“You may shoot me with your words

You may cut me with your eyes

You may kill me with your hatefulness

But still, like air, I rise”

—“Still I Rise,” Maya Angelou

I feel it is important to openly address issues that may make your journey more challenging. It is not my intention to suggest that every woman of color's personal story is filled with hardships and strife or that the issues raised in this chapter are ones you will face. In fact, I would be incredibly happy if none of these issues comes up for you ever—it is my hope that you're in supportive, nurturing environments with people who want you to succeed.

Unfortunately, women of color are more likely to be dealing with several unique situations at home, school, and work than any other group. In this chapter, I will attempt to outline strategies to help you through.

The Need for Grit

It's no secret that women of color have a lot on their shoulders. In addition to dealing with common, everyday issues, we're often contending with more demands on our time and energy, with few resources and support.

Many of the people interviewed for this book did not have a mentorship or someone to give them guidance on how to start and navigate their career.

Many juggled the demands of work, school, and family to complete or advance their education. Angela Dogan is pursuing her doctorate degree in information technology, assurance, and cybersecurity while working full-time. In her path to working for a Fortune 100 company, Titilayo Robinson had to take several part-time jobs and unpaid internships to get the money and skills she needed to advance in her career.

For some, life events also tested their resolve. Earlier in her career, Juliet Okafor of Habitu8 discovered that she was pregnant after losing her job in a mass layoff a month prior. Unable to go to job interviews, she had to go on public assistance to care for her and her child. She found a position several months later, but it was 2 hours away and paid her 50 percent of her previous job. She persisted, though, and ended up replacing her own boss 4 months into the job—she found herself leading sales teams in the Philippines, India, and other countries.

My mother had been diagnosed with a brain tumor when I was very young. This initial tumor led to more health issues for her over the years, including a decline into dementia, a loss of some of her short-term memory, and impacted mobility. The latter half of her life was spent in and out of hospitals, having numerous operations and medical incidents. My father was left to care for me and my sister, while also supporting several other family members in one house. Between work and caring for my mom, he couldn't be around much, and fortunately, some nearby relatives and family friends helped to raise and care for us. As there was only one income (already too high to qualify for most public assistance programs) and my mother needed many medications, there were times where a choice had to be made between eating, having phone service, making critical house repairs, or having the lights stay on.

This went on for nearly two decades, up until my mother's death. It wasn't until well into my adult life that I realized I was living in “survival mode” and just trying to exist. I was spending most of my time trying to find happiness in my life; having a meaningful and engaging career was not an immediate goal or one I thought was achievable for me.

These stories are not offered for sympathy. Rather, I offer them for a few reasons. First, while I believe 110 percent in celebrating success, big or small, I do think there is not enough acknowledgment in popular culture to highlight the “blood, sweat, and tears” it takes to be successful. Even with hard work, success is not guaranteed, easy to attain, or a permanent state.

The iceberg analogy, while somewhat overused in popular culture, is my favorite. I feel it accurately portrays the path to success.

When we look at icebergs, we see them only from the surface of the water. According to National Geographic, we may see only 1/8th of an iceberg from where we are standing. The iceberg's true size, though, can be quite massive, with some being almost 9,000 square miles and weighing more than 200,000 metric tons. One iceberg can take anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 years to form.

The same can be said about how we may see a person's success, without understanding the true depth of what it took for them to get there. We'll see a friend or colleague getting a promotion at work, but we do not see or know what it took for them to get said accolades. We do not see the countless hours of networking, preparation, negotiation, and late nights it took to get said promotion. We also don't know how long it took—it may have taken months or maybe even years to be recognized. We may not know any or all the professional and personal setbacks the person faced along the way. All we see is this surface-level moment of success, not the effort that made this moment possible.

Second, these stories are to illustrate that success is possible, even through the hardest of circumstances. The unifying theme of these stories is grit. Grit is defined as “having courage and resolve.” It means doing and facing things that can be hard and challenging in order to achieve success.

Grit does not mean that you need to be a skilled expert or working yourself like crazy. But it does mean putting in steady effort to attain your goals and addressing challenges. No matter what career path you take, you need grit.

The Problem with “Twice as Good”

Many women of color have been told that in order to be successful in their careers, they need to be “twice as good,” meaning they need to have the same, if not more, skills than their white counterparts and strive for perfection at every part of their academic or professional career. I have been told this many, many times in different ways throughout my life by well-meaning family, friends, teachers, and mentors.

