Issa Rae is one of the hardest women in Hollywood right now. Insecure dominated our summer. She’s a bestselling author and of course, the new COVERGIRL. But one of the things that we love about Issa is that she never forgets who she is.
Just last month at the Emmy’s on the red carpet, when asked who she was rooting for, Issa’s response alone was worthy of an Emmy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npUIUQbmeV8
So it should not come as a shock to anybody that this week in Philadelphia at Marriott’s EmpowerME speaker series, Issa Rae broke down the definition of white male privilege.
According to The Cut, they caught her right before she took to the stage at the event and had this to say:
“They don’t get that we’re not all starting from the same starting point. Straight, cis, white men don’t have the same obstacles — there’s not much in their path. That’s not to say they don’t have any of their own problems, but the playing field is not level by any means. It’s easy for people to dismiss your history, dismiss where you came from. Just because we graduated from the same college doesn’t mean we have the same opportunities. There’s bias, even in the hiring process, and that’s something not enough people are aware of.”
She went on to say, “It feels like a vicious Catch-22 when there aren’t diverse people behind the scenes. That [lack of diversity] alters the company or organization perspective, which means they’re not going to have people who look like the people they are trying to recruit. Even when we do these diversity events, I find that we tend to include other diverse people who also know the struggle and who are already familiar with the burdens, where the audience should be mostly white men and women. People aren’t aware, and they choose not to be. For so many people, unfortunately, the issues with people of color don’t affect them, so why would they burden themselves with caring?”
We’re rooting for you, right back, Issa!
