Your perspective on this may be jaded for a number of rational reasons but in the bigger picture your assessment and thus conclusion that Black women in particular are that underrepresented is inaccurate. The media bias does not highlight them the way white women are highlighted and this is purposefully done.
Think Elizabeth Holmes, known as the darling of Silicon Valley, the founder and CEO of Theranos, they will have you still thinking that she is still a saint and exemplar of feminist will despite what she has and more importantly not done.
There are a number of successful black women represented in the health and sciences fields though there is room for more and some come from my family alone that indicate progress, however, not celebrated. They may not work in rural areas but they do prevail in more diverse cities and communes.
The problem with you or someone like me is not that education is overrated with no guarantee of success it is that our institutions have failed to protect and ensure our productivity and success. The government has an incentive with ensuring that, but there is a preponderance of stupidity in our midst. When you combine this with luck: whether it is serendipity or misfortune then the structural racism, as well as the institutional callousness exacerbates it.
You raised valid and plausible points of only the corruption that encumber us like gatekeepers and changing the game when we do make it through the ranks, but these coordinated efforts will only happen if we collectively let it stop us or collectively accept that this is the case and that this isn’t our place.
photo credit: Fortune
Courtesy of Arlan Hamilton Unlimited Style Real Estate Photography
We should never concede to this regardless of how highly coordinated whiteness can get. Sometimes we are simply needed elsewhere but don’t know where. We still have an obligation to call this out just like we have a moral obligation to yell Fire! in a burning building with people in it.
When things are going well structural racism is still an albatross to contend with but it only seems like it is more easily dismissed or discounted when you are fortunate in your career pursuits. We need to push back against this notion.
If we decide to be just as coordinated to promote something virtuous instead like equality in this realm then it won’t take another hundred years for us to break glass ceilings. Between me and you, we are not as coordinated as a collective (certainly not like our Jewish counterparts) to challenge whiteness effectively and substantially. It results in something fleeting at times because there are those who betray the collective. And for what?
