The Double Tax & Why It’s So Damn Expensive to Be a Woman of Color Ft. Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, Welcome to Brown Ambition, y'all. I am so excited
to be joined by the brilliant and stunning and looking
incredible bowl color and some melanin like you can't go wrong.
Today's guest is Anna gifty Opoku Ajamin. She is the
award winning researcher, speaker, and author of the powerful and

(00:25):
brand new book like go buy it immediately right now
when you're listening to this. It's called the Double Tax,
How women of color are overcharged and underpaid of reality.
We know too damn well, but we gonna talk about it.
But I'm so excited to have Anna on the show.
Her work Exposed has exposed the compounded financial, social, and
emotional costs faced by US women of color in America.

(00:49):
She offers insights and solutions. Now I have emphasis on
the solutions because I was scrolling. I'm like, is this
going to be just about how terrible it is to
be a black woman. No, let's get into like, you
know what actually can be done. So in her book,
Anna offers insights and solutions for economic justice and equity
and puts the spotlight on the hidden costs women of
color face across their lives and careers hidden to everybody else,

(01:13):
very well known to us. It is damn expensive to
be a woman of color in this country, and the
book really challenges, I think the reader to rethink how
we are valuing, compensating, and championing all women, which may
be a bit triggering to some all women. But I
think what's great about the book is that it's a
book that I feel like you can hand to a

(01:33):
non woman of color, you know, to our white women allies,
and just be like, read this right here, read this
right here, and then go do something about it. Also,
Anna founded the Black Birders Week, which I need out
to know about.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
You could.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
A little fun fact because she's not busy enough. In
addition to having a ton of degrees from some very
elite institutions, you just graduated with your masters from Harvard,
the Harvard Kennedy School, No less PhD.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Loading great an I gift you.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Welcome to the show, Welcome to Brown Ambition.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Can I just say that your intro, especially about the book,
is so the best I've heard so far, just perfectly
encapsulates is giving you read exactly so I'm so so
grateful to be here. This community is so special to me.
Thank you guys for existing. There's so many people who

(02:28):
rely on the insights that you share, so I'm super,
super honored to be here. I told my publicist, Taylor
the publicist shout out to black one publicist.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
I was like, are you better give me a and
here we are. It was you know what, I.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Have been stalking your book for months. I feel like
at the beginning of the year, I email Yeah, I
think I emailed like all my all the top five publishers,
and I was like, I'm a brown ambition because people
weren't sending me enough books. I'm like, I need more books,
I need more authors on the show. So I emailed
the top five publishers and like, I think Taylor was
one of the first to get back and say, here's
our here's our slate of upcoming and your book was

(03:03):
on it. And I was like, damn, not till the summer.
You can get her till the summer. But yeah, I've
been We've been waiting for this for months. So very
happy to have you on.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I'm so excited. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
All Right, so tell us a little bit about you.
Where are you from, Where did you grow up?

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Before we get into.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
The nitty gritty of the book.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Absolutely, so, Hi everybody, my name is Anna Folks on
me onlines, Anna gifty gifty is actually probably my first name.
As Mandy just shared, I have a longer last name.
I actually have multiple names. We're not going to get
into that, but it is a slight flex. I used
to write my name as sort of like a party
trick at kid birthday parties. That being said, and I
read your name really absolutely yeah. It's like my parents

(03:43):
just couldn't stop naming me. But anyway, that being said,
I'm super excited to be here.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'm originally from Ghana.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
I was born there for like three seconds, and then
my parents got something called the visa lottery, so it
gave them US citizenship to basically come over here with
our entire family. And from there, I actually landed first
in Minneapolis shout out to the Midwest, and then I
was really raising the DMV. So I was raised in
Maryland and I'm a proud Marylander, huge Ravens fan.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I don't know, I'm a Lakers fan.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Chaut to Kobe rest in pes And I would also
say too that I'm just like a girlfriend around the way,
you know what I'm saying, Like, you know, I'm someone
who's gonna play uno with you and be very intense
about it.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Yes, I'm gonna go ahead and make up my rules.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
But I'm also just like a sister, a niece, somebody's daughter,
you know, and then also just like trying to be
a good friend and good human.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
So I'm really excited to be here.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
I know there's like accolades that people might know about,
but I'm just honestly and I'm just excited to be
in this conversation.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
So, at what point throughout your academic career, because you
had an interesting career, you spent some time in academia,
you didn't have your first corporate interview or corporate like
job negotiation until twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yes, that right.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Can you talk about your career path?

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (04:57):
And also just really quick, I'm a headstar kid, so
shout out the heads start folks. You're in the mixed
educate please America, come on, keep it alive, please re
begging anyway.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Career path. Yeah, so, I mean I'll take it back
to a little bit.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
So when I was in college, I essentially started out
at the flagship University of my state. This is University
of Maryland College Park, And funny enough, I actually started
out in business. But as many people know, like when
you're in the undergrad level, business degrees are really preparing
you for one type of job, and it's to be
a consultant of some kind.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
But I don't know. For me, I'm just kind of
like I feel like I can do a bit more
than that.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Like maybe I end up there, but let me see
if there are other ways to explore. Girl, I had
like a you know, what's like a mid midlife existential crisis,
and I was like, what am I doing with my life?
And so I ended up transferring to our sister university,
which is University of Melenbalbara County, where I actually start
off as pre med And that was an experience derogatory.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
You had to do it, you had to try.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
I had to try, right, you know. The parents were like,
we would love a doctor in the family. They're gonna
get one, but not the one that they were expecting.
And so I got like basically weeded out by the
weed out course organic chemistry and decided to pursue math
on a women a prayer quite frankly, and it's funny
because the timing of that, essentially was when I decided

(06:24):
to pursue math. The university president at the time was like, Hey,
we're getting this like multimillion dollar grant to get more
minorities into economics.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Do you want to do it? And I was like,
what's economics?

Speaker 3 (06:36):
And so I ended up googling economists and I was
surprised to see how it was forty shades of age
and they all come from like the same three or
four universities. But what was interesting was that, you know,
I was the kind of kid that watched Ted Talks
for fun. Don't judge me, but I was watching Ted
Talks for fun, and I realized I had been watching
economists pretty much like my whole life, but I didn't

(06:58):
know what they were. I thought they were like a
different type of lawyer. So when I learned about what
economics actually was, I was like, whoa, this is like
really dope, Like we're using numbers to solve problems, but
for people.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Like that's actually really cool.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
And so ultimately that led me to pursue my bachelor's
in math, finished with honors. Shout out to Shout out
to God, and shout out to my brain. I'm very
excited about that. And well, the reason I say that too,
is because I had an advisor at the time who
you know, was telling me not to pursue the PhD.
And at this point I had decided to do the

(07:32):
PhD because that's why I decided to major in math,
and he did not know my math schedule. So one
day he saw and he was like, you're taking applied stats,
probability and statistics.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Wait, these are like really hard courses.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
And I was like, I know I need it for
my math major because I'm trying to do this PhD.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Like we want to like.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
In this university. That was like, we got this money
to put more women, probably people of color in this field,
but clearly the advisors didn't catch up. Do you think
he went in Do you think that I read that
in the book and I was going to ask about it.
I feel like we all have a story about that,
Like shout out to every English professor who accused me
of plagiarism. No, I didn't grow Okay, I just have

(08:13):
social anxiety and I don't talk, but I write a lot.
I write good. Well, we all have, like you know,
I think that that's one of the experiences. It's it's
like very cathartic, I think to describe who was a
person who told you that you can't do or shouldn't
do the thing that you wanted to do, and you
know you did it anyway. Yeah, but do you think
I mean, you do touch on that in the in
the book, the idea of you know, the DEI initiatives

(08:36):
like that, and how even those if we come through
a DEI program can sometimes be a double tax in
and of itself, like like you're getting this benefit of
getting a seat at the table, but people are not
taking you seriously because you are, like, you know, the
great Katanji Brown Jackson a DEI higher, right, I think
Supreme Court justice listen, like.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
And we're talking about and I think I laid out
her credentials in the book that lady is that in
terms of her credentials, So anybody who was like, what's
her what's her outside scores?

