A Letter to White Women from a Woman of Color
Dear White Women,
I am writing this open and honest letter to you because it is my hope that given the heightened racial awareness many of you are experiencing at this time, that you will take a moment from your busy schedules and listen to a woman of color.
I should start by saying that I am not writing this letter on behalf of all women of color, that would be inappropriate. I write this letter on my behalf and from my perspective. It is my hope that other women of color would agree with my letter’s content, but certainly they would omit and add based on their own experiences.
Although I’ve been working with white women for years, it still has not become an easy task, even now with their awakened racial consciousness. Given a major job change, from academics to working at a nonprofit as a full-time executive director, I am suddenly the boss of several staff, many who are white women. This means that I now have to continuously interact and supervise white women and white men on a daily basis. Over the past several months that I’ve been in my new position, as a woman of color leader in the mostly white nonprofit sector, my thinking about the role white women play in maintaining privilege and how they wield their power especially in work spaces, has significantly increased.