I have mixed feelings about the “twice as good” mantra. I don't want to suggest that there aren't workplaces where a woman of color isn't criticized, judged, or penalized more harshly for similar actions taken by her white colleagues. It's been studied extensively by many universities and research organizations, the results of which point to this claim having validity.

However, I believe the mantra is harmful, as I feel it unnecessarily burdens women of color with an unattainable and unsustainable standard of perfection. This causes us to overwork ourselves to the point of burnout and exhaustion. It suppresses us, as we feel like we are not allowed to speak freely, to challenge people, or to make mistakes. And when we ultimately do fail at something, we cloak ourselves in shame and judge ourselves harshly.

While we need to put in the work to be successful, it should never be at the sacrifice of our well-being or to satisfy how others believe we should navigate our lives. We may not have full power or agency to address this issue on our own, but it is within our control to work smarter toward our goals, not harder.

• Don't multitask. Numerous studies have proven time and again that when you try to do two or more tasks at the same time, the output quality will be poor and may ultimately lead to you needing to redo both tasks eventually. Concentrate on one task at work or school at a time so that you can do it well and move on to the next.
• Prioritize what matters to you right now. You can't do it all at once. Nor should you. If finishing up a degree or certificate is your priority, then you can decide that all activities and tasks related to that effort will take priority over other activities that are nonessential.
• Strive for improvement, not perfection. Not only can the pursuit for perfection take a negative emotional toll on you, but it can rob you of appreciating the learning process. By making perfection the focus of your learning experiences versus taking the time to learn from trial and error, you may hinder your overall skill development.
• Make the most of unexpected free time. If you find yourself suddenly given the gift of free time—maybe a class or meeting was cancelled—why not use that to finish another assignment or use it toward study time toward skill building?
• Rest. It may sound counterproductive, but the more uninterrupted, quality rest you get or the more breaks you take, the better your focus will be, translating to better work output and productivity.

Failure

A failed exam. A rejection letter for a job you really wanted. A project you were working so long and hard on ended up imploding. These and many more are examples of the other “F-word”—failure.

Failure sucks; there's no getting around it. I have failed many, many times throughout the course of my life, personally and professionally. Some of these failures were minor and had no lasting effect; others were incredibly big, and their effects were felt for a long time. Some made me angry, others reduced me to tears, but all of them hurt my pride and were hard to admit to myself, let alone to other people. Even in my current job, there are some projects that I led or was on where I absolutely killed it, and others ended up being a straight-up mess.

To me, it's one of the most uncomfortable feelings on Earth. As much as I hate the feeling, I don't avoid situations where my chances of success are low or unknown. My successes make me feel good, but my failures have been far more valuable in terms of lessons learned and becoming more confident in my abilities. It also helped me to become humbler, more empathetic, and more compassionate toward others, as I've now had an opportunity to walk in their shoes.

When we only seek out situations where we know our likelihood of success is high or guaranteed, we are short-changing ourselves. We're missing out on opportunities that will help us to learn and grow and to understand others. Perhaps you will lose some time, you will lose some money, or your pride will take a hit. But most failures that we encounter are recoverable and not the end of the world.

That's not to say that I do activities that I know will fail in the end or repeat failed activities without thinking about how to do things differently—as my husband likes to say, “Doing something the same way and expecting a different result is the very definition of insanity.”

To learn from failure so that it can be minimized or avoided in the future, try to do the following when it happens:

• Feel your feelings about the failure and work through them. It is okay and natural to be upset when things go wrong. Pretending that it didn't happen, bottling up your feelings, or trying to rush through your pain will only make the work of learning from your mistakes harder. There's nothing wrong with taking a moment and stepping back; just don't stay in that moment for too long.
• Examine what went wrong. As best as you can, review the situation and where the failure(s) happened. This can be difficult to do, especially if the failure was one where you were deeply emotionally invested. If you are having trouble seeing things clearly on your own, you may want to seek a trusted friend or adviser to help talk you through it.
• Ask why. Get at the heart of why the failure occurred. A technique used by many analysts and consultants is the “five whys.” With this technique, you ask the question “Why?” five times to uncover the true cause, or multiple causes, of why a problem happened.