Speaker 2 (09:07):
What's your LSID score?

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Okay stands for first of all, right, break down that
acronym for me, please. But yeah, I think that, like
everything you're saying is exactly right. I went through pretty
much every diversity program in economics that you could possibly
imagine I've done everything right. And it's interesting because you know,
people know that I've done these things, and so they

(09:30):
I remember when I got into Harvard. Oh my god,
so that's the next part of my journey, by the way.
So I got into Harvard. It was the only school
that accepted me, by the way, for the PhD. And
there were people who were like, she only got in
because she's a diversity hire. And it's interesting, right, because
they had seen me go through these diversity programs. Oh,
she only got boastered. They only care about her.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Da da da da da.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
But guess who is being paraded in part of the
protures in this university because of the merits.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
You see what I'm saying. So it's interesting me that,
like people.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Always want to say that diversity and merit are at
odds with each other.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Oftentimes they'll say diversity and merit are substitutes.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
But what I say in the book and what I'll
say here is they're actually compliments.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Right.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
You don't want people who are qualified in the same way.
Let's start there, right, You need these complementary skills to
build something better. In economics, we have this idea of
sort of like perfect competition. You have all these different
things competing against each other. The best thing rises to
the top, ideally, But what happens if it's like groupthink
or everybody has the same ideas, it's like a flat line,

(10:34):
so to speak, Like there's nothing that's actually gonna potentially
benefit society or even the room because there's not a
lot of ideas like flowing to the top.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
And it's comfy, cozy there for some people. And some
people are very comfy and like they want to wrap
themselves up in that like white security blanket and just
be like I know exactly what everyone else thinks and
feels like no one's challenging me, right, no one's a
threat to me and my survival. But here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Let me say it like this.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
If a tsunami is coming and some people start running
the opposite way, and you say, I'm gonna go ahead
and lay down on my beach child, I'm comfort here,
I'm comfortable. It's not really touching me right now. At
some point that tsunami hits, where will you be, Will
you be like in safety or will you be amongst

(11:29):
those who are like fighting for their life?

Speaker 4 (11:31):
Right?

Speaker 3 (11:31):
And I think that that's kind of why you don't
want to be in the comfort of your white security blanket.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
It's not going to.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
Save you at the end of the day, right, And
at the end of the day too, I would say
that a lot of the ideas that you know, diversity
allows to really come to the forefront are really about
the betterment of everybody in society. There's people who seem
to think that like diversity is synonymous with like people
of color or shirt and grooves. But as folks are

(11:59):
discovering it has these programs are getting rolled back. It
supports veterans, it supports working class and poor folks, it
supports people who are returning school.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
You might be white and fall into some of those groups, right, and.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
So you acting like this thing that only affects black
people's only affecting black people is actually harming your long
term benefit.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
And that's like, why would you do that? You don't
want to harm yourself.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
So anyway, I mean, I think DEI I don't think
any other groups benefited more than white women.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Right, that's the two That's the day.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
I was gonna wait for this, but I have to talk.
Chelsea Clinton wrote the forward for your book, how if
that happened and why.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
That's a great question.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
So essentially Chelsea and I met back in I want
to say, twenty twenty, and so she was someone right
before I published my first book, which I edited, by
the way folks, so I wrote it, but I was
just the mc guys folks wrote that book.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
But long story short, she had been kind of a
strong supporter.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Of the work that I was doing early on around
that time, and we had come together to kind of
put together an event for black girls and black women
at the Clinton Foundation. And so I think she saw
it as like, Okay, like this is one way I
can show sort of allyship and support, but I also
will say, like, just to be quite candid, this is
the kind of book that I actually do need white

(13:20):
women to pick up, right, And so there was a
question or a conversation about, you know, who do we
want to kind of open up the book, And I
remember our team kind of discussing this and ultimately deciding like,
we kind of want someone who's not a woman of
color because I'm a woman of color, and we don't
want people to feel like they can't really approach the
book because it's only you know, that's kind of what's happening.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
I'll just be very candid because we're being honest here.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
What I'm learning as I'm promoting this book is that
women's spaces are very coded for rich white women.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
And of course I'm preaching to the choir.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I lived through the Wing. Do you know remember the Wing?

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Is that a show? No?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
No, no, it's that coworking space. It was like rich
white girls. Oh, because you're a little bit younger than me,
I think, yeah, So anyway, but go ahead look it
up after this great What I'm.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Saying, like, when people are saying, oh, women in leadership,
they're not talking about us. We're not considered women.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
There's a saying that you know, my wonderful chief of
staff I used to share with me. She said, white
women are women and black women are men, basically right,
like everybody else who is not considered a woman. That's
like white women are men, or like they're not considered women,
that they're considered minorities, they're considered part of another group.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
And so it's been interesting.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
To be like, hey, these are issues that women of
color are kind of centered in, like let's talk about it,
and seeing these women's spaces be like, hmmm, it's not
Black History Month, yet it's not Hispanic Heritage Month. I
don't know this is the right time whole time, Like,
we're seeing women of color, especially black women, being attacked
on a number of different fronts, especially economically and politically,

(15:00):
and folks are not seeing this as a story that
women white women should care about. And so I think
that Chelsea's role here is actually really important. That she's
also kind of inviting these white women who claim to
be allies and purport support for women of color to
actually put their money where their mouth is.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, you know it occurred to me as I was
because when I finally read it, I was reading and
I'm like, oh, this makes perfect sense. I think it's
it is that little bit of like, you know, on
the one hand, you can be cynical about it and
be like, well, no one was there to make us
feel more comfortable being the only ones in the room,
But she is that like familiar face for a reader

(15:40):
that you want to reach to be like, oh, I
like Chelsea, she is great And you know, Mili check
out this book.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
That's right, which is the whole point.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
And I think that that's a really great example and
kudos to her. You know, I think we should give
the flowers when a white woman isn't actually an ally
and uses their clout, their status there, you know, their
their name, recognition, whatever platform they have to like lift
up another woman of color in their voice. And so
I just wanted to touch on that because in the beginning,

(16:10):
when I first saw it, I was like, but it makes.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
A lot of people were like, why don't you have
like a black one open up or another woman of color?
And I completely understand that. I think, like there's a
lot of different iterations of how that could have gone.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
But also aren't we we're tired of talking about how
hard it is to be us.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
I think that was also how I was like, I
think the conversation, you know, it's interesting, Like for me
putting this book together, a couple of things came through
my mind in terms of target audience, Like obviously women
in general their target audience, but I also think, men,
you need to read this book. You'a allso about the
longest epidemic. It starts with empathy, guys, So this is.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
A book to read.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
My dad, I feel like better understood my experience as
a woman and my mom's experience as a woman, and
my sister by like really hearing about the book. Yeah,
and we can talk more about that after. But overall,
I think what I learned was a couple of things.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
One, you know, not all of us.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Have the facts about our experiences, but we do have
the fact of our experience, right, so we know, like
you know, as we're going through things like this definitely
happened to me. But I think what this book does
is it puts numbers to your experience and says, yeah,
and there's like a lot of data to back that up. Right,
you're not going crazy, you're not imagining that, And I
think that that's really important. I think the other thing

