goes on tragically. Talk to me about your book, I mean,
Speaker 1: having come out before the pandemic, is there anything you
Speaker 1: would have written differently? Or if you could add a
Speaker 1: chapter today, what would you imagine adding to the book now,
Speaker 1: having now come on the other side of this pandemic.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, it's interesting because before the Joy Floyd murder,
Speaker 2: companies would they'd be like, well, what are you going
Speaker 2: to say first? You know, give me a script, like
Speaker 2: we you know, racism doesn't exist here, Our black women
Speaker 2: are thriving. They never tell us anything differently. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: but do they feel safe enough to tell you how
Speaker 2: they're really feeling that's a different question just because they
Speaker 2: haven't said anything. And so for me, it was very
Speaker 2: much kind of this push and pull. And then once
Speaker 2: that situation happened in twenty twenty, then companies who were
Speaker 2: like afraid to have a conversation or buy the books
Speaker 2: for their ergs were like, wait, come on in, come
Speaker 2: talk about it, talk.
Speaker 3: About it at its full extent.
Speaker 2: And so I was like, Okay, now that you're ready
Speaker 2: to talk about it, we all should be ready to
Speaker 2: talk about it too, right, And it was just this
Speaker 2: weird kind of juxtaposition. And so for me it was
Speaker 2: again saying, what is the main thing? Has always been
Speaker 2: the main thing centering black and brown women in the workplace,
Speaker 2: And so I just doubled down even more on the
Speaker 2: content and it actually allowed me to write two more books.
Speaker 2: I wrote Write Within and You Were More or The
Speaker 2: Magic during twenty twenty and then they came out in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one in twenty twenty two. But those were
Speaker 2: an extension of the memo because I thought about, Okay,
Speaker 2: what are the rules to engagement, right, what are the
Speaker 2: office politics, how do you build your network? All of
Speaker 2: the different things. You're not going crazy? I want the
Speaker 2: memo to affirm you, but really the extension of the
Speaker 2: memo was right within to say, you've been exposed to
Speaker 2: all of these racial experiences. You may not understand how
Speaker 2: much it's harmed you, but you can be free of
Speaker 2: that right because we want you to be your healthiest life.
Speaker 2: You're not going to be able to be authentic and
Speaker 2: do the office politics if you haven't actually tapped into
Speaker 2: what's going on and how you're feeling about the environments
Speaker 2: that you're in.
Speaker 3: That's part of what you can control.
Speaker 2: And so for me, I often thought about the memo
Speaker 2: what I'd add, But I'm like, you know what the
Speaker 2: extra chapter is right within the act secure chapter is
Speaker 2: you were more than magic you?
Speaker 1: Okay? I didn't realize the right Within came out after
Speaker 1: the memo, so you just like, don't sleep.
Speaker 2: I guess there's a little bags under my eyes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's still two books in two years,
Speaker 1: my goodness. So okay, talk about the right within?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: So what's the take on that? Is that more, here's
Speaker 1: actual actionable strategies on sort of like how to survive.
Speaker 1: You know, now that we kind of all know what
Speaker 1: the issues are, now, here's how to survive and thrive
Speaker 1: right within.
Speaker 2: I took it from Lauren Hill's how you going to
Speaker 2: win if you ain't right within?
Speaker 3: And I thought about, what are the things that.
Speaker 2: So, for example, when I was in my former life,
Speaker 2: I spent fifteen years in my industry and there wasn't
Speaker 2: a day I didn't go to work while I wasn't
Speaker 2: racially aggressed in some way, shape or form, macro or micro.
Speaker 2: But I had started to normalize the behavior, right, so
Speaker 2: when someone would say, oh, the black girl or this
Speaker 2: or that, any kind of derogatory type of experiences, I'd
Speaker 2: be like, Oh, I guess that's just Scott being Scott today, right.
Speaker 2: So I just learned to sweep it under the rug.
