- 2 days ago
Black women are among the most educated groups in the United States and have long been a driving force of the economy. Yet many Black women are finding themselves at a crossroads. Some are choosing to leave workplaces that have become increasingly toxic, isolating, or hostile. Others are being pushed out of jobs and leadership pipelines—not because of performance or qualifications, but because of persistent discrimination and the erosion of initiatives designed to expand opportunity and accountability.
As companies retreat from diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments, many Black women are experiencing the consequences firsthand. The result is not only a workforce challenge, but an economic one—with implications for income, wealth building, entrepreneurship, leadership representation, and family stability.
This session will examine the realities facing Black women in today’s workforce, the impact of anti-DEI policies and practices, and what it will take to create workplaces where Black women can thrive, lead, and build lasting economic security. From corporate leadership and entrepreneurship to policy solutions and power building, the conversation will explore a path forward at a pivotal moment for Black women and the future of work.
As companies retreat from diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments, many Black women are experiencing the consequences firsthand. The result is not only a workforce challenge, but an economic one—with implications for income, wealth building, entrepreneurship, leadership representation, and family stability.
This session will examine the realities facing Black women in today’s workforce, the impact of anti-DEI policies and practices, and what it will take to create workplaces where Black women can thrive, lead, and build lasting economic security. From corporate leadership and entrepreneurship to policy solutions and power building, the conversation will explore a path forward at a pivotal moment for Black women and the future of work.
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00:00Hi, everybody. Thank you guys for being here in the audience. And I also want to thank everybody who's tuning
00:06in at home. And we're going to have a really important conversation today. I was just on this stage a
00:12little while ago talking about how righteously pissed off we are most mornings watching the media landscape normalize the chaos
00:22that we're seeing in the country.
00:24But no more obvious place is this chaos present until it comes to black women. I hear something. Do y
00:34'all hear? Does somebody have their phone on or something? Back there? Oh, it's back there. Okay. We're not going
00:42to start a beef with them back there. But as long as you all can hear, it's okay.
00:46Okay. So the chaos is really just running rampant through our community because we are being pushed to the bread
00:53lines by the hundreds of thousands. And it has really been a challenge, quite frankly, to bear witness to what's
01:01happening to black women after all the love that we have poured into this country. That has not poured anything
01:08back into us.
01:09Hundreds of thousands of black women have been sent to the unemployment lines. This is not even counting pre-existing
01:15unemployed black women who never returned to the workforce after COVID. Black women understood that we'd be in for a
01:22long night after the last election.
01:25And now here we are, rethinking retirement plans, scaling down our expenses, refinancing, having to think about how we're going
01:34to pay the mortgage, having to think about how we're paying for private school for kids, or having to figure
01:39out how we're going to eat.
01:40And one thing I love about black women is our directness and honesty. And so in this conversation, we're not
01:46going to have talking points.
01:47We want to have real, honest conversations about solutions and what we can do to be helpful to each other.
01:55There's been a lot of conversations about us, but not a lot of conversations with us. And just this week,
02:04this is to the people watching at home as well in the audience, just this week, the unemployment numbers, or
02:09the job numbers, rather, came out.
02:10And every time the jobs numbers come out, they never disaggregate the data. It's like we're not even part of
02:15the conversation.
02:16So however good or bad it is, it is always horrible for black folks. And they've never done a segment,
02:23or when we talk about jobs numbers, on how awful and atrocious it is for black women.
02:27So I just want to set the framing of this conversation and let you all know this is going to
02:32be a very direct conversation.
02:34And I hope by the time you leave, you're armed with tools and armor to protect yourselves for the long
02:41night that's coming.
02:42So with that, I want to start with Ann Price.
02:45Ann Price. And I'm starting with you because I quote you in my book, as you know, because you've given
02:52some really direct conversation around we can't do it all at the same time.
02:59And a lot of us are in that sandwich generations where we're trying to take care of aging parents, we're
03:04trying to take care of children, and somewhere in that we get lost in trying to take care of ourselves.