(17:24):
that this does is it completely removes any opportunity to
gaslight And that's why I love this book.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Actually, Right, the facts.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Are so can I cuss, so damn clear.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
That's why you're gonna get me, I'm so. But it's
so clear y'all that this is the reality.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
Anybody trying to refute it is just a liar at
this point, because we're citing articles, we're citing books, we're
citing op eds, we're citing experts, and we're saying there's
no denying that women of color overcharging, underpaid, and we
and there's no denying with the double taxes and how
it manifest in our society and makes literally everything worse.
And now, what I've told folks, especially white women, is

(18:09):
you don't want to ignore what's happening to women of color.
I know that, like some of these spaces will pretend
like women of color are kind of an afterthought, But what.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Is tested on us first will be excellent.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
You know what I'm saying, Like it's gonna happen to
you next, Like you don't want to be like you
you could, you could literally get it right now and
when you talk to us about it. But if you're
not talking to us, you don't know the tsunami that's
coming your way.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
And that's essentially what this is about.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
It's so true. I mean, first they come for minorities
in the decon you know what, just the word minor
minority when you were talking, I'm like, we need to stop.
We don't call it a minority diamond. We call it
a rare or minority gemstones. They're rare. They're precious, yes
they are. And I love the idea of just like
reframing it in that way. And like when you see
a person of color, one of color at your in
your on your team and you're you know, in your

(18:58):
company or just throughout your word, and it's just like
zoom in on that person. Yes, they're special, they're unique,
Like why wouldn't you want to appreciate that? All right,
that's you know, side quest complete back to this I
want to talk about. So the name itself double tax?
Can you tell for the readers who haven't had a
chance to listeners who haven't had a chance to read
it yet, define double tax and what does that mean?

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yes, I hope the listeners become readers. Ideally they already
ordered it while they're listening. Yeah, nice, I.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
Heard those like to change.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Period.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
So the double tax is the compounded cost of racism
and sexism. And because I'm talking to a lot of
black women right now, it's misogynoire quantified. That's the way
you can think about it, right, And so what I
argue in the book is that like women of color.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Basically experience varying degrees.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
Of the double tax honestly as it relates to like
their proximity to black women. So for example, let's say
we're talking about a Southeast Asian woman. You know, her
hair is fine, but her skin is right, and so
she might experience different experiences with respect to like colorism
that actually are more kin to what black women experience

(20:08):
as compared to white women.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Right. So the idea here is that these costs that.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Women of color especially are facing, ultimately are at the
individual level. It's like the day to day you're just
trying to survive, and you're dealing with racism, and you're
dealing with sexism and at times classism and other isms. Right,
But these costs that you're dealing with, if they go unaddressed,
become bigger problems for society down the line.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
And down the line.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Could be as soon as tomorrow, or it could be
like five years down the line. Let me give you guys,
maybe like a very clear example of what's taking place
as we are talking right now at the time of this,
which is like September second. So my mentor and dear friend,
Governor Lisa Cook, is currently being targeted by the President
of the United States.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Right. The goal is to get her out of bed,
that's the goal. They don't want her there anymore.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Her position I believe goes till twenty thirty eight, might
go till twenty thirty five, but it's a long, decade
long position that she's supposed to be holding. Let me
give you, guys, maybe a quick overview of what the
FED does. So the FED is the Federal Reserve System,
and within the Federal Reserve System is the Federal Reserve
Board of Governors. So they are the people who kind
of are in charge of managing all the economists that

(21:23):
manage the economy.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
These are the people who set interest rates.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Interest rates ultimately are going to inform whether or not
you can borrow money for a house, or whether or
not when you go to Costco tomorrow, the groceries on
the shelves are going to be higher or lower.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Okay, So that's essentially what their function is.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
You don't want that body to be influenced by political
whims at all, because you want the data to be
the one informing that.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Here's how that's related to the double tax.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Right now, Governor Lisa Cook is the first person to
be targeted, or maybe the second after Jerom Powell, but
first person amongst the Board of Governors to be targeted,
and a lot of people are wondering, like, like, why
is she being targeted. She's a black woman, that's clear, right,
So she's facing the double tax of racism and sexism, right,
and that's an individual cost that she's sort of bearing.

(22:12):
The issue here is if this cost goes unaddressed, if
they allow this racism and sexism to slide, the societal
cost is that this man is about the man who's
breaking everything is going to put somebody in her position
that will break the economy, and that directly affects you.
It directly affects the white guy who's living down the street.

(22:32):
It directly affects the Latina mother who is just trying
to make it by.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
It affects everybody.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
So this individual cost of racism and sexism that seems like, oh,
you know, it's just bigotry.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Whatever.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
If it goes unaddressed, everybody loses. And that's the point
of the double tax. You want to make sure that
you're addressing the racism and sexism when you see it
so that these other, you know, consequences don't have to
be fully realized by everybody else.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, I mean this was such a for me. I
mean I live in New York and I you know,
we have Leticia James here. Yeah, and we've seen her
for the very in a similar This is like a
playbook that you know, Trump and his lackeys have used
before on Tis James, you know, trying to dig into
mortgage lending records to find some sort of some sort

(23:18):
of smoking gun and then use it to take them down.
But you know, Lisa on a personal level, you said
she was your mentor. Yeah, how is she doing? Like,
have you had a chance to talk to her about
all this?

Speaker 3 (23:28):
I haven't had a chance to like really have a
full conversation with her. The last time we spoke, she said,
just girl, pray for me. That what she basically said.
And you know the thing about Governor Cook is she's
a fighter. This is someone who desegregated schools, has the
scars to prove it. This is not her first rodeo.
I have full faith that you know, she will be
proven innocent and that she will continue to serve out

(23:51):
her role. But this is, as Tony Morrison said, a distraction.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
We should be focused on economic policies that are lifting
people who are losing jobs right now, who are facing
you know, cuts in the workforce and it's affecting their
income and their financial stability. Instead, we're talking about this
man attacking a black woman because he doesn't like black
women in power, even though that black woman is serving
the American people.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
And I mean, also, you can look at the Department
of Labor Economists. That was a white woman, I believe,
actually I don't know her race, but no, it was
a woman who he fired to me because he did
not like the data that you know, they were issuing.
And that to me was really like bone chilling. I
think because of my backgrounds a journalist, is like, those

(24:36):
are the most trusted sources of data that we have,
you know, I can trust go to the I go
to that yanky barely like HTML website through the beer
of Labor Statistics, and I'm just like, oh, this is
the good stuff because it looks like it's from like
nineteen ninety five. You know, like these these people work
hard to be like the most driest, least exciting, you know,

(24:57):
just like you know, because you said I have to
come on the no, but I mean, like just give
us straight facts, and it's really terrifying. And now you know,
you're seeing these additional personal vendettas be played out, and well,
I'll be praying for Lisa. I mean more than praying.
I think, like, you know, you have your hashtag on
your IG right now, hashtag or do I stand with

(25:19):
doctor Lisa Cook?