Speaker 2: And I didn't realize how damaging that was to me
Speaker 2: in my life, how I saw myself, my worth. And
Speaker 2: then you think about the people you go home to
Speaker 2: or that you engage with that love you, they're not
Speaker 2: getting the most healthiest pieces of yourself because you've been
Speaker 2: in this harm this fight or flight survival mode. And
Speaker 2: I really wanted black and brown women to think about
Speaker 2: what freedom looks like. Freedom from being the angry black woman,
Speaker 2: the feisty latina, the docile agent, like we can't control
Speaker 2: being free, no longer confined by those things, and so
Speaker 2: right within was the inner work. And I talked about
Speaker 2: how I had experienced so much racial aggression in the
Speaker 2: workplace that I started to get panic attacks and depression,
Speaker 2: and how I sought to find healing. I invite women
Speaker 2: to heal from those experiences, so we don't take them
Speaker 2: with us.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the hardest thing about the twenty twenty, just
Speaker 1: twenty twenty in general, and the pandemic and everything was
Speaker 1: not was sort of having to confront all of that
Speaker 1: and to acknowledge sort of what you had been through.
Speaker 1: And I mean, your experience sounds truly horren this. I
Speaker 1: felt like I had the fortune of working at companies
Speaker 1: that were a little bit better than most. It seems
Speaker 1: like at at least not you know, egregiously, it wasn't
Speaker 1: like a lot of egregious racism. But then even for me,
Speaker 1: I think there's like the reflection time and what did
Speaker 1: you go through and kind of acknowledging it that can
Speaker 1: be really painful and that can make you, like you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, these companies now want us, Oh we're gonna
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it now. Talk to us.
Speaker 1: We're ready to acknowledge it. But for me, it's like,
Speaker 1: but are we are we ready to talk about it
Speaker 1: black women? You know? And do we have to do
Speaker 1: it on your time?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That part, you're ready, But like, this is traumatic and
Speaker 1: painful and not necessarily something that even we've confronted internally,
Speaker 1: you know. So for those of us who've maybe it's
Speaker 1: been you know, I'm not saying that everyone had those
Speaker 1: points of reflection and came to their aha moment in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Maybe you've been working on it since then,
Speaker 1: but it's been a couple of years. So I mean,
Speaker 1: what kind of advice do you have for those of
Speaker 1: us who now have acknowledge it and it may feel
Speaker 1: like we want to start healing. What can work? What
Speaker 1: can help?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, one of the things that I hear
Speaker 2: from a lot of readers of Write Within is that
Speaker 2: they didn't even realize they needed to heal because they
Speaker 2: had normalized all of the experiences be it. You know,
Speaker 2: we've all been to the doctor and the doctor will say,
Speaker 2: where's your pain point? Is it a ten or is
Speaker 2: it a one? You know, and we all have those experiences.
Speaker 2: But if you only have experienced a three in the workplace.
Speaker 2: Those threes add up and it's painful, right being mistaken
Speaker 2: for the other black women every day, or someone not
Speaker 2: giving you an opportunity to use your voice, or being
Speaker 2: overlooked for the promotion. All of that is painful, and
Speaker 2: we often know the reasons why it's that way, right,
Speaker 2: But what do we tell ourselves? You know, just work hard,
Speaker 2: just keep your head down. This is what it's like
Speaker 2: for black and brown women in the workplace. But we
Speaker 2: don't have to pass on those old tools of survival anymore, right.
Speaker 2: We want the next generation in our current generations to
Speaker 2: have the tools they need to thrive and not just survive.
Speaker 3: But we first have.
Speaker 2: To acknowledge that harm has been caused. And so one
Speaker 2: of the things that right Within is a little bit
Speaker 2: different than the memo is that I provide a lot
Speaker 2: of different frameworks for when you're One thing I call
Speaker 2: Mandy healing while in hell, because not all.
Speaker 3: Of us are able to leave where we are right now.
Speaker 2: We can't just quit, But how do we still focus
Speaker 2: on the things that we can control?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: But first of all, the number one point is acknowledgement.
Speaker 2: You can't heal from what you're not willing to confront.