Let's work through something that happened to me personally, where I failed a major exam for a database design course that I was taking.

• Issue: I failed a recent database management exam.
• Why?
• I did not study the material that was covered on the exam.
• Why?
• I did not know that the material covered would be on the exam. I assumed that other material would be covered.
• Why?
• I missed class.
• Why?
• I was sick that day.
• Why?
• I had a really bad cold!

Although I had been sick, I didn't understand what would be on the exam because I wasn't in class when that information had been discussed. From here, you can now think about how to respond.

• Accept your role in the failure. If you discover that your actions, or lack of action, was part of the reason the failure happened, accept and own it. Avoid blaming or taking your frustrations out on others.

  In the previous example, although I was sick, I didn't reach out to my professor or my classmates. If I had made that contact, would it have made a difference in passing the exam? Maybe, maybe not. But because I didn't take that opportunity, I'll never know.

  Accepting your role does not mean beating yourself up about it! We're all human, and things happen. It means accepting responsibility without blame or judgment on yourself and toward others.

• Identify areas for improvement. Now that you know what went wrong, think about ways you'll handle the situation differently if it comes up again or how you'll avoid the situation in the future.

  Looking at the previous example, I could've asked my professor about what was going to be covered on the exam, or if I had explained the situation (that I had been sick), the professor might have granted me an extension so that I could take the exam when I was feeling well. Alternatively, I could've reached out to a classmate and asked for the class notes.

• Seek help and guidance. If you feel that you are struggling with a problem, reach out to peers, mentors, family, or others who can help. They may be able to offer a different perspective on how to approach a problem or suggest resources that you may not have been aware were available.

I emphasize that academic or professional failures do not, in turn, make you a “failure.” There's a tendency in our society to equate our career and academic achievements as a complete measure of our self-worth and value in the world. Subsequently, when we face failures and setbacks, we use these unfortunate events to reinforce in our heads that we're failures. Over time, this mindset negatively impacts how we approach our work and interact with others. Your mistakes and failures do not define you. Ideally, they make you better in the long run.

Impostor Syndrome

Impostor syndrome happens when, despite your (proven) skills and success, deep inside you have this overwhelming feeling of self-doubt about your abilities. The self-doubt is so severe that you secretly believe you are an “impostor,” or someone who goes out of their way to deceive others for their personal benefit. Your anxiety goes through the roof because you constantly think that you don't belong or someone will find out “the truth”—that you are a fraud.

There's a big difference between being nervous about beginning a new role or being recognized for great work versus having impostor syndrome. While you can suffer from bouts of insecurity and anxiety, these feelings pass, and there is still a fundamental belief that you can accomplish the task before you. With impostor syndrome, the insecurity and anxiety are persistent, almost deafening, and you attribute your success to pure luck, a mistake, or something other than your own efforts and hard work. High-achieving women of color, suffer from impostor syndrome at least once in their careers.

In Valerie Young's book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women (Currency, 2011), she highlighted five types of impostor syndrome:

• The perfectionist: This person places incredibly high expectations on herself. When she doesn't succeed at something, she assumes complete blame and develops negative thinking about her abilities. When things go right, it's because of luck or someone else's efforts.
• The superwoman: When this person feels that she doesn't quite measure up to the skill sets of her peers, this person works herself extremely hard to be at her perceived skill level. She has difficulty knowing how to relax and let go.
• The natural genius: If she doesn't get something right the first time or is struggling to grasp material in her first few tries, this person thinks that there is something wrong with her. She tends to avoid situations where she may fail and, in her eyes, look like a fool.
• The soloist: Asking for help is a serious no-no for this person. She wants to be perceived as being self-sufficient and struggles to ask anyone for help, even if she clearly needs it.
• The expert: People who suffer from this hate to be referred to as an expert on a subject because they don't feel they have enough knowledge to be labeled as one. They worry that if presented a question that they don't know the answer to, they'll be labeled as a fraud.

I have had, and still struggle with, impostor syndrome. A lot. I've had just about every variation of impostor syndrome listed here! I sometimes joke that the application tracking system software had made a mistake in letting my job application go through for my current job. While I'm joking, I realize the joke masks a deep fear that my colleagues would get to know me and realize that I had nothing to offer—which I know in my heart is not true. Just during the writing of this book, I can't tell you the number of times I thought, “Good Lord, why are they asking me, of all people, to write this book?”

