- Brittney Oliver is a marketing communications professional from Greater Nashville and writer.
- When her cousin was shot by police in 2016, she quietly leaned on two of her black colleagues for support before eventually deciding to tell her boss, who responded by joining in on the conversations they had at their desks.
- "No matter the size of the black employee population at a company, time and space should be taken into consideration. More than ever, inclusion has to be created, and companies must adequately fund and support their resource groups," she says.
- It's also no enough for leaders to just acknowledge what's happening and how their black employees are feeling, she adds — they should also put in place policies to promote equity and support racial justice.
What happened to my cousin doesn't come up casually when I meet people. Just like the death of anyone, the mention of loss comes up in specific moments. A memory, anniversary, or birthday can trigger it — in my case, it's whenever police kill another black person.
It's grief or mourning that never goes away because you know that justice hasn't been served for your loved one.
Initially, there's a glimmer of hope that this new family will have justice, because if they do then maybe your loved one will, too. When they don't, it's a cycle that repeats itself and becomes normalized, like washing your clothes — rinse, dry, and repeat.
We have our signs, our social media campaigns, a hashtag, a protest, and then in two weeks the news cycle dies, the protesters go home, the GoFundMe dries up with funeral and legal expenses, and it's back to no one cares about black lives. It's back to black employees having to carry the weight of community trauma while keeping up their productivity and raising and protecting their families.
I'll never forget May 20, 2016.
I got home from work and my mom asked me if I was sitting down — she had something to tell me. She told me that my cousin Kentrill Carraway was shot and killed by police in Miami on May 19.
It was just a few years or months prior I was saying the names of Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown. I remember how Sandra Bland's story affected me, but this hit home. I didn't know what type of support I would need, and I never expected it to come from work.
Workplaces don't always feel safe.
Like other black households, I grew up learning to enter new spaces free of the things that may be on my mind about family, friends, or relationships outside of work or school. My mother always told me to leave my business at home. Whatever transpired at home I wasn't to repeat or tell people at school and later at work.
It was something that I discovered was common with my other black friends growing up. If your parents had issues you kept it to yourself; if a relative was sick or lost a job you didn't tell people. When my grandmother passed, I only told my teachers because they needed to know that I would be absent. Although my white counterparts were an open book, I always struggled to find a happy medium of what to share about my life that felt safe.
I went to work the next day, although my mind wasn't there. I looked to my manager throughout the day, wondering if I should tell him what happened.
I didn't know what I wanted or expected from my manager or employer at the time. I knew he would ask me a lot of questions that I couldn't answer, and I wasn't in the headspace to be interrogated.
When situations like this happen, you tend to get questioned before empathy or grace is given. You're met with, "Wow! What happened?" or "May I ask what happened?" instead of "I'm sorry this happened."
When the workday came to a close, I asked the other two black employees at my company to swing by my desk and told them about my cousin. At a small company of 20 people, they were the only two who felt safe.
Why is it that black employees don't feel safe to freely and authentically express themselves at work? I spent so much time figuring out who I would share my truth with and when. I feared that if the wrong person got a hold of the information, I would be penalized.
Two years before this incident, I was penalized for telling my manager at the time about my mom suffering from a mild heart attack within the same 24 hours that a childhood friend died. I was not the best employee the following two weeks — I needed grace so I asked for some, yet my manager didn't protect me or stand up for me when the CEO announced their frustration over our team's productivity and was ready to lay someone off. To this day, I regret telling her.
We need a space to be heard and supported.
Two months after my cousin was killed, my desk continued to be a safe place for dealing with the trauma associated with police killings of black men. That summer, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were also killed. My black coworkers gathered around my desk and we cried and vented as we processed. Our non-black coworkers started to notice our gatherings.
I finally told my manager about Kentrill. Afterwards, he joined the desk conversations with my other black colleagues to learn how he could be supportive.
No matter the size of the black employee population at a company, time and space should be taken into consideration. More than ever, inclusion has to be created, and companies must adequately fund and support their resource groups.
CEOs of small companies should meet with minority groups individually to make sure their company is inclusive. Managers should be in tune with the news cycle and spend some extended time with their black employees to offer support, an ear to listen, and space to breathe. No one should feel alone.
Leadership has to do more than acknowledge the situation.
What made Castille and Sterling's deaths different was that there was a rise in rage, anger, and grief and it was visible on the news and social media. My non-black colleagues were starting to acknowledge systematic racism. Black employees were demanding that their companies acknowledge racism in public spaces.
It was the first time CEOs were speaking out publicly — companies were hosting town-hall meetings and finding ways to show support and empathy. People genuinely seemed to want to be allies in the fight for equality and to end systematic racism.
Since the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, there have been protests in all 50 states and major cities around the world as a call for justice and racial equality. Companies and their leaders can no longer be silent to their employees and their consumers — and it's not enough to share condolences and a statement of peace and love.
Black employees want equity, and consumers want company dollars to fund and support programs that can influence better policies and support the movement for racial equality. No matter how large or small of a company you lead, you must acknowledge what's going on in the world.
Since Kentrill's death, there have been more police brutality victims, with only a few stories that have garnered national attention. Since Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, I have not worked in a corporate setting — I'm a full-time writer and building my networking series, Lemons 2 Lemonade. If I did, what I would want from my employers right now would be acknowledgment, empathy, and grace in the form of wellness and action.