Speaker 2: And I think for some of us, we never even
Speaker 2: called it racism because it was never even safe to
Speaker 2: call it that in the workplace, right, even to utter
Speaker 2: that something was racist up until two years ago. We
Speaker 2: you know, it's funny, dominant culture in the workplace will say,
Speaker 2: don't play the race card, don't make it about race,
Speaker 2: and then after George.
Speaker 3: Floyd, let's make it about race. Let's talk about all
Speaker 3: the things.
Speaker 2: So it's these weird things, and as you know, black
Speaker 2: and brown people, people of color, we just it's a
Speaker 2: very jarring to be in this situation and we're trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what all this means for us. And
Speaker 2: so right within is that soft place for black and
Speaker 2: brown women to land. We just need that space to
Speaker 2: be able to land, to be able to be thoughtful.
Speaker 2: I even talk about therapy and how that was a
Speaker 2: very big part of my healing and still part of
Speaker 2: my maintenance.
Speaker 1: Okay, ba fan, We're going to take a quick break
Speaker 1: and be back with more of my conversation with the
Speaker 1: incredible men to Hearts. All right, we are back. Here's
Speaker 1: more of my conversation with Menta Hearts. So you talk
Speaker 1: about therapy, and I think one of the things that
Speaker 1: is important in healing too, of course, is talking to
Speaker 1: experts and finding the right therapist, and that's also a
Speaker 1: journey in and of itself.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I found was I didn't
Speaker 1: realize I had kind of reached my patience limit for
Speaker 1: talking about race issues at work and women and how
Speaker 1: companies could how my company in particular could be doing
Speaker 1: better because I had been talking about it and I
Speaker 1: was like kind of like resentful about it when it
Speaker 1: was a summer of twenty twenty and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, y'all deal with this? And then within
Speaker 1: the next eight months, I was gone. But for women
Speaker 1: who are at work and maybe they've got some energy
Speaker 1: or they feel like, Okay, maybe I'm ready to talk
Speaker 1: about it, how do we make it? How do we
Speaker 1: protect ourselves? You know, if you want to spend time,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, doing the town halls or talking
Speaker 1: to your managers or trying to make things better, like
Speaker 1: you said, for the generation to come in the workplace,
Speaker 1: how do we protect ourselves in the workplace, and even
Speaker 1: if we're ready to talk about it in the company,
Speaker 1: says they're ready to talk about is there anything we
Speaker 1: should be you know, weary of or just kind of
Speaker 1: be watching our backs a little bit, you know.
Speaker 2: I think that the one thing that I always say
Speaker 2: is that we have options, and I think sometimes as
Speaker 2: black and brow women, we feel like we don't have options,
Speaker 2: that we just kind of have to go with status quo.
Speaker 2: And I think now we're at a position where we
Speaker 2: can say what we mean without saying it mean. So
Speaker 2: what I mean by that is, if we do want
Speaker 2: to engage in race, class, gender, whatever the case may be,
Speaker 2: whatever intersection, we can decide that that's what we want
Speaker 2: to do. But if we feel like we want to
Speaker 2: tap out, we don't want that, let the DEI person
Speaker 2: or somebody else handle that. I'm going to be over
Speaker 2: here doing my work and doing my own healing.
Speaker 3: Then we also.
Speaker 2: Should give our self space to do that as well.
Speaker 2: One of the things that right within in the dedication,
Speaker 2: it says to black women who were told they had
Speaker 2: to be strong for everybody but themselves, it's time that
Speaker 2: we no longer have to center everybody else's experiences if
Speaker 2: that's not congruent with what we want. And I think
Speaker 2: we can create the boundaries. Part of healing, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: is creating boundaries with people. So letting people know what
Speaker 2: good likes, good looks like to us, So if we
Speaker 2: don't feel comfortable engaging, we can use language like, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't feel like this is a psychologically safe environment
Speaker 2: for me to have this conversation right now, but when
Speaker 2: I'm ready, I'll be happy to let you know that,
Speaker 2: right And I think again, a lot of our colleagues, Mandy,
Speaker 2: they will tell us in a heartbeat what's working for them,
Speaker 2: what they don't like, the copy papers out, there's no
Speaker 2: more filters, the coffee maker, you know, like they have
Speaker 2: no problems saying what.
