How a 'Black tax' impacts the employee experience

Employers have pushed the message that employees should bring their "authentic selves" to work. But that doesn't always apply to all employees equally. 

"People believe it when they say it, but I don't think they actually think about what that really means," says Carice Anderson, author and director of people manager strategy at BlackRock. "For example, I spent a lot of time trying not to live up to that angry Black woman stereotype. I muted my emotions. So what happens is you get a fake version of me." 

Anderson says she's struggled with the emotional burden of being a Black woman in the corporate world — starting her career at one of the top accounting firms in the U.S., she was the only Black woman at her level of seniority. In her quest to be successful, she says she struggled with perfectionism that held her back. 

"I just remember feeling tremendous pressure, like I had to prove that Black people are worthy of being in this space," she says. In her new book, Intelligence Isn't Enough, Anderson coins this experience as "Black tax," and believes it holds Black people back from career success, and impacts their well-being. 

Read more: Mental health has a race issue: How misdiagnosis is impacting Black employees 

Anderson recently chatted with EBN about the cost of Black tax, what employers can do to help all employees feel safe at work, and how she redefined authenticity on her own terms. 

How does "Black tax" come into play in the everyday lives of Black employees? 
I think there's two definitions of Black tax — I lived in South Africa for 10 years and there, it means that you're the first person in your family to have a white collar professional job, and because of that, your family is looking to you to help them financially. Black people are oftentimes making choices about their career based on finances. They don't have that safety net. No one's parents are giving them a down payment or paying for their student loans. 

The other definition of Black tax is that oftentimes, Black people will say, "We have to work twice as hard to get half as much." So that entails doing more, taking on more to prove that we deserve to be in these spaces. There's a lot of emotional and physical labor that goes along with constantly being in this mode of having to prove yourself. 

How does that pressure manifest itself in the workplace? 
I can talk about it from my own personal experience — my second job out of undergrad, I worked at Arthur Andersen, a big five accounting firm at the time. I was, at that time, the only Black consultant on the entire floor. There were other Black people working there, but they were in more administrative positions. I just remember feeling tremendous pressure, like I had to prove that Black people are worthy of being in this space. I needed to operate at a level of perfection. My comments needed to be profound and insightful. So what that resulted in was me not speaking at all, because nothing I said ever hit that bar. So that pressure of feeling like you can't make mistakes, and that you're carrying the weight of your whole race, that's a lot for people to carry. 

Nobody at Andersen ever said, "Hey, you know, you're Black and you need to carry the weight of all Black people and you can't mess this up and you need to be perfect." But that's the expectation that I came in with because of the messaging we get as Black people. It's rooted in the history of America. [Black people] are always trying to strike a balance and walk this tightrope, because you're not really allowed to just be yourself.

Do you feel like you're living authentically now, and how did you get to that place both personally and professionally? 
I am the most authentic I've ever been. For me, I've just realized that people's perceptions are there and that's their issue and not mine. This has been a slow evolution. I realized that people are going to think what they want to think, and all I can do is try to show up in the way that's appropriate for the context that I'm in. 

Read more: How to fight against unconscious biases in the workplace

I think authenticity exists on a spectrum. My level 10 most authentic self is who I am with my family, my friends and my husband. I'm going to crack jokes and be sarcastic and probably really loud. I wouldn't necessarily come to work and be exactly that person; I might be a level seven or eight at work. If my colleagues were to come and see me with my family, I still think they would recognize me. I would want my family to be able to come to work and recognize me. So for me, it's less about trying to be two different people. That's not sustainable. It takes too much energy. I look at the audience, the context of the message and where I operate on that spectrum. 

How can employers help their colleagues on that journey and facilitate these conversations that need to happen?
The fact that we're talking about this is step number one. When I graduated undergrad in 1998, nobody cared about the fact that you were Black, that you were a woman, nobody cared about all your different dimensions of diversity. People didn't even talk about that stuff. It was like, check it at the door, get in here and get this job done. 

Step number two is for employers to create forums where Black people and all underrepresented groups can talk about their experiences and have people want to understand that experience. To understand the emotional labor and how that worry is taking time, energy and cognitive capacity away from the job. 

Read more: Why employee resource groups may be the key to more inclusive cultures and benefits utilization 

The other part is making it clear in your organization that behaviors of exclusion or non-inclusive comments will not be tolerated. I have hope because of Generation Z, to be honest — when I look at what they're expecting from a workplace, diversity and inclusion is top of mind. They're going to be walking the walk and they're not going to work for organizations if they don't feel like people are taking diversity and inclusion seriously. 

What's your advice for other Black employees who are struggling to bring their authentic self to work? 
Companies are not in the business of hiring people who they don't think can be successful, so the fact that you're here, you need to believe that there's a reason that you're here. People believe that you can be successful, that you have the potential to be successful. 

A lot of Black people have been told things like, you need to have a white voice, you need to code switch. While that may have been good advice for a certain period of time, it doesn't drive us in the long-term. I think we have to let go of some of the messages that we've been given by our well-meaning Black family and friends. We have to examine some of these messages that we get to see if they actually serve us in our environment.