Vice President Kamala Harris and I have a lot in common: We are both Black girls from East Oakland, AKA sorority sisters; we are both graduates of UC Hastings Law College. When Harris was District Attorney of San Francisco, she gave the keynote address at my Black Law Students Association event at my request. In fact, she was one of the first people I told I was pregnant when she asked me directly why I wasn’t drinking the wine at the fundraiser we had for her AG run at my house.
And now, she has been recommended and endorsed to seek the biggest role the world has to offer. When will I ever see that again?
But the immense sense of pride I feel to see someone like me have the cosign of her boss to elevate to his role upon his retirement is tempered when I think of the similarities in our career paths. Because, as a Black woman in tech and law, I know that the next three months are going to be exponentially harder than we anticipated.
The scenario that Harris finds herself in isn’t new to me or to many Black women like me. I’ve not only seen this movie before, but I’ve lived a version of it.
Black women get the job when the ship is sinking
In the run-up to Harris being endorsed as the successor to President Biden, there were explicit calls for him to leave the race, but no unity around elevating her simultaneously. What would it mean for her role if he was to be pushed aside, but there weren’t loud calls to elevate her?
However, along with 44,000 Black women on Zoom with the political advocacy group Win With Black Women late Sunday night, Democrats began to get in formation and line up to endorse her. That call was everything—a safe space, a sista circle, a rallying cry, and a call to action to organize, educate, and donate. Donors opened up their wallets again, raising a record $81 million in her first 24 hours as a presidential candidate, according to her campaign. While I am pleased to see people line up to endorse her and donate, it shouldn’t have taken some of them so long. Immediately, I saw tweets from other Black women saying, “Of course, Kamala can win. Black women getting the job when the ship is sinking is normal.” Amen.
What a lot of us are speaking to is the notion of “the glass cliff.” In my book, Seen Yet Unseen, I talk about this phenomenon at length and my own personal experience with it. I’m an attorney who works in tech, and I’ve been the first (and only) Black person in the legal department, the first (and only) Black person in leadership—and I, too, have had to take over tasks that seem insurmountable. That’s usually the only time they want to give us a chance to lead, because it’s a nearly impossible task and we are set up for failure.
The “Clean up Woman”
It’s the workplace version of the Betty Wright song, “Clean up Woman,” which is someone coming in and finishing a job that wasn’t well done. As I describe the phenomenon in my book:
The glass cliff, sometimes called the Black bluff, is the idea that women, particularly Black women and other women of color, ascend to leadership positions during times of organizational crisis when the risk of failure or burnout is high. This a notion built upon the idea of what happens when you win a pie-eating contest and are rewarded with more pie and a round of congratulations that doesn’t seem genuine. . . . The woman is then promoted into a role that is hard to succeed in. It’s akin to being set up for failure. This phenomenon results in disproportionate blame and criticism, higher rates of failure, and damage to their professional reputation. It’s company politics and backroom dealing with a side of back-channeling on steroids. Navigating just one of those workplace obstacle courses is like running blindfolded through a barbed-wire maze, let alone navigating all three elements at once. In the case of placing Black women teetering on the cliff, it may even be a matter of attribution or confirmation bias, or worse, both.
As head of legal for a fintech company, I saw this firsthand. There were processes that were not in place, regulatory issues that needed fixing, and the person who handled it had just left. I hadn’t been told, though the company knew prior to extending me an offer. Overnight, I was not just head of legal, but also compliance, which essentially was in shambles and the equivalent of a second full-time job.
What else do Black women reliably get stuck with? More work for less money. I was cleaning up something that wasn’t of my making, with no prior experience handling something of that magnitude and level of detail. Here I was, making a fraction of what I should be making to do my own job, and cleaning up the chaos of another man who went skipping off into the sunset, with no additional resources to assist. When you are put into such a position, you may begin to question yourself, even when you know you shouldn’t. That is no different whether you’re a tech attorney or occupying the second-highest office in the land.
Constantly defending your résumé
In addition to being placed on this precarious perch, the questions have already started: Did she earn the job that she currently has, or was she “a DEI hire?” Does she have the résumé, capacity, and likability for the job she is seeking? In short, her credentials are being scrutinized in a way a white man seeking the same position would never be. She is a former district attorney, a state attorney general, a senator, and Vice President of the United States. The other candidate for the job is a convicted felon.
Anyone questioning why Harris is deserving of her spot hasn’t been paying attention to all that she’s accomplished, and definitely believes in the myth of meritocracy. The problem with that myth is that it completely disregards the fact that equality isn’t equity, and negates the access, networks, education, and advantages that others, often in dominant groups, have. Talent is everywhere, but access is not. To question her bona fides is to also ignore the literal gatekeepers who are solely in place to keep people like her, and me, out.
What she’s experiencing with having to exhaustingly run down her résumé on command is no different than I’ve experienced in my own career. I’ve read online chatter about her education and if Howard University is “even a good school.” I once had that discussion with colleagues when I pushed to add Howard University Law School to the list of schools where we recruit summer interns.
It continued with having my manager at Facebook ask me if I got into UC Berkeley via affirmative action, which was a hell of a way to begin what was to be a casual lunch. Reminding him that the State of California did away with affirmative action years before I applied didn’t dissuade him. Nevertheless, he persisted. When that answer wasn’t sufficient to confirm his preconceived biases, he asked about my athletic prowess. I don’t have any.
Months later, when we were hiring a new junior attorney so I could offload some of my work, when I asked if I would be managing this person due to having to train them, he asked why I deserved it, over a white male colleague with the same experience but lower performance. I ran down my résumé again, and how I had additional graduate degrees, the same years of experience even though we’re the same age, and I have a privacy certification, which this man doesn’t have. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Sometimes life just isn’t fair.” So, I understand what Harris is experiencing. Even when you’re the most qualified, there’s someone they’d like in the job because they are more of a “culture fit.” Catch that dog whistle.
Let Black women take us to the next level
Black women should be brought in when things are going well so that we can take it to the next level, not just when something is on a downward slide so that we’re blamed for its inevitable failure. The irony in this situation is that we had that opportunity in 2020. After an initial boost of support, it fizzled thanks to some of the same gaggle of Democratic establishment operatives who just pushed the man they did pick out of the way.
Being saddled with housekeeping for messes we didn’t make ensures we can’t grow. But there are investors, employees, board members, and voters in this case, expecting employee growth but doing so without acknowledging the fact that Harris has been brought in to sweep up a mess she didn’t make.
We’re all watching how Harris is rallied around and uplifted because it demonstrates and models how other Black women are supported publicly in the workplace. Don’t disappoint her . . . or us.