03:11So on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most dire of the Great Depression level of poverty,
03:20and one where we're all at least surviving comfortably, where are we today?
03:25And where do you think we might be a year from today?
03:29Thank you for that question.
03:31I mean, I think it's clear we can feel this in our bones and our communities that we've seen such
03:36a great push out of black women out of the labor force, people in government particularly, but even the private
03:42sector as well.
03:43So when we think about where we are, we are in a dire situation, we haven't seen anything like this,
03:51so we're seeing something that's very unprecedented.
03:53So I want to say that while we are experiencing this, there are ways that we need to think about
04:00how we survive this time, right?
04:04So I think there's two things, and other people on the panel will speak to that.
04:08One is we need a collective practice, and that collective practice is really about really thinking about the structures in
04:15place that allowed us to be here in the first place,
04:19and what we need for fair wages, what we need for good jobs, but we also need an inner practice,
04:25coming back to ourselves and asking ourselves,
04:28what wasn't serving me in the first place?
04:32What are the hopes and dreams that I put aside for this job that I had, right?
04:38And really coming home to ourselves, our wholeness.
04:43Well, I want to talk a little bit about what we are when we disaggregate even us demographically.
04:52I rent office space in Washington, D.C., and one thing that the people who run the office space wanted
04:59to do,
05:00because there were so many people out of work, particularly black women,
05:03they wanted to have a resume-building workshop for all the federal workers who had been dismissed.
05:09And I had to tell them, they don't need no resume-building workshop.
05:13These are professionals, college graduates who have been summarily...
05:18That's not the problem.
05:18That's not the problem.
05:19And it's insulting to offer that.
05:21I understand your intentions are well, but it will be insulting to offer college graduates.
05:26These are some of the largest losses of college graduates of public sector workers.
05:32April, I want to come to you on this.
05:34You're representing labor.
05:35What are some tools your members have employed to survive?
05:39What is labor saying about this moment in time?
05:41And what are you saying to your members who don't have an income anymore?
05:45Tiffany, thank you for the question.
05:47And I think what is important to note about that story you just told is that so much of the
05:54response that we get is about what's our fault.
05:59Right?
06:00So assuming that I need help writing a resume is speaking to my deficits, my deficiencies.
06:07And so what I am saying and what the labor movement and what we're moving our members and workers to
06:12say is that the material conditions that we live and exist in ain't our damn fault.
06:19It is not our fault.
06:21It is not our fault.
06:22We are enough.
06:23We are fine just the way that we are.
06:26And what we must organize and build our power to respond to is whose fault that it is.
06:33It is the economic exploitation that we've always experienced that we have to solve for.
06:40It is the corporate greed, the anti-blackness, the white supremacy that we must solve for.
06:48And I think we have to start there and stop blaming ourselves and each other for the issues that our
06:55communities face, and we figure out how we solve for them.
06:58Yeah.
06:59I think when you say it's not our fault, Congresswoman, I know somebody whose fault it is.
07:05I have some thoughts, Tiffany.
07:07And I'm righteously angry about that.
07:10But I have to say, and we may disagree on this, so I want to hear your thoughts.
07:13One thing I don't want to hear from people is wait till midterms or midterms is going to save us.
07:19If that's what we're saying, then somehow we lost the plot because I, you know, Congress can only do so
07:25much when you're in the minority.
07:27And I'm not so sure that these three pillars of government will uphold fascism in this way.
07:33What, if anything, can Congress do at this moment?
07:36And what are some of the challenges you're facing in trying to meet the needs of your constituents who, too,
07:42have been sent to the unemployment line?
07:44So, Tiffany, the biggest thing here is realizing that you're right.
07:48Congress cannot do it all.
07:50But we have an absolute role to play.
07:52And that means speaking up even when you don't think you can win the fight.
07:56That means making sure that people know that you're with them and you're leading in this moment.
08:01Because at this day and time, you need to know that there's leaders in this country willing to fight for
08:05you, even when they don't see the victory in sight.
