kelli

The date is April 20, 2025. I don’t normally date my posts because that limits the ability for evergreen content (IYKYK). However, we are at a period in history that must be documented for the next generation. When they look back on what leadership was like for Black women in 2025, I want them to know the truth.

Sameness is the new white.

Over the past three months, the administration of the 47th President of the United States has launched a war on the efforts to truly democratize this country. Policies and practices that had been put into place over the last five years have been control-alt-deleted overnight in many cases. This erasure has not just happened at the federal level, but has also steamrolled its way into the workplace.

Companies that had finally started tracking and sharing data on inequities in hiring, promotions, salary, and procurement took that data down in the midnight hour. Programs designed to finally expose and explain hidden pathways to career opportunities for women, people of color, disabled folks, LGBTQ folks, veterans and more were ‘opened to all’ under the pretense of fairness.

You see, sameness has become the new white.

The efforts to decenter whiteness, maleness, straightness, and ability were crushed under the weight of the narrative of ‘being left out.’ I say narrative because the data on the ‘gains’ experienced by the aforementioned groups had already largely been erased. McKinsey’s most recent Women in the Workplace report showed that any gains that Black women made to addressing systemic inequities at work are long gone. In the nonprofit sector, funding to BLOs and other groups had already started to decline.

So here we are in a season where we’re told to treat everyone the same and change our language so everyone feels included. This call is really code for making sure those who have always had power and privilege are treated the same as those who had finally been seen at work.

If you’re a Black woman or femme in leadership, April 20, 2025 likely feels like hustling backwards. Like you’re working extra hard to treat everyone the same so as not to offend, knowing full well that this same effort was never extended to you. It’s especially concerning given that it will mean more and more of your peers will struggle to get fair wages, promotions, or other opportunities.

So what are you to do?

Here are my top recommendations:

1. Show up. Continue to mentor, even if informally. Continue to share the codes and dispel myths for folks on your teams who don’t know or understand all the hidden codes and pathways in your organization. If you’re a values-driven leader, check out this LinkedIn Live called Just Following Orders? It’s a Question of Leadership.
2. Pay attention. Monitor your promotions, annual evaluations, salaries and bonuses. Encourage other historically excluded people to do the same. Don’t just let things go but make sure you’re tapping into the systems in place to address your concerns (i.e. HR, your Union rep, or an HR attorney, if needed).
3. CYA. Document everything for yourself and for your team via your work management tool(s). ****One my favorite tools for documenting with your supervisor is the ‘Repeat Back’ email (aka takeaways email). Here’s a good guide on how to send an effective repeat back.
4. Pay attention. (Re)familiarize yourself with key documents. Revisit the organizational handbook and any important policies and strategic documents. Know the difference between the policy and how it’s practiced in your organization. Review your job description and work plan and pay attention when you start getting pulled into directions that don’t align with them.
5. Give folks the dignity of their own experience. This means no more doing for others what they can do for themselves. Focus on what’s in your work plan and let your supervisor be responsible for ensuring the rest gets done. Don’t let leadership gaslight you with the ‘going above and beyond’ rhetoric if it never benefits you or your career. And if you’re the supervisor, it’s time to check the team work management tool to review it for bottlenecks and outstanding tasks and bring that to the team meeting.
6. Build your endurance by slowing down. Franchesca Leigh shared a dope TikTok on the importance of us all to learn how to strategically wait. This moment in history requires us to be able to play the long game. If you don’t know how to stay hopeful or what to do while we wait for the work we deserve to emerge, check out the video. I’ll let it speak for itself.

The only way to ensure we don’t go back to the days of old (aka pre-2020) is for us to be in loving accountability with each other and our workplaces. If we do that, I believe we will swing back to a middle-way of being both equitable and inclusive of everyone. The future of work will require it.

To be clear, I don’t think any one group should be privileged over another. Nor do I believe Black women should continue to be the workhorse for organizations. Those days are gone and we aren’t going back. If companies want to keep Black women in leadership, then they’ll have to figure out how to pay us what we’re worth and give us the titles too. Otherwise, we’ll continue to move with our feet and go where we’re appreciated.

And that’s that on that.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how we move through this period of sameness to get back to a place where whiteness is being actively decentered to make space for other ways of leading and experiencing work.