Speaker 3: They want to us.
Speaker 2: And I feel like it's time for us to recenter
Speaker 2: and say, you know what, here's what works for me
Speaker 2: and what doesn't because no one's gonna know that if
Speaker 2: we don't let them know what good looks like to us.
Speaker 2: And that is creating those boundaries. And so I talk
Speaker 2: about drawing your line in the sand, letting people know
Speaker 2: what's comfortable, and if you're not able to do that,
Speaker 2: who's your squad? And the memo I talk about your squad?
Speaker 2: Who are those people that you trust inside the workplace
Speaker 2: that maybe you have the conversation with them and they
Speaker 2: can have different conversations. So just knowing again that there
Speaker 2: are various ways and resources that we can utilize that time.
Speaker 2: But we don't have to feel guilt or shame or
Speaker 2: a responsibility to be somebody's teacher and give them the homework, right, Like,
Speaker 2: we can really now start to center ourselves and figure
Speaker 2: out what healthy looks like for us. And if healthy
Speaker 2: is not engaging, then that's not on the job description.
Speaker 2: I don't think any of us were hired. Many of
Speaker 2: us were not hired to be the educators of all
Speaker 2: things racial related in the workplace. Now, if you want
Speaker 2: to cut the check and this is an additional job role,
Speaker 2: then that's a different kind of conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. For me, I think it was also just realizing
Speaker 1: that even if there was good intentions, you know, on
Speaker 1: the employer's part or people in the workplace's part, it
Speaker 1: was that sense of am I just the person who
Speaker 1: makes you feel comfortable enough to talk about this, Like
Speaker 1: am I that you know people say they have one
Speaker 1: black friend, am I the black work friend, or am
Speaker 1: I the senior leader black woman who you can sort
Speaker 1: of look to and say, well, we're doing something right
Speaker 1: of Mandy's here and she's doing Okay. I have to
Speaker 1: unpack all of that. But if I think back on
Speaker 1: my corporate experience, is the higher and the ranks I got,
Speaker 1: the more it felt like I became that token, that
Speaker 1: like that pet. You know, there's this yeah, there's this
Speaker 1: whole idea of black women in the workplace kind of
Speaker 1: being a pet one day and then a threat the
Speaker 1: next day. And oh man, that is the exact thing
Speaker 1: that happened to me. I can't even I don't even
Speaker 1: know if I've unpacked that yet, but I totally agree.
Speaker 1: It's like the willingness to draw a line in the sand,
Speaker 1: like you said, set a boundary and not talk, not
Speaker 1: show up until you're, like you said, psychologically safe enough
Speaker 1: to do so.
Speaker 2: And we can create that for ourselves. And I think
Speaker 2: giving ourself permission to do that, right, because we know
Speaker 2: what it's like to walk on eggshells at work. We
Speaker 2: know what it's like when we're not creating boundaries. So
Speaker 2: let's flip it. Let's give it a chance, right. I
Speaker 2: invite people to think about, what if you haven't been
Speaker 2: creating boundaries, what's that one step. What's that boundary that
Speaker 2: you can create to help center you, because we're not
Speaker 2: going to be our healthiest selves if we're contantly walking
Speaker 2: on those eggshells and pretending that some of these things
Speaker 2: are not affecting us. Because I make the joke sometimes
Speaker 2: Mandy is like, no, we're not angry black women at work,
Speaker 2: but when we go home, some of our family members
Speaker 2: might see an angrier side, right, because you're you're taking
Speaker 2: all of that from one place that we can't express
Speaker 2: ourselves and articulate what's going on now we take it
Speaker 2: home and then the other part of it, it's chronic
Speaker 2: stress in our bodies, which is making us not be
Speaker 2: able to live our most healthiest lives on this planet
Speaker 2: because of all that chronic stress.
