I really didn't realize

It has become glaringly obvious to my how truly underrepresented African American Women are in business. I guess my mom always set me up to do my very best, and not to worry about what has been done before but to blaze my own path. I feel like I have done that for the most part in my life. But venturing back into graduate business school, meeting many new people (of whom only a handful are black, hispanic, and native american), trying to figure out my career trajectory and researching companies, it has hit me like a mack truck that I could very well the THE only African American in my workplace when I leave here. Now that might not seem like news to anyone else. In fact, it shouldn't seem like news to me because I just came from a work environment where this held true in the office. But for some reason at this point in my life it makes me a little worried.

Let me first say, though, that it may be because I experienced a phenomenon that I have never before experienced in my first couple weeks in NC. I would introduce myself to people, and days or even hours later they would call me a different black woman's name in our group. And, ok, this isn't such a big deal when you're trying to learn 300 people's names, but come on, it happened to me 6 days in a row...really! Since I have been here, I have called one person the wrong name (I really thought his name was Brian, not because he looked like someone else, but I just thought thats what he said the first time), and if I don't know someone's name I won't hesistate to ask them again...hey, it's the first couple weeks, right!? I adore my name...who doesn't, and as Dale Carnegie says in "How to Win Friends and Influence People" to win friends, smile and remember their name. This experience has had the opposite effect on me. I am beginning to wonder why this is happening, and if people are really so obtuse that they would dare confuse the 6 black women in our group. No points from me on this one.

Anyway, in searching for companies and looking at their employee rosters there are surprisingly few, if any African American faces there. It is even more true in the Sustainability or Green realm. We will have to see how this all turns out, but it will, no doubt, be a HUGE learning experience for me.