12 Years a Diversity Hire

A career retrospective calculating the real cost of being a professional changemaker

corporate slavery as envisioned by AI

Last spring, I miraculously raised over $50,000 (less taxes and fees to Gofundme) in an attempt to purchase my late paternal grandmother’s house in Raleigh, NC. However as the homebuying process unfolded, it became clear that in order to actually maintain a house, I would need to have reliable access to resources beyond the purchase price. I realized that entering this 30 year mortgage at the bottom of my budget didn't actually solve the structural problem of why I had to fundraise in the first place. Ultimately, it was a moot point; the bank wouldn’t provide financing until the summer, due to fraud protection protocol. 

The remaining funds were put towards the bigger dream of saving the farmland where my grandmother was raised, in Spring Hope, NC. My family also urged me to put the remainder into my own healthcare– I am 3 and a half years out from a disabling brain injury that has made it impossible for me to return to full-time high level editorial and showrunning.

I began a yearlong brain injury rehabilitation under the care of a neurologist who specializes in post-concussion syndrome. After 6 months of care from a constellation of incredible health professional including a neuro-optometrist, vision, physical and massage therapists, I’m finally on the road to a meaningful and lasting recovery– with the caveat  that I can’t return to work for another 6 months.

I suddenly found myself back in a paradox that many disabled creatives who freelance face:  due to my recent fundraising and freelancing success, I was not qualified for state assistance or disability. So I find myself back where I started; struggling to make rent and keep my health insurance. Basic. Ass. Shit.

The whole experience was a life audit, really, as I wondered how I wound up here, a dozen years into a prestigious career with a ragged nervous system and no stability or money to show for.

10 years ago I was a rising millennial public media “rockstar”  on the rise. I was quickly sucked into the so-called “DEI Pipeline”, bouncing around the east coast, working on increasingly ambitious news programming and even doing a yearlong “Executive Fellowship” at CPB, where I, in 2013 presented the first keynote about podcasts that the radio department had ever seen (at their request). It’s where I met Kaitlin Prest in a stuffy ballroom in Atlanta and we parted a sea of balding white men in beige to hug in matching shades of teal.

I was genuinely excited about the potential of podcasting as a medium to break free of the broadcast clock and creativity-stifling FCC rules. I used my hands on knowledge as a producer and independent research to stay ahead of trends. Podcasts to me represented a democratization of free speech, where the creative potential was endless and a tool for folks from the margins to embrace with the agency to been seen, heard and understood on their own terms.

I had long always had to risk high opportunity costs in order to try to get beyond the poverty and violence I escaped in Philadelphia. That meant things like taking on student loan debt that became extremely difficult to repay(with endless compunding interest rates of predatory lending) once I moved to really expensive cities like New York, Boston in DC on an endless string of temp jobs. But of course, I had to live in these places in order to get the high powered networks that would give me the jobs that would lead to that Big Money Job pot of gold that allegedly existed at the end of this very long, disorienting DEI rainbow. 

I took these leaps of faith as a promising young producer on the rise because people believed in me. My leadership abilities were spotted early on during my internship at NPR, and I was quickly whisked up the diversity pipeline–  guided by a quiet sea of mentors- POC with soft and hard power who silently helped to remove the obstacles they had witness take down and deter so many other talented people who did not fit the demographics of the organization’s  “traditional” worker. In other words: the Diversity Hire.

You know us well. We are the colorful superheroes amongst you, spicing up your whack ass morning meeting and overachieving like our lives depend on it, because they often do. Our arrivals are heralded with glowing email announcements, we are introduced as” original thinkers” with valuable “different life experience” who can allegedly help majority white lead organizations to connect with “diverse people”...whatever that means.

In exchange for this mascotting, we, the Diversity Hire, are offered a nominal salary, guaranteed to be less than the white man sitting next to us doing the same job– even though the most important part of our job is never in writing and definitely not compensated: we absorb all the tensions around inequality and difference that your organization can’t deal with because it is so uncomfy. 

Well how the hell you think we feel?

If it sounds like I’m angry, it’s because I am.

Naturally we tend to blame the individual and assume irresponsibility– and trust me, I’ve had my fair share of lessons in becoming financially literate. But the thing is, you can have all the literacy you want, but if you don’t got dollars to manage then that savvy is actually just maddening. As my mama’n’em used to say “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing!”.

All of this is an extension DEI- or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion– in the workplace. (I did work at one organization where the “I” stood for innovation. LOL) Those once innocent words have been demonized by a right wing smear campaign and emboldened fear mongering for Americans who refuse to accept the nation’s shifting demographics to majority minority.

Our presence in your workplace was never for our benefit. Let’s be real.