Speaker 3: So our lives, our life really depends on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely right, and our happiness, like our family's happiness,
Speaker 1: let's talk about you are more than magic. I love
Speaker 1: the concept of this book, especially being targeted toward young
Speaker 1: Black women. Right young. I'm thinking children like adolescent age,
Speaker 1: like teenage. I want every little girl and teenage girl
Speaker 1: to know that they are more than magic. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about that book and what it's all about and
Speaker 1: what made you want to write that next.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's my third book that just came out with
Speaker 2: Penguin Tine. Thank you for it. I'm just so incredibly
Speaker 2: proud of you. Are more than magic. It's actually, I
Speaker 2: like to say that it's a younger, a young adult
Speaker 2: version of the memo. So I thought about what were
Speaker 2: the things that I needed to hear at fifteen, at thirteen,
Speaker 2: being you know, a black girl in a predominantly growing
Speaker 2: up in a white town, but often being the only
Speaker 2: black girl on your teams, in your classrooms. Those sorts
Speaker 2: of things and some of those early experiences start to
Speaker 2: dictate who we show up as in our adult life, right,
Speaker 2: And I wanted to be able to talk to young
Speaker 2: girls to say, you know what, what you're doing right now,
Speaker 2: it's not magic. It's resilience. It's hard work, it's dedication,
Speaker 2: it's not luck. Right, You're not some magical faery for
Speaker 2: people to look at. I know we use the term
Speaker 2: black girl magic as endearing, which it's very much is,
Speaker 2: But any black woman that's got where she is today
Speaker 2: is not magic, right. It's hard work, it's grit, it's
Speaker 2: a community invested in her, and we're so much more
Speaker 2: than that. And I just wanted young girls to know
Speaker 2: that they could take up space right now. They just
Speaker 2: have to decide how much space they want to take up.
Speaker 2: They have a voice right now. What does it look
Speaker 2: like to have those conversations when their classmates says something
Speaker 2: that doesn't feel good, maybe it's about their hair or
Speaker 2: their name.
Speaker 3: Or how they show up. What does how you respawn?
Speaker 2: You know, you don't have to tie your worth to
Speaker 2: somebody's ignorance. You know, all the little things that we
Speaker 2: probably needed to hear, things like courage. But then also
Speaker 2: I wrote the book in a way in which adults
Speaker 2: in their lives are educators could also engage and read
Speaker 2: this book because we do. They do have voices, and
Speaker 2: we want them to have healthy tools to be able
Speaker 2: to engage and show up in the spaces that they
Speaker 2: need to as their full selves, not shrinking. Because we
Speaker 2: know what it feels like as adults when our voices
Speaker 2: are shrunk in the workplace, and sometimes those things happen
Speaker 2: as teenagers, and we just want to make sure that
Speaker 2: that's not happening to them so that they can be
Speaker 2: their best selves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that idea. I think one of the
Speaker 1: things for me growing up was sometimes the sometimes the
Speaker 1: voices that tell us as young black women, to go
Speaker 1: with it, go with the flow, just be grateful. You know,
Speaker 1: here's your awards, So pat on the head. Aren't you magical?
Speaker 1: All that? Sometimes that can come from people who look
Speaker 1: like us, from family, you know, for me, it certainly did.
Speaker 1: And I wonder, like, do you have any advice for
Speaker 1: this next next generation of young black women who I
Speaker 1: just feel like are going to be a freaking force
Speaker 1: of nature. And I hope they're not going to even
Speaker 1: know what imposter's inndrome is. They're just gonna be like, what,
Speaker 1: You're not gonna pay me? Well, bye bye. But I
Speaker 1: worry a little bit about that, like that friction between
Speaker 1: generations that you have a whole other generation who was
Speaker 1: told a completely different way of how to be, and
Speaker 1: then you have this newer generation coming up who is
Speaker 1: gonna hopefully know a lot different because they're going to
Speaker 1: read you are more than magic. But like, do you
Speaker 1: have any advice for that or any thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you brought that up, because as I
Speaker 2: wrote the book, I was constantly thinking about the generational
Speaker 2: gap right, because you think about for some of our
Speaker 2: some of our elders, they taught many of us be
Speaker 2: seen and not heard right, or sometimes they use language
Speaker 2: like speak up, girl, or shut up, or know you're playing.
Speaker 3: You know, all these.