08:08Because it's not always just about that vote passing.
08:11Because math is math, and we understand that.
08:14But I think back to just two weeks ago in Georgia.
08:17We were going to have a special session, y'all, to redraw all of the lines on June 17th.
08:22They were going to literally erase black representation on Juneteenth.
08:27That was the day that they chose to close the special session.
08:30But people showed up en masse down at the state capitol.
08:33Even though Republicans control every constitutional office in Georgia, they control the House and the Senate in Georgia, a majority
08:41of our congressional delegation.
08:43But people showed up en masse.
08:45And you know what happened?
08:46The people's voices were heard.
08:48And they were like, wait a minute.
08:50We don't want to have to deal with the wrath of all of this while we're trying to run to
08:56win the midterms.
08:57And so they held off.
08:58And they didn't have that.
08:59So that's why it's not just enough to think about this in the realm of, like, what is Congress going
09:04to do?
09:04It's about Congress.
09:05Yes, I've got to do my part.
09:06And I've got to make sure that people understand there are folks like me who are willing to stand on
09:11the front lines and fight for you every single day, even when it's not easy.
09:15But we also have to have community.
09:17And that's when people show up, use their voices, and make sure that they are heard, because that's the only
09:23way out of this is together.
09:24I think about the statistic, April, when you think about white women and their unemployment rates during the Great Depression.
09:31That's what black women are facing in 2026.
09:362026, we're still in the same boat that white women faced in the Great Depression.
09:40So we've got work to do, and we can only do it if we come together.
09:44It's not about one person in Washington, because I ignore that man, Tiffany, because I know that the work that
09:50I'm doing to close the racial wealth gap existed before Donald Trump, during Donald Trump, and it will be thereafter
09:56until we come together to make sure that we're using our voices collectively to move us all forward.
10:02I want to talk about that coming together, and Anne, I want to talk to you about that.
10:09But before I come to you, I want to bring in Ty.
10:12One frustrating thing for me, Ty, in 2020, there was a lot of racial reckoning talk.
10:19How that racial reckoning working out for us these days?
10:22I mean, I think overwhelmingly black women understood that was a marketing tool.
10:26It was a brief moment in time where the private sector was taking advantage of what was going on.
10:34One thing that I want the audience to know, during that time in 2020, post-George Floyd, America's 50 biggest
10:42public companies and their foundations collectively committed at least almost $50 billion to address racial inequality.
10:53But that's not where the story ends.
10:55More than 90% of that money was allocated to potentially profitable loans and investments, including mortgages.
11:03Reporting found that only $70 million went to organizations devoted to criminal justice reform.
11:09So this was really mostly a reflexive reaction to the horrific violence that we have so routinely faced.
11:16So I know that you have said companies want to do well and do good.
11:23I dare say, no, they don't.
11:25So where are we today?
11:27And what's your perspective on it?
11:29So you said companies want to do well and do good.
11:32I said companies can do well and do good.
11:35Thank you for correcting me.
11:36And I think it's got to be about building it within yourself and not just being on whatever is the
11:43hot topic of the day.
11:44Because one of the things about Cappy Q, our businesses, we work with them, they were putting in the work
11:49before George Floyd.
11:51The people who are on the wayside right now were out there trying to be cute and look good and,
11:55oh, by the way, say, I'm not a racist.
11:57Don't fight me.
11:59But the ones who were putting in work were already investing in people of color.
12:04They were already investing in education.
12:06They were making sure people had access to child care.
12:09And, oh, by the way, what they saw was higher retention from their employees, greater promotions from people of color,
12:15outperformance and innovation.
12:16And so what we really need to fight about is the false narrative that diversity, equity, inclusion means mediocrity.
12:24In fact, diversity, equity, inclusion is the only way you have exceptionalism because we run circles around y'all with
12:30half the resources.
12:32Yes.
12:34I want to ask a follow-up, Ty, because what you're saying that companies can do well and do good.
