Turn up the Volume.... goes to 11

It’s late in the evening, and I am reflecting after a long, rewarding week that never stopped demanding more. My team at work has rallied together and are developing and launching completely new technologies outside of our normal product line. They are following me down this new and different path full speed ahead. I also had a video call with a man I admire and think of as a mentor. As we were catching up, he asked if I knew a particular technology executive who had just been hired. I became very quiet and considered my response. “Yeeeessssss, I know him,” I said and elaborated no further. 

In my mind, I was suddenly back at a business dinner where (without invitation nor permission) this executive had put his hand on my leg under the table and moved it up  between my legs. A business dinner where there were ten men at the table, and I was the only woman. I stood up sharply from the table and accidentally knocked him in the face with my elbow as I jumped up to escape to the bathroom. When I had composed myself and returned, I went to his boss and asked him to trade seats with me. He never asked why. The ASSailant indeed assaulted me again five years later… and I... walked away from the business, said nothing, other than to ask my team for their agreement which they wholeheartedly gave.  

When my friend saw the look on my face and asked pointedly what I thought about this particular executive, I took a deep breath, and told the truth. The whole Truth. I told him this other man was one of the most blatant sexual abusers I had the misfortune to work with in my career. My friend is a good man. He was stunned with disbelief, shocked into silence, and then he apologized repeatedly, even though he had nothing to do with that project, or company. Watching him go through these emotions, I realized as I have many times before, that it is hard for GOOD men to understand that abuse like this happens, because they are not abusers and would not dream of doing it. It is even outside of their capacity to imagine. I felt sad watching him experience his rage and indignation, but it was a good thing. I felt supported and vindicated by his outrage over abuses of years ago.  It takes good men standing up against this kind of abuse before there can be equality in the workplace. Women can’t do it on their own. No one can do it on their own.  I have not done it alone. 

Ladies of all colors, I know that as you read this, several people come to mind, your own stories, that may remain untold.  I am here to listen as we change the landscape for our daughters and the next generation of women in the workplace. But the truth is, we all have blind spots. As a Latina, a woman, a working mother, a minority CEO, I have my experiences, and I feel grateful to have this platform that I can share with you. But I cannot understand what it is to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.

I wonder, how much am I like my friend? How much abuse, oppression, racism do I not know or see, not out of malice, or complacency, or acceptance of those behaviors, but out of being na?ve and comfortably unaware? We have much to learn about each other, about experiences and perceptions, about things we don’t recognize as being potentially hurtful. In an attempt to start the learning on my own, I watched the Reverend Al Sharpton this weekend in Tulsa as he spoke to a crowd… and I was…. ASHAMED. 

I think of myself as a nerd. I received my education at the University of Texas in Austin. I am a holder of a bag of U.S. patents. And yet, as I listen to Reverend Sharpton, he unmade my perception of myself and my awareness. How could it be that I had never learned of the Tulsa massacre in 1923? An entire neighborhood and thriving economy, Greenwood aka Black Wallstreet, was destroyed by white Oklahoma residents in a racial attack. Hundreds of people killed and thousands of black Oklahoma residents displaced and put into what was effectively concentration camps. This massacre wasn’t added to the public-school curriculum in Oklahoma public schools until 2020!

I was born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas. I had no idea Texas ignored the emancipation proclamation until June 19, 1865, leaving people as slaves for two and a half years after slavery had been abolished in 1863. History is supposed to teach us what to do and what NOT TO DO.  Where was this in my Texas History classes, my American History classes? We need these stories, these truths.   

I do not know what it feels like to be black in America today. I do know what it is like to be a Latina woman CEO in the tech and hospitality industry.  I do know how to innovate, support, demand, and lead through change. I reassured my friend on the call as he struggled with his inability to “fix this.” He is doing his part. I know, for a fact, that any woman who works on one of his teams will have a safe haven to tell the truth and be supported, without endangering their career. I was at many a late dinner with wine flowing freely where we joked and told stories and it was FUN and the camaraderie was critical in building lasting relationships. My business would not be here without those relationships. I would not be the CEO I am today without his mentorship.  

We are all in this together and it will take good men and women, to make change happen.  Make no mistake that change and growth hurts.   Women who have experienced pregnancy or childbirth… it is uncomfortable. Everyone of us has grown… do you remember your body's growing pains, those aches deep down inside your bones as they stretched and extended?  Have you seen a baby cry when they are teething… it HURTS!  I see my parents’ fingers twisting with age and arthritis and I can see that it hurts.  All change and growth is hard.  Recognizing inequity and failures of the systems that are supposed to support and protect  us are excruciating as they rip the surface off the reality we thought we knew. 

I will be listening so I can learn.  I will be sharing my stories for those who want to listen. Speaking of listening… I am adding a “playlist” of songs to each UNPLUGGED. If you think of a song that should be on my playlist, please let me know. 

RESPECT Aretha Franklin, INSTIGATORS Grace Potter, COMEBACK STORY Kings of Leon, THE MAN Taylor Swift, BADASS WOMAN Meghan traitor, RIVER Vanessa Ogle/Paul Bullock, BETTER THAN YOU Vanessa Ogle/Paul Bullock