Ep. 31 - How do you integrate yourself into a Black and White world where discrimination is the only language they speak? You learn to become a fighter for your own battles, pick the right people that help motivate you when the outside world doesn't. That is the life experience of Dr. Janice Greene who lived in two different worlds: black and white. She had a very discriminatory childhood and spent 39 years of her life at Boeing where she learned to turn out the discriminatory voice. Janice established the distinction between purpose and mission and what she wanted personally in childhood. She talks about how to wend your way through the corporate environment to survive. She shares her thoughts on dealing with racist attitudes and gives advice to young women today.
Top Takeaways:
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- Learning how to integrate yourself everywhere as a person of color to deal with racism
- How to position and balance yourself to get around discrimination or get over it
- Learn to pick your allies right and not those who stab you behind your back
- The benefits of a close-knit group of family and friends that loves, encourages and motivates you
- How to be self-determined without pressure and or comparison
Listen in to learn how to position and balance yourself as a person of color amid discrimination at work or other areas of life.
"Understand who you are and don't compare yourself to other people." -Janice Greene
Dr. Janice Greene spent 20 years working for Boeing in human relations and innovative supplier diversity, including the South African Airways' sales campaign and Australia's Qantas Airways to create contract opportunities for Aboriginal and Trees Straight Islanders. She was President of Snohomish County NAACP and Vice-President of the NAACP Alaska, Oregon, and Washington State Area Conference. She "refired" after retirement and is now President/CEO of the Women's Business Enterprise Council of WBEC-Pacific.
You will also learn the importance of forming a close-knit group of family and friends that are there to encourage and motivate you all the time.
Key Moments:
Janice explains how she learned to integrate herself to deal with racism in both the white and black world [2:00]
How she became resigned to the idea of inequality at the workplace and cautiously worked hard instead [8:07]
Tips on how to navigate yourself at the workplace as a person faced with underhanded discrimination- staying alert [9:46]
How negativity and discrimination as a child motivated her to be more inclined to close-knit groups of family and friends rather than large groups [14:35]
She describes how she learned to pick up her battles as a grade school kid going through discrimination and how that impacted her [16:06]
The importance of giving women of color economic opportunities so they can put money back into their community [16:56]
Janice describes some of the most beautiful moments of her life [19:19]
Why the challenge of feeling whole and finding her identity was the one she battled with through her life [22:00]
The power of being a self-determined woman going for what she wants without internal and external pressure and comparison [23:10]
Relevant Links