12:40And I think this is a time for us to tap into our imagination and really rethink what we're doing
12:45in this society.
12:46Because even that, I wonder, can they do good and do well?
12:51I don't know.
12:52So I wonder, because if they really were intentional about it, they would be funding their demise, if we're going
12:57to really be honest about it.
12:59Can we survive in this system of capitalism?
13:03See, people like to come back, you know what, you know what, Tiffany, you came here to play.
13:07You came here to play with me.
13:09So let me tell you like this.
13:11Right now, everyone is like, capitalism is evil, and we need to get away with capitalism, right?
13:18Now, let me say I put a hammer on the ground.
13:21Would you yell at the hammer, or would you say the person who picks it up can either knock you
13:25in the head or build a house?
13:27Capitalism is a tool, and the fundamental challenge of the way it's wielded right now is driven by people who
13:33are focused on scarcity,
13:35who are focused on undermining each other.
13:37But what does it look like when it's focused on abundance and the wealth that we already have, especially black
13:42women?
13:43Because when black women have resources, the first thing we do is help other people.
13:48And when we grow and build our businesses, we grow it in a way where we take care of each
13:53other.
13:53And this is not a theoretical thing.
13:55We work with $3 trillion of assets of under management with businesses, and what we see is 10x growth in
14:03those portfolio companies when they invest in ways that actually help their workers and their communities thrive.
14:09So this is a false narrative that folks are trying to do to help us fight within each other instead
14:15of collaborate towards the outcomes we know we can achieve.
14:18So you say we can thrive in capitalism.
14:21You think that is a fundamental system?
14:22We can thrive if we drive it with the values innate to our community instead of, as I've said before,
14:29cosplaying colonizers and trying to make it a way where we're driving scarcity and competition amongst each other.
14:36So this is a philosophical discussion that I'll come back to because I want to bring Anne in, but doesn't
14:41capitalism require somebody to have less and someone to have more?
14:44Is that the fundamental belief of capitalism?
14:47Yeah.
14:47Yes.
14:48Okay.
14:48Well, okay.
14:49So Ty, Ty said I came to play.
14:51Bring it spicy.
14:51I will bring it in to answer that question because I saw you nodding like you have thoughts.
14:57If you want to answer that question, but I also have another question for you.
15:00Sure.
15:00Let me quickly answer it.
15:01First of all, this is an incredible panel.
15:04So can we just give a huge round of applause?
15:06Thank you so much once again for having me.
15:09So, I mean, I think when we think about economics, it's really about maximizing scarce resources.
15:15So if we're talking about capitalism, it is about, you know, you don't have a whole lot of resources.
15:19Not everybody can get it.
15:20And so there's sort of a hierarchy that is built outside of that system.
15:23And so it perpetuates these sort of relationships where some people have more and some people have less.
15:29And we're starting to see a little bit of a movement towards socialism.
15:33We're not going to get into that today.
15:34But I think my point here is just that people who are staunchly capitalist, I think a lot of times
15:41are very much thinking about scarcity and maximizing that scarcity.
15:45So the question I wanted to follow up with you on, Anne, is you, I know you wrote a wonderful
15:50book.
15:51Oh, yes, the double tax.
15:53The double tax.
15:55And we all know the double tax that we confront here.
15:57But something that I found really interesting about you is you're a naturalist, a naturist.
16:04I don't know the proper.
16:05Oh, you're talking about like a birder?
16:07Yes, but beyond being a birder, because I saw that.
16:10But I wonder your thoughts on as we try to survive this space, something that I've been focused on is,
16:17like, even when the congresswoman talked about showing up for each other, it's like, if I have nothing, how can
16:21I show up for somebody else?
16:23And one thing I've been exploring and I've seen a movement happening is people leaving, like, metropolises and having land
16:33and growing their own food.
16:34And so I just wonder, all of you ladies, really, but because I know that's your space, is that an
16:39option that we should be considering?
16:41Yes.
