Throwback Thursday: Working In An All-Black Workplace
In this 2020 episode of Auntie Unfiltered, I respond to a letter from a viewer asking if they should seek to work in an all-Black workplace.
Happy New Year, and welcome to the first Throwback Thursday post of 2026.
It feels weird starting the year off with a throwback post, but it’s Thursday, and I don’t make the rules.
Have I ever told y’all how blessed I am to be working at The Root?
People who criticize us always start with “Y’all are owned by white people” to try and take us down.
Listen. Yes, we are owned by white people, but my workplace is black as fuck.
Yes, the company that owns The Root is white, but The Root has editorial independence, and we make our own decisions here. Every decision about what to run on the site is made by a team of Black women: our editor in chief, Danielle Belton; our managing editor, Genetta Adams; the managing editor of The Glow Up, Maiysha Kai; and me, the news editor.
Our writers are black. Our video team (Hey Ashley! Hey Felice! Hey PJ! Hey Jessica!) is black. Our social media editor, Corey P. Townsend, is black. It don’t get no blacker. Our freelancers are black. We write about the black experience. We talk about things from the Black perspective.
Our work Slack is black as fuck. We joke on each other. We discuss current events and popular culture in our black ass voices. We argue things like which joker is the big joker (for the record, it’s the Guarantee because that’s a guaranteed book, niggas) or whether or not deviled eggs should have relish in them (they should, niggas), and the greatest argument ever: flats are superior to drums when eating wings.
I told y’all. It’s black as fuck here.
But what about people who don’t have the privilege of working in an all black environment? What about those who have to navigate whiteness as they earn their paycheck? Should they be seeking out an all black workplace as well?
This is the topic of this week’s Auntie Unfiltered.