Here are my key tips for addressing impostor syndrome when it rears its ugly head:

• Examine your feelings. Spend some time thinking about and understanding what may be driving these feelings. Is it that you don't know a certain skill as well as you think you should, or do you feel that you need external validation (e.g., constant praise from peers/managers and/or accolades)? By examining your emotions and fears, you can understand where the feelings are stemming from and the best means of addressing them.
• Ask for help. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. It really is okay not to know how to do something or how something works. Pretending like you do ends up getting you in more trouble than it's worth. By acknowledging this and seeking help, you can get better.
• Talk it out. Talk with someone you trust—a friend, mentor, teacher, etc.—and explain what you are feeling. Talk honestly about why you feel that you are not good enough for a specific role or honor. They can help you to examine if there is any merit to your feelings.
• Avoid comparisons and set realistic expectations for yourself. When I first started my current job, I felt enormous personal pressure to perform at the same level as my more senior colleagues. This was not realistic—my colleagues have been doing their jobs and have been in the industry for several years, whereas I was just really beginning mine. They had many experiences over the years to refine their skill. It's not to say that I don't aspire to be as great as they are at their jobs, but I also recognize the need to hold myself to realistic expectations of what I can learn and accomplish in a given time frame.
• Acknowledge your power and accomplishments. You have worked incredibly long and hard to get where you are—you deserve recognition and success. Don't minimize that by attributing your success to others alone or chalking it up to luck.

To quote author Marianne Williamson:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

Bias

You have likely faced instances of bias already in your life. To recap from Chapter 1, “The Current State of Women of Color in Tech”, bias is when a person or group expresses prejudice against another person or group. Bias can be either explicit, where a person is very clear and direct about their feelings and attitudes, or implicit, where a person's actions are unconsciously influenced by prejudiced behaviors and beliefs.

Bias is an incredibly hard and tricky issue to both pinpoint and address. On one side, when you are on the receiving end of a biased comment or behavior, it makes you feel small, weak, and angry. If the behavior is obvious enough—for instance, someone uses a racial slur—this clearly crosses a line, and the offender is usually dealt with quickly (although, sadly, I know this is not always true in every workplace or academic environment).

But bias can also be subtle. Take microaggressions, or “everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.”¹

Dr. Derald Sing Sue, a professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University, defined microaggressions as taking one of three forms:

• Microassaults: Someone will say an offensive comment but attempt to deflect harm by saying “I was just kidding” or “I was just joking.”
• Microinsults: A person will make a comment or engage in behavior that they believe is complimentary or helpful but not fully understand that their actions can be looked at as discriminatory from the perspective of the other person. An example of this would be where a person says to a person of color that they are “very articulate,” not realizing that comment might convey that you thought they wouldn't be because they are inferior.
• Microinvalidations: This is where a person will seek to minimize or deny the hardship a marginalized group may face. An example would be someone telling a woman of color that they are being “too sensitive” when calling out discriminatory behavior.

When people make biased comments, they can stop you cold, with several conflicting emotions roiling through your head and your heart.

How do I respond? Should I call them out for what they just said? Is the comment being made from complete ignorance (they honestly didn't know better), or is this a sign that they harbor truly racist or sexist tendencies? What are the consequences if I do respond? What if I don't? Could I be overreacting, or are my feelings valid?

There are no hard answers or guidance for these questions.

Although it can be a difficult or tense conversation, I recommend directly addressing biased comments or actions as they happen. Whether the comment was made from ignorance or malice, it's often the best way to stop the behavior from happening again.

• Ask them. If you are unsure of the intent of their message, ask the offenders, “Can you tell me what you meant when you said [comment]?” Give them the opportunity to walk through what they were attempting to convey. In some cases, they have chosen a truly poor choice of words to get their message across.
• Tell them. Explain to the offender that their comment offended you and why it bothered you. Having them understand why the comment hurt you or made you angry can make them realize how careless they are being. They may welcome the feedback so that they don't offend others in the future. You may also need to be prepared for the offender to react negatively or dismiss what you are saying—in this case, having a discussion with your manager or someone in a position of authority may be needed.
• Avoid labeling. Hold back on from calling someone a “racist” or “sexist” or other similar labels when talking to the offender. Even if the labels fully apply, these words have very heavy implications; offenders may decide to dig in their heels further rather than be open to having a dialog on adjusting their behavior.