Speaker 2 (25:20):
We stand with doctor Lisa Cook.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
I know that that is sort of like the win
with Black Women initiative that's also been championing.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
It, you know, Okay, Oh is that where it's okay?

Speaker 3 (25:29):
So I think for me, my small small potatoes responsibility
is to if I've given the opportunity to to remind
people who Governor Cook is like as a character, Like
I'd like you know her character and who she is
and how she shows up for people. I don't think
you understand like how big of an impact she's had
on the economics profession, which is why over five hundred,

(25:50):
five hundred economists have signed an open letter in support
of her. She's been an extremely important pillar to the space.
And so these attacks are unpresidented, unnecessary, and hopefully they
will be they will be also unfounded as well.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, well this definitely comes up because I mean, Lisa
was a figure of your book. You talk about her
in the chapter you kind of each chapter kind of
goes through an example of a double tax. So you
have chapters on you start off with good hair, so
we talk about the double tacks of you know, the
cost of having these gorgeous crowns on our head. And
one of some of my favorite chapters because I'm biased,

(26:26):
because I do a lot of negotiation coaching, and that's
my bag. I love it is. Helping is like give
tools and an actual rule, a rule book, and a
playbook you can use to negotiate. So you talk about
resume whitening, and you know, I know we were joking
about that with our names, and how like I wonder
now I added dash hyphen santos to my name when
I got married, and I'm like, huh, that kind of

(26:48):
un whitewash. Is my name a little like Andandy Woodruff?
Oh serious, Dandy would have santos.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
And for those who don't know what resume whitening is, essentially,
it's this idea that you strip parts of your racial
identity on your resume to hopefully increase your chances of
a callback. And what I say in the book, what
Mandy's essentially alluding to is that there's arkably good reason
to do that. Like I'm not saying that you should,
but we have one would understand, right, We have evidence

(27:18):
from all the way from the nineteen seventies basically saying
that there's never been a time when white folks were
called back less than black folks, Like black folks are
always called back less.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Right, and so like, just off your name, even if.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
You have the same type of credentials as a white
person and you actually are. One of the craziest things
that I learned from the Resume White Name chapter is
that like, even if a black verson is like super qualified,
you still fear worser than a white person.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Who's not qualified at all.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Like the whiteness is actually a superpower in some sense.
It allows for like people to just kind of blindly
say this person's more competent than this person, even if
the facts are not indicating that.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Hey, ba fam, we got to take a quick break,
pay some bills, and we'll be right back. And you
go on to talk about, you know, in your chapter
Dollars and Cents, the whole pay inequity story storyline and
reality that has just been by this point, it's like,
godn what's gonna happen? But I was thinking about broken

(28:22):
rungs when you were talking about Lisa, because I think
that's such a great example. I mean, it's a heartbreaking
example of a woman who has done everything right and
is so fucking accomplished, and still it's like it's it
wasn't that she reached a broken rung. It's like the
wrung was broken underneath her foot. You know, they just
literally took a sledgehammer. I wonder in your career, because

(28:43):
you've we didn't really finish the other part of your
career trajectory. That's fine, that happens. BA fam knows how
to go on and ride with me.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
But you know, you haven't had a ton of time
in corporate But I wonder, throughout your academic career and
corporate career have you found a broken wrung for yourself yet?
Has there been a time where you felt like you
were kicked off or you know, lost an opportunity because
of who you are and what you represent.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
You know, it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
I've actually never shared this publicly before, but I think
that my early advocacy in the economics profession might have
affected whether or not I got into servein PhD programs.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Oh well, you did say, Harvard was the only one too.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
It was the only one. And the reason I say, like,
when you say.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Your early advocacy, do you mean like you're I know,
I know you from IG first.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
So I foind an organization called the State Collective.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Oh right, the Staty collect Okay, talk.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
About that, yeah, right right, And so that organization was
geared towards black women and girls, still very much, but
I know it now serves minorities more broadly.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
But like, you know, I think a lot of people
thought I was going to do that for the rest
of my life.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
Actually, it was interesting when I announced that I'm going
to do this PhD.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
I think a lo lot of people were kind of
taken off guard.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
But what was interesting was I just remember there were
certain programs I was like, you know, I think I'm
going to be a shoe, and.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Like, I know the type of people who applied.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
That kind of thing, and I felt like, okay, why
didn't I get in? And like I remember having a
conversation with the older black women in.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
The space, and she was like, I think that these.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
Folks are kind of punishing you a little bit for
the sort of space that you occupy within the profession
right now. At that time, I was like, I want
to say, like twenty four twenty five, but you know,
twenty four to twenty five with a platform.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
And so it's almost like it's like twenty ish or
what yeh, twenty twenty.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
Ish is when I was applying, and so people, I
think people might have felt some type of way.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Maybe I'm just like speculating.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
I would say also that like, even my decision to
just like become an economist was a bit of a
broken rung that I experienced, right there were people who
were actively trying to make it harder for me to advance.
And you know, one thing that I allude to in
the conversation with or like the the part of the

(31:05):
story about Governor Cook is that she dealt with a
lot of naysayers when she was rising into her current
position at the FED. Like there were people who wrote
op eds about how unqualified they thought she was. I
haven't had people write opeds about me yet, but I
have dealt with my fair share of trolls and people

(31:27):
who just don't think that I'm qualified to one speak
on anything and to even be pursuing this in the
first place. One thing that people don't know about economics
is that it's uniquely non diverse, like uniquely it's uniquely
non diverse socioeconomically, meaning like a lot of folks come
from parents who have like high ranking degrees and are
very rich, and you'll find out that a lot of

(31:49):
economists are children of economists. Like no shade, no t
no shade, but like that's what it is. And then
it's also very white. It's very male, right, so so
much so that I believe that black women made up
zero point two eight percent of PhDs.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Earned by economists in twenty twenty three. Damn, that's worse
than when.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Does one sprinkle out the whole the jar radio.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
It's for people, goddamn four people.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
So like, for me, the broken wrong I've dealt with
is really like criticisms and people kind of like seeing,
you know, all that I am and saying that disqualifies her.
And so that's why in the resume writing chapter, I
really went in and talked about how you have these
merit warriors, people.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Who are like, you know, we gotta we gotta stick
to merit.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
But then you find out that daddy is the reason
why they got into the program, and that stuff just
irks me on.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
A very deeper, like a very deep level, like that
you you.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Got a leg up, and because you're trying to prove
to everybody that you're a meritocratic, you're making it harder
for everybody else to get through.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
And I think that that to me is like, what
are you doing?

Speaker 1 (32:56):
So? Yeah, Also, conveniently they're passed the point in which
they be, you know, seeking like admittance to a school
or for an undrey little position. You know, they're comfortably
ahead of that already, yes, yeah, and comfortably positioned to
help their children or their mentees or whoever should they
run into any merit yeah roadblocks.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah. I also I just want to make sure what's that? Like,
did it make sense? The broken wrong example that I shared?