16:42So I think what you're speaking to is something that I would say really summarizes down to betting on black.
16:48So one thing that I've realized kind of writing this book and also doing the research that I'm doing where
16:54I'm focused on making it easier for us to get jobs in the economy is that black women are reliable
17:00for black women.
17:02Right?
17:02When we show up for each other, we're able to grow economies even within the scarcity that we exist in
17:09within capitalism.
17:10And what I mean by betting on black is I feel like a lot of times we underestimate our economic,
17:17cultural, and social capital.
17:19Right?
17:20The reason why Target is trying to court black folks right now is because we are withholding our dollars deliberately.
17:26And so I think that when we talk about reinvesting in black communities, it can be an effort that we
17:31decide together to do.
17:33And I would even say more so that black Wall Street isn't a myth.
17:38Right?
17:38This is something that's existed in time, even before, you know, enslavement and colonization, African systems existed, where people were
17:46economically thriving.
17:48One thing I want to note really quickly on this point is that my favorite sentence to say in 2026
17:53is that the world is about to get a lot blacker.
17:56I don't know if folks know this, but this is part of the reason why there is political crash outs
18:01happening all over the rest.
18:03Namely what's going to be taking place is that 25% of the world's population is going to be black
18:09in the next 20 years.
18:1125% of the world's workforce is going to be black in the next 20 years.
18:17And so what I will say to this point is that betting on black ensures that you have a high
18:21return on your investment.
18:22And so if you're betting on a black business, betting on a black community, that ensures that we are growing
18:28our black communities beyond what we think is possible.
18:31And I just, if I may jump in, I really appreciate this betting on black, because I think so much
18:38that has happened in our community, we fed into the hype about individualism.
18:44And if there is nothing on the 250th anniversary of this country, there is nothing more American than this notion
18:51that all you need is yourself.
18:53And I think that that is not who we are.
18:55That is not our culture.
18:57That is not our people.
18:58And that it is our collective power.
19:01It is our collective action that is going to be part of the key to our collective liberation.
19:07If we are not all free, if we are not all liberated, none of us will be liberated.
19:13And so that is one of the reasons why I do what I do, about bringing workers together and an
19:19organization to build our collective power and to take collective action.
19:25We need one another now more than we ever did.
19:28And it is to stand up in the face.
19:30And I think we also have to create a set of shared principles and shared values.
19:34We don't have anything that we believe in anymore for one another, that I can look and see you and
19:41know that my fight is your fight, because we have a set of shared principles and values.
19:46So absolutely, let's bet on one another and our collective power so that we can go out and get what
19:53we deserve.
19:54I think to that point, if you kind of go back to one of the benefits of black women and
20:00our resilience is, if you look over the last six years, black business, black women-owned businesses have grown 102%.
20:09They've employed over 600,000 people and have $60 billion in revenue.
20:15And that often comes not just from our resilience, but from the fact that we're having all these challenges in
20:20the workforce.
20:21And we said, you know what, we're going to do that and we're going to take something for ourselves.
20:25But one in five black people are hired by black businesses.
20:28So the more we grow and invest in our own in ways that actually reinvest the revenue and dollars in
20:35our community,
20:35that's where you start to take that capitalist mindset and make it a collective action.
20:40And what we got wrong before is we thought exactly like you said, I have to be the hero at
20:44top of the mountain instead of when I got some, we got some.
20:49Can I jump in there and talk about wealth for a minute?
20:52You talked about what are we facing currently.
20:55Y'all remember 2008, the Great Recession?
20:58Well, during that time, black people had the largest confiscation of their wealth in modern history.
21:07Seven generations of wealth was taken from us in 2008.
21:12And so when we look at what's happening today with black women being pushed out of the labor market,
21:17the types of jobs, particularly in government, where we had the greatest opportunities for wealth building,
21:25because we had really great benefits, we had pensions, those jobs have now been stolen from us and taken from
21:32us again.