At a previous job, a manager, frustrated with the operations staff's negative view of how the office was being run, angrily said during an all-staff meeting that the employees should just liken their plight to those in Roots.

After the meeting, I spoke with my manager and explained that while I in some ways understood his frustration (he took it personally that people didn't think it was the best place to work), I was offended by the comment because he compared trivial office politics to a horrible time in our history. Making light of slavery is in no way acceptable to me.

In addition, being the only Black person in the office, seeing my colleagues immediately swivel in their chairs toward my direction to see my reaction after the comment had made me more aware of my “otherness.” The manager understood why I found this upsetting and apologized the following day for what happened.

Having that conversation was not easy, and it took some time for me to feel comfortable working there, but it was a conversation that needed to be had.

Tokenism and Being “The Only”

While there are schools and companies that are legitimately doing their best to make their environments more diverse and inclusive, there are some organizations that, unfortunately, hire or recruit women of color only to serve as a false symbol of diversity or to “check off a box.” This is tokenism.

Being “the only” or “the few” (meaning the only person or the few people of your race or gender in a given environment) is different than being the “token.” While you may be the only or few in a given setting, your teammates are actively engaging with you. You are holding leadership positions with real authority and resources to do your job. You are consulted on issues surrounding making an environment more diverse and inclusive. You are a fully functioning and respected member of your team.

With tokenism, almost none of these things is true. You are brought in to give the appearance of having a diverse population but not an inclusive one. You are not likely to be in a position of authority, and if you are, your power and resources may be limited or nonexistent. You are likely the start and stop of an organization's diversity efforts, meaning that the organization doesn't see the need to diversify any further—they've got you, so there you go!

While being the only woman of color can at times be lonesome, being tokenized feels worse. It can be demoralizing to realize that an organization is using as you as a prop rather than valuing everything you bring to the table. Over time, you begin to doubt your own abilities and skills and may grow suspicious of every opportunity you're being considered for—“Are they considering me because they believe I'm one of the best candidates, or are they considering me only for the fact that I'm a woman of color?”

Addressing tokenism, much like addressing bias, unfortunately is not something that you alone can address. It is also not our responsibility to address this. It is up to organizations and their leaders to correct and address tokenism so that women of color are fully engaged.

That said, you can (and should!) push back or outright refuse to participate in activities or projects that you believe are simply vehicles to show off hollow diversity and inclusion efforts.

If you are the only woman of color in your group or organization, or one of the few, reach out and communicate with professional organizations or affinity groups within your organization (affinity groups are formed around a shared interest or common goal). This will help minimize the feelings of loneliness and give you an opportunity to speak with others who may share the same feelings.

Also, take the time to find the things you and your colleagues do have in common. You'll be surprised by how many interests you and your colleagues share by taking the time to get to know one another.

Bullying

Bullying is abusive behavior that seeks to harm and intimidate others. Bullying can be physical, but it can also take the form of verbal abuse and threats, sabotaging others' work, or subjecting someone to public humiliation.

Bullying doesn't happen only in school and between students; it can happen between students and teachers, as well as in the workplace. According the Workplace Bullying Institute's June 2017 workplace bullying survey, of the 1,008 respondents, 19 percent reported being direct targets of workplace bullying. Out of those, 65 percent were women, and 21 percent and 25 percent of the respondents were Black and Hispanic, respectively.

Lack of Support and Help

One of the hardest things to deal with when doing something new is when you feel, or know, that you don't have support from the people who are closest to you. Going in uncharted territory can be difficult, but to do it alone can make things feel even more difficult.

Teneika Askew's mom was less than thrilled when she made the decision early in her life to pursue a career in tech versus one in nursing. “She just kept thinking I was being bad or defiant because I keep getting on the computer after she told me not to. She took the computer cord away. I'd find another one at a local recycle bin site and use that and she'd ask, ‘how do you keep getting these computer cords?’”

Hereford Johnson, the only person in his family to have a master's degree, also recalled feeling like he didn't have support through his journey. “When you are the only person in your family pursuing something, whether by ignorance, or they know you're doing it but don't support it, sometimes you don't get the support you need from your ‘built-in infrastructure.’”