Speaker 2: Different things that are you know, social media wasn't necessarily
Speaker 2: a thing for some generations, so they don't understand the
Speaker 2: pressure that these young girls may be under right now.
Speaker 2: And so instead of me showing up to the book
Speaker 2: and being like when I was your age, I decided
Speaker 2: to do a bunch of round table discussions with black
Speaker 2: girls across the country, and I sat and asked them
Speaker 2: questions about what they are experiencing, what are the pain points,
Speaker 2: and I wrote from there from their pain points, and
Speaker 2: I talked about my experiences around those and things. And
Speaker 2: so one of the big one told topic is difficult conversations.
Speaker 2: And I talk to them about it because I told them,
Speaker 2: there's people in your life that may not have the
Speaker 2: tools they need to help you be your best self.
Speaker 2: So don't let them dictate you know, how you show
Speaker 2: up in the world, because it's not that they don't
Speaker 2: want you to be seen or use your voice. They
Speaker 2: just might not know that it's possible, right, And so
Speaker 2: I also write to the parent and the guardians to say,
Speaker 2: you know, don't silence your young girl's voice. If she's
Speaker 2: saying something, hear her out right, so that you can
Speaker 2: have a diet. And I think that that's crossing the
Speaker 2: inner generational gap so that we can all sit together
Speaker 2: and say, listen, this is hard out here sometimes, but
Speaker 2: we you deserve to be in this space. You deserve
Speaker 2: to be in every room that you're in, but not every.
Speaker 3: Space deserves to have you.
Speaker 2: And the earlier a young black girl, brown girl can
Speaker 2: know that the moment she can say peace, that she
Speaker 2: doesn't have to just stay here and participate in this
Speaker 2: you know, oppression, but that she can find those spaces
Speaker 2: that celebrate her right. Or when I was younger, my
Speaker 2: father always had to go and talk to one particular
Speaker 2: teacher because she was always singling me out as the
Speaker 2: only black girl in class. So when those things happened,
Speaker 2: having the language to be able to articulate that sometimes
Speaker 2: things are race related, but it doesn't dictate your worth.
Speaker 2: And I think young girls just need to know that
Speaker 2: early on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if it's not I love what you said,
Speaker 1: I want to like go back to that because I
Speaker 1: just feel like I want to put it on a
Speaker 1: poster and hang it on my wall. But it was
Speaker 1: about people around you may have the tools that they
Speaker 1: need to help you be the best vers something like that.
Speaker 1: So such an incredible way to like a mind shift,
Speaker 1: you know, how to shift your mindset around Okay, even
Speaker 1: if someone around you is saying one thing, you don't
Speaker 1: always have to internalize that or going to people who
Speaker 1: may just be you know, your family or your friends
Speaker 1: at school. The world gets so much bigger, you know,
Speaker 1: once you get out of high school, even through college
Speaker 1: and then the working world, and then finding the people
Speaker 1: who do have who are healthy enough themselves to be
Speaker 1: able to pour into you, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: And like surrounding yourself, it may take a while for me.
Speaker 1: I feel like it took me years and years to
Speaker 1: collect the right little group of gems, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But when you find your chosen family in
Speaker 1: that way, and it's like a collection of mentors like colleagues,
Speaker 1: new friends, but yeah, people who you sort of surround
Speaker 1: yourself with, who are who are able to give you
Speaker 1: what you need and echo back to you how much
Speaker 1: you're capable of that's such a beautiful, beautiful message. So
Speaker 1: what does this look like for you? I feel like
Speaker 1: you should be at every high school across America, like
Speaker 1: doing talks and stuff. But how are you reaching these teens?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's been a different process having well
Speaker 2: when the memo came out, the book came out before
Speaker 2: the pandemic, then Right Within came out during the pandemic,
Speaker 2: and now you are more the magic.
Speaker 3: It's a new group of people.