Speaker 1 (33:24):
It was yours. It's your personal experience, baby, it always
makes sense.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
I'm getting a little emotional. Well, I just do that lately.
It's just like this whole summer's been very you know,
it's been a lot. And I think because I do
have I was doing really well in my I mean,
I obviously still have a great career, but the corporate
side of my career I was really killing it. And
like when I hit my first broken wrung, it was

(33:52):
I just never saw it coming. And it was also
around the twenty twenty time period, and you know what,
I'm looking at you now and I'm just like, also,
we're just so damn like sparkly. And it's some rooms
that I know you're in Anna, like, especially in academia.
And I know I was making fun of the krusty

(34:12):
and the dry of which you're so the antithesis of
like my stereotype of that profession. But I think my
stereotypes based in you know, some truth, and I just
know they're so intimidated. They don't know what to do
with you, and they probably are insecure themselves because like

(34:32):
you have a whole book, you know, by a top
five publisher that's already out. How do you have finished
your your PhD? Like who cares? But like you know,
you haven't done these like these like steps in the
maybe the order that some people who've earned it, you know,
would have done it. And you know you're young, and

(34:53):
and I think we because we are like rare and
unique and we have such like obviously with very different
like backgrounds and upbrings. But I do think to be
a black woman in America. You just have something about you.
You just have this like inner light, sparkle shine that
if it is an unnointed or unlike insecure person or
someone who doesn't know how to feel the warmth of

(35:16):
that sun, like they act out of like they just
they don't know how to act. And often it's attack,
you know, it's like we don't understand this, we have
to get rid of it. Yeah, And so that those
feelings are just coming up for me, it's like I'm
extremely just like feeling a lot of compassion for you,
and I also like protect her, like, oh, get to her,

(35:38):
because we need you in this field.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Listen.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
I feel so touched by those words. Thank you, so
like my heart is bursting. Thank you so much for
those kind words. Truly, it's hard, you know, I'm not
gonna lie. There's times when it's a bit isolated, you know.
Thankfully I have a great community I feel like of
women of color, especially black women, who I think have
just really kind of surrounded me and kind of guided

(36:02):
me through. I'm not gonna lie, like if I'm having
some nuance here. There's a generational difference here too. You
mentioned that I'm young, so for those who don't know,
I'm twenty nine years old, but when I started this work,
I was like in my early twenties.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Twelve.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Twelve, ah, how we especially right? I was twelve in
like adult years.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
So I feel like people a lot of people are like,
she hasn't earned her stripes yet? Why is she be
interviewed by MPR? Why is she going on Marketplace? It
was a lot of like who do you think you are?

Speaker 2 (36:36):
And how you know? And it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
I had one of my favorite professors, like in professor friends,
is doctor Travon Logan. I highly recommend that y'all check.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Out his work.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
He's done a lot of really cool work on white
women and slavers and you know a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Didn't slave people. That's not true, so he's done some.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
Really great research on it. It's been featured in the Times,
So I highly highly recommend. But he said something to me.
He said two things to me that really I think
has kind of kept me going. The first thing he
said to me back in I think I would say twenty.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Nineteen was he said, and you need to.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Show up in these spaces as yourself, because if you don't,
and you reveal who you are.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
They're going to be shocked, right, and they're gonna and so.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
You if you show up as yourself, you are ready
filter who's willing to deal with that and who's willing
to be you know, in your corner.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Level was excellent advice, right, excellent advice.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
And then the second thing he said to me, it
was about two or three years ago, he said, someone like,
you know what's interesting about you?

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Anna?

Speaker 3 (37:35):
I mean a lot of people are really shocked that
you're still here. That is what people are upset by.
They're upset by your longevity. And I think that that
is a duniversal truth for black women, especially young black
women who are coming up, that like we are still present,
Like we're here despite the obstacles, despite the challenges, despite

(37:55):
people doubting us.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
We show up and we.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Show for ourselves and we show up our communit and
it ends up again like this lifeline that we're throwing
ourselves ends up actually saving everybody else, right. And I
think that there's people who can't really understand how we
sort of survived that pressure, because if it were them,
they would break, right. And so I think that to
me has been the most encouraging thing. And I would

(38:20):
also say, just as as a quick aside, knowing that
I could do something that could make my nieces lives
a little bit better. My nieces are all under the
age of eighteen. One of my nieces about to go
to college. Her and I are doing college visits.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
It's fall.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
I'm super excited. And then my other nieces are under
the age of five.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Like, even though you change your major seventeen times.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Listen, I did. I changed my major seventeen times. I'm
not giving your advice on that.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
But that's why I love that. I cracked. I laughed
so hard when he wrote that. I'm like, let a
woman change her mind.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
My parents said please graduate, please, and thank you, Like
we're trying to like get through this, right, But what
I'll say is that, like, oh.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Your nieces. You were saying you want to support your
nieces and make sure that it's easier for them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Right.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
If I could prevent racism and sexism just even one
iota for them, it's worth it. It's worth it for me.
I see like the next generation. I see gen Z
and I'm looking at them and I see genofla Very
good video editors, by the way, don't sleep on their skills,
very good video editors. I feel like people are sleeping
on them. They're really good anyway. They give me so

(39:26):
much hope, Like I just I want the best for
them so badly. And if that means that I have
to study racism and sexism so they don't have to,
it's worth it. It's worth it for me, and so that
to me is like the fuel that keeps me going,
knowing that the next generation could be even a little
bit better off if I try my hardest at this
current time.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Yeah, yeah, and just you being there. Imagine if one
day a young woman, you know, maybe she was born
in Ghana for three seconds, who knows, but like a
woman opens the door to her act advisor's office and
your faces, what's there? Can you imagine? Like how different?
And then you get yeah, And I mean I'm not

(40:07):
saying you have to stay in academia, there could be,
but to be able to mentor into like two at
least you know you're going into the world and you're
not going to be the person to question someone's ambition
or you know, did you plagiarize this right? Did you
want to do mathematics?

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Listen?

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (40:24):
To add to that, I had like a brief experience
with that already, so I had the opportunity to teach
last semester. I was teaching the economics and social policy
alongside the professor who actually like runs the course.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Okay, professor were out here, Yeah, we're getting there.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
But I remember, you know, first day of class, I
was sitting there and you know, Professor Shepherd introduces me.
He says, oh, by the way, my teaching fellow is
Anna Gifty and he points to me. And I noticed
that all the black folks, especially the black women in
the class, like it was like maybe six or seven
of them, they all their faces like and then where
as they come after and they come to me and

(41:01):
they say, we're just so happy that you're RTF and like,
I don't.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
Know, like that was just like really emotional, like like
I don't know, like I understand because I've been in
those spaces where I'm the only and I don't have
any reminders that like I'm smart and I'm intelligent, because
it's not people who look like me that are in
the space, which is why, by the way, Governor Cook
is so important to me.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
Like she's like someone who really kind of showed me like, oh,
I can be at that level. I can do the
things that she does. That's not beyond the realm of possibility.
So now being that for my peers, right, or being
that for folks who are younger than me, Like, there's
something so fulfilling about that, Like I don't know, like
it's it touches the depths of.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
My soul to have that kind of impact.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
And again, I just think it's worth it regardless of
what you go through, Like ideally you don't go through
as much harm and as much pain, but like if
you need to just weather the storm just so that
you can see the sum the other side, Like, to me,
that's worth it.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, yeah, And I think it probably helps. Like you
have Lisa in front of you, and you have your heroes,
the few, but the few but the rare, right, the
heroes and economics. I think you mentioned some of them
in the book. There was a Michelle was it road?

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Oh you're talking about doctor Michelle holder Holder?

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Okay, right? You mentioned her? Is she woman of color?