Unhelpful people mean well and want you to succeed but can't, or don't, provide help other than surface-level encouragement or platitudes (phrases that are meant to inspire you but may come off as empty and meaningless). They'll say things like, “You're smart, you'll figure it out,” but have no actionable advice to give you, or at least provide direction if they can't help you. They may give advice that is completely off-base or unrealistic, or they'll share a personal story that they believe is helpful or inspiring, only to realize that they wanted to take that opportunity to talk about themselves.

People who fall under this category I believe mean well, and general encouragement statements are important to hear—they have their place and time. But I'm very weary of the people who only offer clichés and overused phrases when someone comes to them for help.

I classify unsupportive people as those who are aware of your goals and what you want to accomplish, but who show their disapproval of your goals through their words and actions. They may express disappointment in your choices or tell you that you will fail in your endeavors. In some cases, with parents or guardians, they may try to withhold financial support for school if they don't like the academic program or school that their child attends.

There are many reasons why people are not helpful or supportive, but I believe that much of it stems from them not understanding what you're doing and why you are doing it. Also, some people have strong opinions on what career path you should take, and ultimately the life you ought to live, and become very upset when you choose another path.

After volunteering at a daylong STEM career conference for high school students in the Chicago suburbs, one of the volunteers I was working with was complaining about her son. He was 20 and had decided to take time off from school to work full-time and figure out his next move. He had been studying chemical engineering but did not enjoy it and left the program. The mother was upset, as she believed that having an engineering degree was the best possible, and only, way to ensure a secure future for himself, especially being a Black man in America.

The woman herself was an engineer, her husband was an engineer, and her other two sons were also engineers. To her, all of them make a good living and seem to be happy—why would he not want that for himself? The career fields her son was leaning toward, communications and marketing, were not something she saw as worthwhile. She was contemplating giving him a six-month timetable to move out of their home if he decided to take that path. She just felt like she couldn't support a path that was not engineering, as she didn't see his desired career paths as a good way to support himself.

I listened as she talked. I felt a lot sympathy for her because I could clearly tell that she loves her son to care so much and wants what she believes is best for him. But I felt much more sympathy for her son. If the conversation was any indication, the son probably didn't have his mother's support as he was going through what can be a challenging time in a young person's life—trying to create and navigate one's own path in the world, amid a sea of uncertainty. Holding on to this unchangeable idea in her mind of what her son's life should be may be the very thing that pushes him out of her life.

Here is how to cope with lack of support and help from those closest to you:

• Set realistic expectations of others. Many of the people in your life may be weathering challenges of their own or their own ways of thinking about the world. We really don't know what everyone is going through. They may be happy for you, but they may not have the time or resources to be as supportive or helpful as you'd like them to be.
• Understand the support you need and ask for it. Make it clear to those around you where and how you need help as you embark on a new career path. Do you need their moral support? Do you need their financial support? Do you need their help with caregiving or other housekeeping responsibilities? What do you need? Try not to assume that people will automatically know—tell them.
• Seek to understand them and help them understand you. Many times, unhelpful or unsupportive people are acting out of lack of knowledge. Helping them to understand the path you are taking, and why you are taking it, can go a long way.

  If they respond with a mixed or negative opinion about what you're doing, ask them why they feel that way. You may uncover that their negativity is rooted in sincere worry for you—worrying about your chances of success, being able to support yourself, or just seeing you in stress or pain. Sometimes negativity isn't rooted out of pure jealously or mean-spiritedness; sometimes it's just because they don't want to see you hurt. Assure them that you have thought through all the challenges and, even so, going down this path is what you believe is best for you.

• Limit your time with them. Of course, there are some people in your circle that can be spiteful and envious; where the negativity is just because they are … unpleasant. It's an unfortunate reality of life. Being around those who don't have your best interests at heart or can’t be happy for you not only drains your time, it drains on your energy and spirit too. Keep the time that you spend with and around them to a minimum so that you are not drained by their negativity.
• Rely on your network. Your network of trusted friends, mentors, advisers, and the like can help in the areas where support may be lacking.

The Importance of Mental Health

Given what women of color are tasked to do and deal with on a regular basis, it's not surprising that they experience more feelings of psychological distress—depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and worthlessness—than their white counterparts.

Although having access to mental health resources is a challenge, regardless of race or gender, Black women also grapple with attempting to live up to the “strong Black woman” complex, and the negative stigma of seeking a therapist or mental health within their community.