21:33And so what we need to really focus on is how are we going to hold on to the wealth
21:38that we have
21:38and what ways can we actually build wealth from work, right?
21:43We're going to have to find creative ways.
21:46Business ownership is one of those ways.
21:48But this is our task to think about how do we hold on to our history and how do we
21:53hold on to our wealth.
21:54Congresswoman, I want to bring you back in the conversation because I'm listening to you guys.
21:58And I still, maybe I'm a doomsdayer these days, but I'm still listening to what you're saying about,
22:03oh, we have to invest in our own, we have to build our own wealth.
22:06Yes, I understand that.
22:07But I'm also struggling with a history that tells me that has not been our savior.
22:12The people of Tulsa weren't bothering anybody.
22:15They were there just trying to build a life for themselves.
22:18It didn't matter that we were investing in our own.
22:20Somebody came along and snatched their lives and their livelihoods.
22:24So I don't, even all this like invest in our own, but yes, absolutely we should do that.
22:28But I don't know how to live in a country or co-create anything with people who deny us our
22:35humanity.
22:36No matter what we build, they come along.
22:37You look at the red summer of 1919.
22:39Tulsa was not an anomaly.
22:41It was the norm.
22:42There were white violence all across our communities where we had built our own and just wanted to be left
22:49alone.
22:49It feels like, people say this is like a revisit of civil rights.
22:53I'm like, no, no, no, no, this is post-Reconstruction.
22:55It feels like we are at that time.
22:56So when I hear we talk about wealth building, I just wonder, is that our savior?
23:03I don't know.
23:04So it doesn't have to be either or, Tiffany.
23:07And I think we have to look at this in multi-lanes and that everybody on the stage is coming
23:12from this from a different angle but getting to the same goal.
23:15So what I'm fighting for in Congress and when I look at how I got to Congress and I serve
23:20in the seat that the late Congressman John Lewis held.
23:22So I do come at this from a civil rights perspective and my district being the cradle of the civil
23:28rights movement.
23:28And I think about how Martin Luther King, he was fighting for economic justice for our people.
23:33It wasn't just about voting rights, but voting rights was a means to get us to what we needed to
23:39bring our people, get economic justice.
23:42And so we're kind of in that same framework when people want you to say you have to focus on
23:46one issue or another or there's only one way to get there because this is all by design.
23:53Throw the whole kitchen sink at us, confuse us, like have us coming at this from every different angle.
23:58Like they're going to attack the care workers, they're going to attack our economic mobility, they're going to fire black
24:05women from the workforce, make it difficult, attack our voting rights.
24:08But everybody has a lane to play in this and it's not just one way to get there.
24:13So when I think about this, I think about like Congressman Lewis left us with these words.
24:17He said our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, or a month.
24:21It's the struggle of a lifetime because like you said, these people didn't want us here.
24:24They don't want to see us thriving.
24:26And I understand that I'm working within a system that was not designed by or for people who look like
24:32me.
24:32And that's why organizing for me is so important because that's what's going to get me to have more people
24:37thinking like me, standing up for us to get us to where we ultimately all of us are focused on
24:43getting.
24:43And if I may, Tiffany, and last comment, I appreciate what you said because this is not just about wealth
24:49building.
24:50This is wealth building in the context of democracy building, in the context of power building.
24:57That's right.
24:58Because the game is rigged.
25:00They don't want us.
25:01They don't want us to thrive.
25:02So this is about building our power in order to build a democracy that can actually allow us to thrive.
25:09Thank you for that.
25:11And I hope you guys, this was a really great, healthy exchange of ideas and ideology that I hope at
25:17least tapped into our imagination on how we build wealth, power, but most importantly, how we build community.
25:25Because that's the only way we've survived this 400-year nightmare.
25:28So thank you so much for showing up to hear us.
25:30I hope we armed you with tools when you walk away.
25:33And we will see you next time on the screen.
25:34But don't go anywhere because there are a lot more amazing panels coming up on the GBF stage.
25:38Thank you, everybody, and thank you to my panel.
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