Speaker 2 (42:18):
She is black? She's a black wol's black? Okay?

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Because you mentioned her, and I was like, let me
write down her name because I've looked at her. I've
like cited her research before, but I was I almost
felt like you were low key just through this book itself,
like you were shining a light on black women researchers
and like people who are doing who are doing the work.
And I think that's a beautiful way to just use
your platform.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Also, I appreciate you read I just I love that
you read it, like because the way the questions we're
asking are just so deep, And I just I really
appreciate you appreciating the book. Yes, I really went out
of my way to make sure that women of color
in particular were highlighted throughout this book.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
I want you to remember their names.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
Doctor Michelle Hold pointed the Double Gap, right, which talks
about sort of the double compounding costs of race and sexism,
racism and sexism in pay.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
And then you know, I featured Governor Lisa.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
Cook, just as Ktanji Brown Jackson is a scholar and
her self a legal scholar.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
A doctor. Lord Darrencourt is an.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
Economist that has done exceptional work on documenting the evolution
of the racial wealth gap. There's just so many people
that I want y'all to remember, because I think black
women's scholars. Oftentimes our contributions are ignored or dismissed. It
took Governor Cook so long to get one of the
most famous papers that she's put out to even be

(43:37):
considered for publication. And so this is really an attempt
to kind of correct that wrong, or at least try
to move things along in the direction so you don't
forget it. Like our community at least doesn't forget who
these people are, because these are the folks that you know.
These are the w Ebat boys, these are the Tony
Morrison's like you should be paying attention to them.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Don't let the number scare you.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
These folks are well versed in explaining those members as
clearly as possible, and I really want to make sure
that you knew who they were.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Oh. I think that's wonderful. Oh there's so much to
talk about. Heyba, fam, we got to take a quick break,
pay some bills and we'll be right back. I you know,
I don't know there was this there's this like stat
or that you you mentioned in the book. At a
certain point, you're like a study was done on like

(44:27):
a new class of incoming freshman college students, I think,
or a master's students or something like what a difference
it could make in terms of their interest in STEM fields,
just in like changing the welcome letter to explain, here's
how you can take advantage of these resources or whatever
I want to know, like for you having you know

(44:47):
you're getting your PhD? Is it in public policy and
you cannot all.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
The concentration in economics?

Speaker 4 (44:53):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (44:54):
So what's your welcome letter to any brown ambition women
who are listening who maybe don't know what that career
path is like? Or like what why would I get
a PhD? Is in a ton of student loans? Like
where do I go to find out more about that
career path? What would you say in your like little
welcome letter?

Speaker 2 (45:09):
I love this question so much. Oh my gosh. So
first and foremost, my PhD is free all they pay me?

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Okay, what's code?

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Listen?

Speaker 3 (45:21):
So a lot of these sort of social science STEM
PhDs like things that like are at that level.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Usually they're paid for.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
I think it's only really clinical psychology and like some
of the more what is it practitioner based doctorates that
you usually have to pay for, but PhDs by and
large are free ideally the government like the National Science
Foundation would be helping to fund your education. Right now,
they acting a little funky, but like in a perfect

(45:50):
world that would be the case. What we're starting to
see is a lot of private foundations are starting to
fill that gap. So I don't think you should be
deterred from the path if that's what you want to do.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
I know, black women, we love, we love collect.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
A degree for sure, for sure, and for good reason,
because the way that we are valued in the labor market,
those degrees ensure or at least suggest that we are
qualified for the jobs that we're doing. Right, and so
I'm always baffled by how many credentials black women have
to have and the kind of credentials other folks are

(46:22):
required to have.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
It's where it's usually like giving us the benefit of
the doubt.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
Nobody, and so like, these degrees actually help signal that
in terms of why policy and economics might be a
worthwhile thing to pursue. I know, you see what's going
on in the news, babes.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
I think, regardless of what's taking place in terms of
the unraveling of our government, this is going to come
to an end at some point, and we need people
who know how to rebuild. And so that is my
plea for anybody who's interested in policy and economics. We
need folks who are skilled, who have contexts, who have

(47:01):
expertise to understand how we reimagine the current society that
we're living in. And so for me, I can tell
you what my dissertation focuses on. I study policy and economics.
So people might think, oh, Anna, you talk about the
stock market. I don't know nothing about the stock market
at all. What I do, though, is I run experiments

(47:23):
or try to design interventions to make.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
It really really hard for your boss to be racist.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
That's what I do, right, And so the beautiful thing
about policy and economics is that if you have a
social issue that you care about and you want to
go ahead and tackle it through data or through and.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Data can be qualitative, can be quantitative, right.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
The way to do that is to potentially pursue a
research degree where you get to ask those questions, you're
empowered to ask those questions, and you come up with answers.
So it's kind of like you're a detective in some ways.
You got a mission that.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
You got to go on.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
You got to go look for clues and figure out
how to solve that mission. And then once you solve it,
you just tell people here, here's how I did it right,
and you tell the world. So if folks want to
do it themselves, or they want to tweak it, or
they want to improve upon it. And so what I
love about the PhD and what I'm doing right now,
is that it's really a knowledge sharing process. At its core,
we're just sharing information with one another so that we

(48:19):
can make the world a better place. I think, on
my end, though, I take it a little bit further.
I'm taking after you know, doctor Trusten McMillan, Cottam, doctor
Eve Ewing, Tony Morrison, right, Tony Morrison, Like, there's certain
people who I think taking a step further. It's not
just about pursuing those questions, but it's also about sharing
those answers that we find with you.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Right.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
I think the public is really important in this sort
of knowledge sharing process. And shout out to doctor Raquel Martin,
who's really talked about this. But it's like as a
public scholars, I know she's so great as an aspiring
public scholar. That is actually why this book exists. So
I'm well aware that at Harvard, we get access to
life like every article, you could possibly imagine, every book.

(49:04):
But as an everyday person, you may not get that.
You may run into a paywall. You may have to
subscribe to it.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
Actly, Yeah, let me borrow your let me get your
log in real quick.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
I got you for the HBr, but you didn't hear
me say that. You didn't hear me.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Sorry, But ultimately this is really about like there's information
that's like behind these paywalls, like y'all not seeing. I'm
gonna go ahead and put it right in front of
you so you can make the best informed decision for
your life.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
I love that. That was a perfect welcome email. I
have some follow ups because of course I do yes,
and because I am the negotiation girly, I'm gonna I'm
gonna tie it back into the book and the chapter
where you talk about obviously we know about the pay gap.
You also talk about some of the ways that we're
held behind at the negotiating table, just in terms of
like pay transparency in general. Now, your academic career is

(49:56):
one thing you talk about your very first experienced negotiating
in the private sector. And I felt a little bit
like I wanted more details. If I was your editor,
I'd have been like, no, double click there, what are
we going to learn? Because this is what you this
is what you wrote about negotiating or like getting your
first like private I think private sector salary, you said,
And this is when you're on the phone with the recruiter.

(50:18):
When she began describing the role. I nearly jumped through
the phone. The job was amazing, dot dot dot, And
finally she transitioned into the conversation. I was itching to
have money. I would like to share with you how
much we are excited to offer you for the role,
she said. I inhaled. She stated the offer. I exhaled
and then chuckled a little louder than I should have.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
What were you laughing about? What was funny? Was it funny?

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Good?

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Or funny? That number one? Embarison?