At any given time, Black women are taking on the roles of caregiver, employee, and student, sometimes all at once, while internalizing stressors, traumas, and fears to give off the appearance of self-reliance. We don't outwardly express the pain that we are feeling or our vulnerability because we don't want to be perceived as weak or incapable by anyone.

We put our needs last for the good of others and downplay the pain we may be experiencing. The Office of Minority Health (part of the US Department of Health and Human Services) claims that African Americans are 20 percent more likely to have or experience mental health problems than the rest of the population but are the least likely to seek help.

I have struggled with major clinical depression and generalized anxiety for many years now. I've had the good fortune of being able to seek professional therapy, especially during the more difficult moments of my life. Some days are more challenging than others, but I have been able to live a great and fulfilling life. I know that having depression and anxiety are nothing to be ashamed of, and I know that seeking therapy was the best and most important thing I could do for myself.

Still, I'm reluctant to share that with many people because there is still a stigma attached to it. When I have shared that information, some reactions were incredibly supportive, but some have either minimized my feelings to a passing case of “the blues” or expressed disapproval of attending therapy. One person very close to me suggested that I was “choosing” to be depressed and unhappy and that all I had to do was “choose” to be happy. If it were that easy, believe me, I'd be making that choice every day.

The tech industry, sadly, also has a bad track record when it comes to mental health. The messaging app Blind reported that 57 percent of its 11,000 tech sector respondents felt “stressed” and “burned out.” This statistic isn't even factoring in the intersectional dimensions of gender and race.

Your mental health is an important part of your overall health. If you feel like you are struggling and need help, please don't suffer in silence. Talk to a loved one you can trust or reach out to a trained mental health professional. You may be able to access free or discounted mental health resources through your school or insurance.

If you don't have access to insurance or have a limited budget, the mental health providers OpenPath Psychotherapy Collective (openpathcollective.org) see patients on a reduced scale of $30–$60 per session.

Here are some other resources:

• Dear Black Women (DBW) Project: DBW (dearblackwomenproject.com) is an online community containing information on mental health and mind/body wellness resources, as well as an app offering daily positive affirmations.
• Open Sourcing Mental Illness (OSMI): OSMI (osmihelp.org) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving mental wellness in the tech community. It publishes a guide for employees, employers, and others on how to promote wellness in their organizations, and it hosts public online forums where tech workers can discuss their issues with professionals.
• Online Therapy Platforms: If you'd strongly prefer talking to someone through chat instead, and potentially at a more affordable price point, there are many online platforms like TalkSpace (talkspace.com), 7 Cups (7cups.com), and Ginger.io (ginger.io) available for quick mental health access.

Allies and When They Fall Short

Allies are people who belong to a dominant socioeconomic group and seek to make work and other environments more open, inclusive, and welcoming for underrepresented or marginalized groups.

Being an ally is not a “one-and-done” event, nor is it a passive effort. Good allyship requires assertive, consistent, and meaningful efforts to enact change. Allies use their privilege(s), status, and resources to challenge how things are currently being done in their respective organizations. They listen to marginalized groups without dismissing them, and while they can't completely grasp or understand everything that an underrepresented/marginalized person or group may be going through, they do their best to advocate on their behalf and without the expectation of recognition.

Summary

• Grit, or having courage and resolve to see something through despite life's challenges, can be a key determinant in being successful.
• Striving for perfection and trying to be “twice as good” can be harmful to you and undermine your success. Avoid these unattainable standards at all costs.
• Failure may not be pleasant, but it is an unavoidable and necessary part of growth.
• Bias and microaggressions should be called out as soon as they occur to prevent them from happening again.
• There's a difference in being the “only” and being the “token.” Push back on any work or assignments that are not true showcases of your skills and talents.
• Bullying can happen at school and at work and can be perpetrated by those in a position of authority (teachers, professors, managers, etc.). Confronting bullies directly is the best way to cut a bully down to size.
• Unhelpful and unsupportive people can distract you from pursuing your goals. While you can seek to educate them on why what you're doing matters, limit your overall time with them should they continue to be a drain.
• Getting adequate mental health is important to your self-care routine. Talk to a loved one or trained professional if you are experiencing distress (anxiety, stress, burnout, etc.).
• Seek allies to amplify and carry your message and change the status quo whenever possible.