***

You may remember me from my last essay, Hidden in Plain Sight, about my tumultuous time in the olden days of Gimlet Media. By the way, no one personally involved who had any power in that situation, such as my former senior producer, editors or hosts have ever publicly or privately apologized or even acknowledged my experience (though I periodically check my spam folder to make sure I didn’t miss it). Everyone has moved on, clearly.

But this ain’t about that.

That was but one story of many work-related trauma born of neglectful and shallow aims at diversity. Again I find myself in a sort of self-imposed exile. Over and over again I had to yeet myself from systems of power that exploit my creative power and threaten my health and well-being ( See graphic of the Black femme moving through organizations) No one actually wants a changemaker around– ALL the time. Enter the part-time consultant.

After I left Gimlet, I rebuilt my brand as a full service freelance podcast consultant with a sliding scale of clients ranging from underserved marginalized individuals to big corporate brands including Marvel and Audible. Finally I made my way full circle when I was approached by the head of NPR programming about a unique opportunity to be the founding editor of Louder Than a Riot, which was in development at the time. They didn’t want this new show to sound like NPR so they needed to hire an outsider who spoke their language. I had finally cracked the code! A six-figure decision-making role with the freedom of a freelancer?! From intern to boss, the American Dream!

And despite some obstacles, it was pretty great. Until the sky fell and a brain injury stopped my career, and me in my tracks in the summer of 2020. 

In the winter of 2021, I took a health sabbatical and worked with a somatic therapist to focus on healing my extremely frayed nervous system to help my brain. However, it was my work trauma that kept re-emerging. While Gimlet was the freshest challenge — my therapist and I charted all the key moments I recalled hidden in my body. Soon my bedroom wall was covered with post it notes of moment after moment of having to prove myself over and over. To be defined by someone else’s view of a young black queer person’s role in institutions of power. 

Tension in my jaw, constricted cheeks, pursed lips and throat lumps. Of all the stifled sobs in bathroom stalls, all the microaggressions I smiled through gritted teeth, all the objections I swallowed, protests squashed in favor of maintaining a passionless peace of fake progress. Surface diversity, imagined inclusion.

Shallow breathing, lumbar strain, rock hard shoulders and neck. Anxiously procrastinating avoiding tasks that required perfection. Perched over my laptop like a raptor on deadline. Recalling times in Gimlet’s old Gowanus studios where the Uncivil team would stand up staring into endless pro tool sessions, mindlessly reaching for honey roasted peanuts to keep our brains running into the night. 

 I— under the duress of producer culture—had trained my body to only produce under extreme stress. I had learned to mask so well that I did not know who I was outside of the identity I had constructed for myself as a magical black girl, a baby Oprah, a rockstar producer. It was the only place in my life that I received praise that, thanks to trauma, I mistakenly took for love.

***

When my body broke, it started with my brain.

But it wasn’t long before the rest of me unraveled, including the infrastructure of my control freaked life. 

Without my brain power, I felt I had nothing, I was nothing. I felt bitter pangs remembering all the family members I supported, all the sacrifices, the all night deadlines. Speaking up and fighting for better treatment everywhere I went bc it was becoming harder and harder to tap into my creative magic— the source of my success as a writer, artist and producer. But the truth I had to accept was that the well was tapped out. I was deeply burnt out and not bouncing back this time.

So I set to rest. To restore. I left teaching.I watched Kiki’s Delivery Service on repeat in the background while I busied my hands with creative projects I had been meaning to get back to. I cried by the sea. A lot.I purged, and finally left NY for good. Now my creativity is for me first. As I go through my personal archive of memories I was too stressed to embody— I feel oddly at peace.

I finally released myself from the attachments that no longer served me, and never really did.

My reality hasn’t changed. My ability to pay rent is directly tied to how well my brain is functioning. And sometimes everything can go right and it is still beyond my capacity to consistently show up in work places that are not designed to support or accommodate those with different physical and neurological needs. Systems are too big for one person to change. Even one organization at a time. So I’ve shifted how I live within that.

I’ve accepted where I am and how I got here. I honor my experiences, even if no one else will, and I vow to myself to treat my whole self with the care and kindness it deserves. There is no “going back” to the old me or working the way I used to; it’s like re-introducing myself to a stranger. That’s the trippy power of coming home after being estranged from yourself.

Had to feel the feelings underneath first. And they are ugly. Shame.envy, hopelessness.deep sadness. I realized I was heartbroken. I felt like I sacrificed so much and gave my all for empty promises of promotions and raises that never came. The divide between the haves and have nots of the creative industry is only growing. For those who manage to get power and stay in power, diplomacy and masking are essential. I really tried, but it just couldn't be me.

One thing I don't feel is regret.

I catalyzed change in all of the places I worked. I bonded with peers who became friends,  who are like family now. I got clear with myself about the value of audio art and storytelling and why I must persist. For me it is the seed of liberation: it is the ability to set ourselves free by the power of our own voice. 

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