Speaker 3 (50:46):
I said, Okay, I know, let me clean my ears
out a little bit.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Let me see if like, can you repeat yourself?

Speaker 3 (50:54):
So I actually did double click on this story in
earlier drafts, but I made an execut a decision to
like allow conversations like these to really draw it out,
because I was like, you know, we're not trying to
bring some problems, but I can be honest on here
and share a little bit more about that story. So
you know, this is twenty twenty. You know everybody was
listening to that Imagine video.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Horrible video.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
By the way, they should have given me your least
favorite celebrity.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Was in all put that away.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
But anyway between sort of these like Netflix binges, I
was applying for jobs. So I applied for jobs in
policy and in corporate. I had this conversation with this recruiter,
very nice woman.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
She was like oh, she was like hyping up the
I said, whoa four one?

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Kay?

Speaker 3 (51:38):
You know we got these benefits. Amazing, amazing, amazing. My
parents were like, we just want you to get some income.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
I said, I got you, I got you. I'm working
on it.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
You know, we're on the phone. She says the number.
I think it was, like I want to say, it
was like forty five. I might be lowbol.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Job for what kind of firm?

Speaker 2 (51:56):
This was like a like our early analyst job something
like that.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Okay, I said, girl in this academy, and I thought
it was just odd because I was like, I have
a math degree, I have an economics mind, I got
I'm qualified on just that front.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Then I just spent some time at Harvard.

Speaker 3 (52:12):
I have these skills and manage. Are we not reading
the full resume?

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Like?

Speaker 3 (52:18):
What what information are you using and collecting to inform
this number? And interesting enough, a black woman in that
organization reached out to me because she knew who I was,
and she was like, I heard they offered you enough.
I said, girl, and she said girl, she said, here's
what I'm gonna have you do take the number, but
you're gonna negotiate. And she taught me exactly how to

(52:39):
negotiate for the number I wanted.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
So here's what happened with the recruiter. That's what I learned.
Why did you undouble click this?

Speaker 1 (52:45):
And this is what I don't know?

Speaker 2 (52:47):
I was like, girl, I don't know, I want to,
but this is how.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
This is how you negotiate people. Hope you're listening. It's
not about it's not about like you know, go into
your story. Go ahead, do you tell.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Me you know what your gory to say is exactly right.
It's not just about you asking for more. It's about
leveraging your network stabes and making sure that people are
double clicking. Inside the organization, a lot of folks don't
realize this, but this is what sociologists Devin Patrit and
her co author have found. Black and white folks we
got the same access to networks. It's how those networks
manifest for us to get opportunities. For white folks, they're

(53:23):
double clicking within the organization a lot of times because
they have folks in the organization that have the jobs
that you might want or are related to the jobs
that you might want. With black folks, because we have
less opportunity, it's a lot harder for us to really
use those job networks to our benefit. So this is
an example of me being a black woman and talking
to another black woman in the organization who basically said,

(53:46):
the recruiter's not really the person setting the number. It's
the next person you're about to talk to, and that's
who you should negotiate with. She said, take the row,
but let them know you're willing to negotiate a higher thing. Literally,
here's how it goes. She had the phone call me.
I said, I'm interested in the role. I'll take the role,
but I want to talk to whomever I kid you not.

(54:06):
Two three days later, the lady who's her boss, I
think her boss's boss was like, hey, we're so excited
to have you.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
We heard you didn't like the number, and I said,
I didn't.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
I don't think it's actually going to compensate me for
the skills that I'm braining the table.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
She says, what number would make you happy?

Speaker 1 (54:27):
Crowd?

Speaker 3 (54:27):
I probably should have put this in the book, And
I said, what number will make me?

Speaker 1 (54:32):
I'm trying to be not I it's fine because you're
saying it now, keep going. I'm riding dated breath. I
am so I'm so dialed in. Okay, what I would ahead?

Speaker 2 (54:44):
And I said, I would like twenty thousand dollars more.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
I was gonna go seventy five, but I'm fine.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
I was young at the time.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
I would have I should have done thirty twenty thousand
dollars more. She says, I'm not sure if that's like
than our budget.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
I said, this is a bank.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
His name is a Goldman, the JP some of them, right.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
I was like, I like this bank. It's a great
place to work.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
But I was banks, I'm trying to let you finish,
and then and then all ran you're curious.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
You can really look at my linthdin.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
But this is a bank like you guys, there's literally
money in the vault, right, you know what I'm saying,
Just pull something anyway. So she says, okay, let me
think about it. I'll get back to you. Twenty four
hours later, she.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Says, we can do it. We're going to give you.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
Sixty thousand dollars with a five thousand dollars signing bonus.
And I said, got it. And guess who followed up?
The black women?

Speaker 2 (55:37):
She said, I heard you got the number, and I said,
you a real one. You a real one for that?
She said, I told them.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
I told them, if they don't hire you, that's a mistake.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Damn. I should have could include this in the book.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Yeah, I'm so mad, you know, because God, that shit
pisses me off because you know, I was in corporate.
I was a hiring manager. It's no reason why they
should low b you to that extent, like twenty whole
thousand dollars. You were trying to get away with and
for what you know, and they were playing in your
face because they know you're coming from academia, you're a

(56:10):
woman of color. They don't give a shit. You should
be grateful, right where a big bank ooh, four one k,
blah blah blah. Get the fuck out of here with
forty five k. You're in a major investment bank. You know,
this is a shit that pisses me off so much
because there was that influencer who went viral like the
last week or two forget her name. Now, I'm so sorry, but.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Amandy, I know you're talking about that. She does the
cutting room.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
Floor, right, So she she was catching shit, catching hell
for posting a job for fifty five K for an
assistant who was doing you know, normal in my opinion,
normal assistant things when you're working with a solopreneur small
business owner. Like literally, that job is a job that
I would post and be like I'd be so proud
to be able to offer fifty five K. But she

(56:53):
was catching hell, you know, like I think it was
the cut put her on the cover of like magazine
like to be just to to symbolize un like low
wages and how we are underpaying. And I'm like, get
the fuck out of here. It's not that that's the issue,
Like that's a that's a hard working entrepreneur who's doing

(57:13):
her best and still at least she's offering like what
I considered to be a decent salary, but corporate quay
corporations who are nickel and diming true, like incredibly talented
diming gems like yourself. Like, I mean that's the fucking like, yeah,
is that's what we should be outraged about your story

(57:36):
kisses me off. I'm also very happy for you and
like we but that just shows how the game is
so fucked up, and like how without someone in the house,
where would you have been?

Speaker 2 (57:45):
You know, I would have been twenty dollars cheaper. You
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
It's not like a nice to have. It's not like, oh,
it'd be nice if you leverage your network, it'd be nice.
You know, I coach this all the time. It'd be
nice if you, you know, worked on building some relationships.
Know what is a fact of survival? Like, yes, do
you want to be able to afford child care one day?
Go make a friend?