Speaker 2: So the one thing that I've demographics, so I'm starting
Speaker 2: to I did an event with Black Girls Rock last week,
Speaker 2: which was really awesome. They have a Black Girl's Lead program,
Speaker 2: and one of their alums interviewed me about some of
Speaker 2: the topics in the book. But my goal is to
Speaker 2: get to every organization and school and have these conversations
Speaker 2: and also talk with parents and educators and guardians because
Speaker 2: I think that part of the success of young black
Speaker 2: and brown girls is making sure that.
Speaker 3: We have the tools to be able to support.
Speaker 2: Them in the ways that they need to and so
Speaker 2: again having these new tools so that they can.
Speaker 3: Thrive and be their best selves right now.
Speaker 2: But so, if anyone listening, if you know of any
Speaker 2: good organizations or sororities or fraternities that have you know,
Speaker 2: little sister or brother organizations.
Speaker 3: These conversations need to be.
Speaker 2: Had because now it's the time, right And like you said,
Speaker 2: I'm so excited with this generation because they're thinking differently,
Speaker 2: they're more inclusive and if they just have the right curation,
Speaker 2: there's nothing that.
Speaker 3: They can do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I And it's it's also I feel like
Speaker 1: on some level, maybe a little bit more difficult to convince.
Speaker 1: I'm a mom now. I don't know if you're a
Speaker 1: mom too, I have a young son. Being a parent now,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of shocked at how little I recognized how
Speaker 1: little this country, it can feel like countries, this country
Speaker 1: cares about kids in general, let alone black and brown kids.
Speaker 1: And the more I the more I, you know, look
Speaker 1: at the world differently through my son's eyes, I'm just like, damn,
Speaker 1: why don't we do more? And I can just see
Speaker 1: already the challenge of convincing. I mean, it's one thing
Speaker 1: to convince a company to invest in like having a
Speaker 1: mend to hearts come and speak to their erg or whatnot.
Speaker 1: But how like I'm just begging everyone listening to just
Speaker 1: think about how we are, like those organizations that are
Speaker 1: working with black girls and black girl empowerment and leadership
Speaker 1: and black You mentioned Black Girl's Rock, which is incredible,
Speaker 1: But how are we supporting and showing up for those
Speaker 1: organizations and showing that we care about the work, that
Speaker 1: we care about investing more in young women of color.
Speaker 1: So ugh, I just want to put them all in
Speaker 1: like little snow globes and protect them from everything.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 2: You know, one thing I'll say really fast, Mandy, is
Speaker 2: that when I did the roundtables with the black girls
Speaker 2: from different parts of the country, and you know, one
Speaker 2: thing I asked them, what would you want people to
Speaker 2: know about you and how to engage in the regardless
Speaker 2: of where I spoke to them and where they live
Speaker 2: in the country. They said, they just want to be seen.
Speaker 2: They want people to treat them like they treat their
Speaker 2: daughters and their sons and just be seen. And it
Speaker 2: broke my heart that even at thirteen and fourteen and
Speaker 2: twenty one, that they feel that like not being right.
Speaker 2: And I use this book as a protector, like, even
Speaker 2: on those days where they don't see you, know that
Speaker 2: we always see you.
Speaker 3: You're always seeing and you're not hidden.
Speaker 1: Yeah, make me cry. Minda but that's okay. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for sharing your beautiful work with with Brown Ambition,
Speaker 1: Ba Fam. You have to go to mindeharts dot com
Speaker 1: and check out all of her incredible work. What else
Speaker 1: can we tell people about you? Go pick up the memo.
Speaker 1: It's called the Memo What Women of Color Need to
Speaker 1: Notice Secure seat at the Table. Also, we talked about
Speaker 1: the Rite Within and your newest book. You are more
Speaker 1: than magic Mindeheart's Thank you so much for joining Brown Ambition. Hey,
Speaker 1: ba Fam, we could not do this show without your
Speaker 1: support or the support of our team behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: The Brown Ambition podcast is produced by Cumulus Podcast Network.
Speaker 1: It's edited by the wonderful Emani Crosby and produced by
Speaker 1: Tanya Bustos. Dennistimplinsky is our in house tech guru, and
Speaker 1: I am Bandy Woodrid Santos your co host, and I
Speaker 1: will see y'all next week six