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Yes, listen that we can even talk about that.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
I will say that, like what I said in that
chapter to open it up, is anybody who tells you
that ten thousand dollars is worth negotiating for has never
had to like stretch a dollar. That's not somebody you
should be taking any financial advice from, because they have
no idea what your reality is. You see what I'm saying.
I think people who give financial advice should be like,

(58:30):
at least to folks who are just like the ninety
nine percent, should be rooted in the ninety nine percent experience, right.
And my advice, based off of the book and based
off of this conversation is it's not just about asking
for more, because I'll be honest, what the research shows
us is that if you're a black person and you
try to negotiate, they might utilize you. Actually, you actually

(58:52):
do need enforcements inside of the organization to ensure that
the request that you're making that's going in go all
the way through and it doesn't get stopped at somebody's bias.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Right.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
And so that to me is probably the biggest lesson
from that chapter that I would suggest, and I would
say too, if you're like a black woman or a
woman of color who's in a position of power within
an organization, please don't do younger women of color, black
women dirty and not say anything about your experiences like
it actually hurts you. Because if they raise the bar,

(59:26):
you can raise the bar you say, well, you're starting
her off now at twenty thousand dollars more, but when
I started, you started me at twenty thousand dollars less.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
Can you add twenty thousand dollars? So it's I like.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
To say that, like, don't let the multi generational you know,
the generational wars fool you guys. We're all on the
same train. This melanin is acrof of the board, Like
they don't.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Care that woman. How did you guys know each other?
The woman who reached out to.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
You funnily enough?

Speaker 3 (59:56):
And I'm this gonna connect something that we talked about
in the chapter and broken wrungs me and that black
woman got connected to a white guy, old white man,
and I think in that I think in the book,
I mentioned briefly that I wish I kind of double
clicked on this too, but hopefully folks will give.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
The next book is fine, It's fine, Yeah, next book,
the follow up.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
But I mentioned that like black women that we spoke
to and what we've seen in the qualitative research in
corporate America have said that white men are better allies
than white.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Women, And yeah, I'd add myself to that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Right, This is something that I'm trying.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
It helps that there's more of them right right, so
you are still relaxed apex predators.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
They're a predators, you know. But that man made that connection.
The only reason I even like was even considered for
that job. Was called the white guy. And then the
white guy made the connection with the black women, and
the black woman was able to double click within But
you see what.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
I was doing that because she was a black woman.
And was he like you should talk to or was
that understood?

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
I think it was a little bit of that. I
think it was she's a black woman.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
I think this is somebody you should look up to,
and also she has a lot of you know, knowledge
to share. What's funny about that interaction is the way
I met that white guy. This is why you guys can't,
you know, neglect any opportunities that you guys got. Him
and I were just seated at a dinner and I
was just kind and cracking jokes, That's literally all I

(01:01:23):
was doing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
And he said, you know, I'm on the board.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Of so and so bank, And I said, ain't done,
like a really big bank and he was like yeah,
And I said, if you ever want to, if you
ever want a job. This is how these white guys are.
If you ever want a job, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
Just hit my line and I did and I got
a job out of it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
So, like again, I think the big picture of lessons
from here is it's not just about asking for more.
It's about making sure you can double click on networks
that can really serve your interest and serve the number
you should.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Be asking for.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
When you ask for more, ask for a lot more
because they're low bothering you. They're devaluing your labor, devaluing
your skills on the onset. And then the last thing
I would say is that a lot of us will
engage in these professional environments where we could talk to
this or a random white guy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
You never know, these random white guys way more connected.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
Than I think anybody because that might be his buddy
from around the way, might be the CEO of JP Moore.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
You have no idea.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
I'm not saying like, go and seek them out, but
I'm just saying that if you find yourself in a
space like that, do not hesitate to introduce yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
You know, just be a kind human. You never know
what that's gonna result in.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
For me, it resulted in a job which I got
twenty thousand dollars more for.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Yeah, I could double quicks on this. That's fine, we
got it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
I scratched that itch. I had to know. I'm so glad,
I asked. I'm like she was she laughing there laughing? Good,
I can imagine, But I need to know more. Oh well, Anna,
I wish we could talk for like another hundred hours. Well,
you know you're a friend now, so you've been a
friend in my head and my in my in my feed.
But yeah, anything that we can do brand ambition to

(01:03:07):
support obviously, go get the book again. It is called
the Double Text by my guest and a gifty opoku ajamen,
And you can find that where are we telling them
to shot bookshop dot org to just for a.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
Local bookstore, trap your local bookstore, a black owned bookstore,
a woman owned bookstore. One thing I will suggest is
that please request copies of The Double Tax at your
local library. Not everybody to the board to buy the book.
So if you requested at your local library, it now
becomes part of your community, so anybody can check it out.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
Maybe they'll add your book to the syllabus and like
some econ.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
If you're a professor. I think they should.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Maybe I would not have barely scratch to be an
econ if I had this book.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Please.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
All right, you're also going on a little book tour,
not little, but you're going on a book tour, right, No, I.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Didn't get I didn't know I was going to get
to talk about that. Yes, I am going on a
seven cities.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
It's called Brown Ambition. You're supposed to just all the things.
It's a podcast. It can be as long as we want.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
You're killing it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
Yes, I'm super excited to share that I'm going on
a seven city, seventh state book tour. So we're starting
off in New York City with Chelsea Clinton, and then
we're headed to Washington, d C. Where we're gonna be
talking about black women leadership. We're gonna be going to Boston,
Oh my gosh, Atlanta, Chicago, Saint Paul with Tim Waltz's daughter,

(01:04:28):
Hope walt I'm super excited conversation, and then La with
the wonderful doctor Malika Tubbs. We're also being in Chicago.
Excuse me, we're gonna be talking with Mickey Kendall. So
if y'all know the book Feminism on the show The
Double Taxes like hood Feminism's Little Sisters.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
So oh that's such a good yes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
So if you like tod feminism, you're gonna like the
Double tax a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
I know Mickey loves you because she also is, like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
She's such good people's yes.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Oh okay, amazing. So what's your us the website people
can go find out all about that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Literally innagifty dot com. So giftise just gout as gift
with a Y at the end. Everything you needed on there,
Everything you need.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Is on there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
I'm amazing. All right, we'll put that in the show.
Notes to BA Fam and a gift to you are
a gift. I'm not the first person to make that pun,
I'm sure, but I don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
I beg you are and that means a lot. You
are a gift as well.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
You can say you're for sharing your platform. And I
hope that you guys enjoyed our conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
It was so fun.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
I know they did. If you had a good time,
the usually BA fam is right there with us, all right,
BA Fam until next time, Thank you so much for listening.
Thank you to my guest Anna Gifty. You're gonna go
get her book, The Double Text. We're gonna find her
on tour. We're gonna do whatever we can to support her.
We're gonna also, I think, walk away from this conversation
feeling like very seen, very appreciated, and very motivated and

(01:05:46):
inspired to whatever it is. Expect more of yourself to
keep pushing, to keep pushing, keep surprising them that we're
sticking around with our longevity. Like you said, until next
time by ba Fam okay va fam. Thank you so
much for listening to this week's show. I want to
shout out to our production team, Courtney, our editor, Carla,

(01:06:08):
our fearless leader for idea to launch productions. I want
to shout out my assistant Lauda Escalante and Cameron McNair
for helping me put the show together. It is not
a one person project, as much as I have tried
to make it so these past ten years. I need help, y'all,
and thank goodness I've been able to put this team

(01:06:30):
around me to support me on this journey and to
y'all bea fam. I love you so so so so much.
Please rate, review, subscribe, make sure you sign up to
the newsletter to get all the latest updates on upcoming episodes,
our ten year anniversary celebrations to come, and until next time,
talk to you soon via Buy

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Double Tax & Why It’s So Damn Expensive to Be a Woman of Color Ft. Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman