For a five year old, the lectures were long and interminable.

“I would be sitting on the couch while he was lecturing away and I’d be staring at the ceiling,” Michael Bronner, the grandson of the eponymous founder of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap remembers, “He would stop and I could tell he was waiting for something from me so I’d be like, ‘All one grandpa!’ and he’d say, ‘Very good,’ and continue.”

Michael, who is now the President of Dr. Bronner’s, is not the man you envision steering a company that recently funded a semi-nude bathing camp at Burning Man. While his long-haired brother David, the company’s Cosmic Engagement Officer, seizes headlines for his robust arrest-ending activism, clean-cut Michael exudes a Midwestern charm and sensibility that is considerably more palatable. He’s funny. Relatable. A shameless family man. He appreciates the countercultural environment he steers while maintaining his misfit status. He proudly showed me the sign that greets visitors in the company’s front office: “The question is not whether our ideas are crazy, but whether they are crazy enough.”

For all the “crazy” the company is known for, that’s not the word Michael would use to describe his grandfather, or the burbling, colorful soap label featuring lengthy declarations on everything from God to morality to how to use the soap itself. As a teenager, Michael had been the chief recorder of his ailing grandfather’s lectures. “I can’t say I always got it. But I could appreciate it. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is really deep.'”

Michael and his family know the life behind the label. For them it isn’t some punchline or the unmanaged frothing of a crackpot visionary, it’s a deeply earnest plea from a tireless prophet. Amidst the liberally hyphenated screed printed on every bottle are haunting explanations: “father-mother-wife murdered,” “Hitler and Stalins to power,” and perhaps most profoundly he calls “the intensity of man’s emotions” the greatest “driving force.”

In this light, the bottle’s breathless monologue reads more like a doomful love letter from the past. A warning to humanity rising up from the sorrows of loss at the hands of a despot. Woven between incoherent maxims are the raw wounds of a man incapable of communicating just how horrific his pain was. He discloses his grief in a desperate, almost childlike way—on a soap label. A soap label that has become the iconic face of a $120 million soap company. A soap label the Bronner family will never change.

He discloses his grief in a desperate, almost childlike way—on a soap label.
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Missionary Cleanser

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap with its all natural ingredients and peculiar labels has made an unlikely journey in the last 70 years from the hidden recesses of hippie-laden earth shops onto the shelves of Trader Joe’s, Target, and the mainstream home. Today it is the largest personal care company certified under USDA’s National Organic Program and has grown over 1,000 percent in the past 12 years, meaning more people than ever before are reading his soap bottle labels and asking, “What the hell is this?”

The success was only ancillary to Emanuel Bronner’s goal. His ambition was to place his creed-bearing soap into the hands of as many people as possible but only as a vehicle, “Jew or gentile everyone needs soap, but the soap is just the messenger,” he would tell anyone who listened. That he’s become an iconic, pop-culture question mark is an unfortunate distraction from the mission.

This sudsy tabernacle communicated his zealous peacekeeping plan following WWII, a 3,000-word philosophy he called the Moral ABCs. “I learned beginning in 1944,” he says in archival footage, “that what causes all the trouble on this earth the past 2,000 years is the lack of rabbis, and the failure of rabbis to teach every 12 year old boy on God’s spaceship earth the moral ABC’s without which none survive free.”

Politics and Soap

Bronner’s Moral ABCs first developed in the Heilbronner home in the Jewish quarter of Laupheim, Germany where for 70 years Emanuel and his family tirelessly fine-tuned the first-ever liquid castile soap, and held the prevailing belief that “You don’t mix politics and soap.”

This stalwart rejection of incorporating Bronner’s then Zionist ideology into the family business by his strict orthodox father and uncles inspired him to emigrate to America in 1929, where he would be free to create a company of his own ideation, and mix politics and soap as he wanted.

This sudsy tabernacle communicated his zealous peacekeeping plan following WWII, a 3,000-word philosophy he called the Moral ABCs.
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In America, he dropped the “Heil” from his last name and became a successful consultant for American cosmetic companies. He fell in love, got married and had three children. But his life came screeching to a halt with a postcard in his father’s largely censored scrawl:  “You were right.”

For years he had been trying to convince his parents to follow him to the United States amidst Hitler’s rise to power. He managed to securely help his sisters out of Germany but was unable to convince his parents, who held the prevailing belief of the time that “Hitler would be a thing of the past.”

Within the next year, the Heilbronner soap company was nationalized by the Nazis, and the family was deported and killed in Auschwitz and Theriesenstadt. Not long after, Bronner’s wife passed away.

A New Kind of Talmud

After the death of his parents and wife, a switch flipped. His very aliveness was a burden, a reminder of the fact that his parents died while he was living the American dream. He carried the weight of their deaths like a talisman with a gnawing question, “What are you going to do about it?”

The guilt and sorrow frothed into a frenetic madness. Rather than slip into mourning, he was seized by a singular charge: teach the world the Moral ABCs. All the sources of unwelcome philosophy from his youth were channeled into this hodgepodge Talmud. Mohammed, Rabbi Hillel, Jesus, Buddha, and even Thomas Paine were some of its more notable players. And while the particulars may have been unintelligible, the guiding principle was a call to rise above religious and ethnic differences and unite on “spaceship earth.”

While burying his wife in 1944 he made a promise to God that the minute he had $10,000 to take care of his children, he would become a “servant of God.” 

His very aliveness was a burden, a reminder of the fact that his parents died while he was living the American dream.
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If he felt guilty about abandoning his kids, he never revealed it. “As the child of a visionary, our father’s own needs often took a distant second place to those of ‘spaceship earth,” Michael explained. Everything was dismissed with Emanuel Bronner’s oft-quoted adage, “What’s more important, [whatever issue they were discussing] or saving spaceship earth?”

“My grandfather always lived with this light and shadow side,” Michael remembered. “He’s this paragon figure for peace and uniting the world but was so poor at doing that for his own family.”

Emanuel started traveling the country holding impromptu lectures in public spaces. Unknowing passersby would stop to gawk at the self-proclaimed doctor with the thick German accent, who sometimes claimed to be Einstein’s nephew to gain credibility. Most of those who showed up did so to get their free soaps and left without hearing his lecture.

Then he was institutionalized. He was speaking without a permit at the University of Chicago when he was arrested for erratic behavior. At this point his sister had him committed at Elgin State Insane Asylum where for over nine months he received electric shock therapy, (which he would later blame for his blindness) insulin treatments, and underwent forced labor. After two unsuccessful escape attempts, he succeeded and moved to Los Angeles, California.

It was here that he began printing his lectures (and his personal phone number) on the soap bottles. He founded Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps as a nonprofit, using profits to further support his mission, which usually meant printing and distributing copies of the Moral ABCs. However, in a postwar era defined by the Dupont slogan “better living through chemistry,” his all-natural formula dating back to 1928 wasn’t exactly a product vendors were convinced by.

“He had no advertising, no sales people, no eyesight, a label that defied every single established conventional label designed, and then, by word of mouth, it became the number-one-selling soap in the natural marketplace,” Michael explained. “A company would order three bottles and he would send them a whole case. ‘Put it on the shelves,’ he’d say upon protest, ‘They will sell.’ And they did.”

In the 1960s the company boomed. The natural ingredients resonated with hippies who found it useful for outdoor bathing, and appreciated its unifying message. Letters from thankful customers poured in. One man wrote, “Until I read your label I was an atheist.” Another 72-year-old man was planning his suicide in his bathroom when he, “started reading your label and it instantly brought purpose to my life, for this, I cannot thank you enough.”

He had no advertising, no sales people, no eyesight, a label that defied every single established conventional label designed, and then, by word of mouth, it became the number-one-selling soap in the natural marketplace
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However, a large number of people, Dr. Bronner’s sons included, weren’t entirely sure what it was he was trying to say. As a young college kid, his son Ralph would complain about having to type up edits to his dad’s Moral ABCs, saying, “Nobody’s going to read this crap.” When Emanuel would start going on his lengthy tirades, his son Jim would shut it down with a, “I don’t want to hear about that crap.”

“I think my Dad thought that the Moral ABC was some lofty, unstructured ideal that my grandfather dedicated his life to rather than the support the flesh-and-blood right in front of him, for example, my dad and his siblings.” Michael reflects. “That is why, when my dad wanted to talk to my grandfather about something ‘substantive’ and concrete, he had no time to listen to any pontifications on the Moral ABC.”

The brief popularity of the 1960s waned in the following decades; for the next twenty years, annual sales hung around $1 million. Emanuel’s fanatic focus on his message left him unconcerned and bankrupt in the 1980s when the IRS began looking suspiciously at its non-profit status for a religion that had never caught on.

Emanuel was losing his company, but there was little he could do about it: his Parkinson’s was worsening, he was nearly blind, and stricken by a bout of pneumonia that nearly killed him. Someone needed to step in.

A Family Company

Jim Bronner had emerged from his scarring foster-care experience with herculean resilience. After 14 years in foster care, he entered the United States Navy as a recruit and left with the highest rank an enlisted man could achieve. He started working in his father’s soapmaking company as a bottle washer, rose through the ranks to become a chemist, and eventually became the VP of the company. He married and had three kids. “He always channeled the negative into the positive.” Michael remembers, “Because he was raised by a battery of foster parents, he made sure he was going to be the best, most attentive dad, and forge for us the wonderful home he never had.”

Jim’s relationship with his father Emanuel was never quite a “hunky dory picture tied up with a bow,” to use Michael’s words. “My dad had really gone through tough times. He had hidden from his past, or just really grit his teeth and clenched his jaw and persevered through it. But at one point it kind of came crashing down and there was a period where he was like, ‘Why have you done this to me?’ There were times he and my grandfather weren’t really talking.”

But when his father’s business was going under, Jim suspended any animosity and turned the company around. When Emanuel Bronner passed away in 1997 Jim even assumed presidency of the company he had always “played second to.”

Jim introduced a zero-deductible health care plan for all employees and 15% profit-sharing. He donated a $1.4 million land parcel to build a camp for the Boys and Girls of America in the company’s name. He developed wildly popular products, including Sal Suds, an all-purpose ecological fire-fighting foam in widespread use around the world, and a snow-simulating foam for the movie industry.

He distilled the very Moral ABCs that were a source of frustration from his past into actionable areas of influence the company now calls their Cosmic Principles. “The cosmic principles are the label distilled into actionable areas of influence: ourselves, our customers, our employees, our suppliers, our earth, our community, minus all the religiosity and eccentricity,” Michael explained. “My dad actualized what my grandfather visualized.”

But he didn’t swipe the label of its Moral ABCs. On the deepest level, he too knew what it meant to lose one’s parents tragically. “It was a monument to his father and his father’s life’s work, and he wanted to respect both his dad and his dad’s commitment,” Michael said. “He very much identified with the underlying real-world tenets of the philosophy.” The warring world had left a generational tremor of pain on Jim’s life as well. The trauma of lost parents begot lost parents as his father’s grief orphaned him. Jim couldn’t bring himself to scrub it from the bottle. It was a message the world needed to hear.

So, there in our routine naked scrubbing moments dwells the Bronner opus. A mournful sonnet, a piercing cry of pain and love sitting on our bathtubs like an omen begging us to change:

Til All-One, All-One we are! For this is my goal! No matter how hopeless, no matter how far! To fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause! For I know that if I follow this glorious quest, my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I’m laid to my rest! And I know that the world will be better for this, that one man, tortured, blinded, covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach that unreachable star ‘til united all-one we are!

4 Self-Care Practices For When Working As A Woman Of Color Has Got You Down

Practicing self-care at work, or in response to issues at work, can be the difference between feeling hopeless and isolated or inspired and optimistic.

flickr/WOCinTech Chat

By Alisha Acquaye

Originally published on Everyday Feminism.

Self-care is the battle cry of our generation. It is a realization that — in order for us to be better activists, feminists, and friends — we have to take time out to check in with ourselves, heal wounds, and feel loved.

It is especially significant today as we socially, politically and culturally exist in a war with a goal of dismantling the white heteronormative patriarchy and achieve true human rights and equality.

Self-care is a testament to the ability to understand, nourish and identify with our complex, layered and ever-evolving selves. It is a self-centering decision to acknowledge, address and cater to our bodies needs — spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally and more.

I’ve been intentionally practicing self-care for a few years now, first starting by cleaning and clearing my mind, evaluating friendships, and recognizing personality and relationship patterns.

But, more recently, I’ve been considering how to practice self-care in response to toxic or traumatizing experiences and environments.

Self-care is the battle cry of our generation.

As you’ve read in my last articles, working as a black woman in predominantly white offices can be mentally and emotionally exhausting.

While working on this series, I began thinking deeply about how women of color and marginalized identities can practice self-care when they find themselves in these environments.

When I felt alone, exhausted by microaggressions, or undervalued or frustrated at work, I developed a few self-care methods to cope:

• Arriving early to enjoy breakfast and a cup of tea in the silence of the office.
• Scheduling lunch or coffee dates with other people of color or employees I wanted to learn from.
• Going for walks or taking trips to the roof during my breaks.
• Planning trips, which gave me something to look forward to on long weekends or holidays.

Most significantly, I formed a group of close friends of different backgrounds and sexualities who gave me even more life. We held each other down, provided support and offered billions of laughs.

We validated each other when we endured daunting racist, sexist or ageist experiences at work and inspired one another to take on new projects or assert ourselves in our teams.

Most of all, we made each other feel less alone: we were reflections of each other that affirmed one another’s existence and importance.

I found that these remedies — especially my friends — guided me towards more positive outlooks and peace of mind, which, coincidentally, helped me refocus on what I was really passionate about: the work I was doing, and the next chapters in my career.

Practicing self-care at work, or in response to issues at work, can be the difference between feeling hopeless and isolated or inspired and optimistic. It can help you refocus and realize what you value in your work experience and how to obtain it.

While writing this, I realized that not everyone has access to these self-care solutions and even less may have strong friend connections at work. So I wanted to explore different steps that people can take to care for themselves and make a difference in their communities. Here are four of them:

1. Engage in passions and projects that reaffirm your greatness.

One of the best decisions I’ve made as a post-grad working girl is signing up for writing classes. As writing is what I do for a living, it can sometimes feel like a job and less like a passion.

Writing classes — especially creative writing ones — allow me to exercise my imagination and strengthen my talents as a writer. The result: empowerment and freedom.

Going to work can be that much more daunting and depressing if you’re not only experiencing microaggressions but on top of that, aren’t in love with your job.

For those whose work doesn’t align with their passions or whose job is for survival and not creative stimulation, participating in projects or activities outside of work can be instrumental to your emotional health and confidence.

For this reason, one of the keys to self-care lies in impressing yourself, harvesting your talents and energies into something that’s meaningful to you, and watching yourself excel.

It’s especially important for women of color, LGBTQIA+, people of different abilities and more, to find creative outlets that empower them and strengthens their skills and confidence.

It’s one step to being better leaders and more expressive and assertive professionals. It’s going after what you want and recognizing your power and potentials.

2. Find a mentor — or become one!

One of my long-term goals is to find a mentor who can help guide me on my professional journey. Ideally, I’d love for her to be a Black woman who works in media, who understands the challenges of having an intersectional identity in professional spaces and who’s learned to navigate these setbacks in exponential ways.

Of course, I’ve had several mentors of different genders and backgrounds who have assisted me personally and professionally, but I imagine a bond with a Black woman mentor would feel more personal and inspiring.

How To Survive A White Workplace As A Person Of Color

Mentorship is a transformative force in marginalized communities. Having a role model who looks like you and has achieved something you aspire to makes your dreams feel more possible, tangible.

If you’re able, I also encourage you to become a mentor. Being a mentor to someone else is just as important as having one of your own. It’s a small but significant way of giving back to your community and helping another person reach their potentials.

3. Organize meetings to address workplace microaggressions

It is no secret that women and people of color can experience microaggressions at work, ranging from someone inappropriately touching your hair to a male coworker belittling or ignoring your ideas.

The challenge, however, is addressing these issues in a healthy and productive way.

Sometimes, talking to your manager or privately confronting a coworker isn’t enough. And as a marginalized person, taking this action can feel like our jobs are at a greater risk than the person who inflicted the microaggression.

Mentorship is a transformative force in marginalized communities.

A coworker at my last job — a Black woman — took initiative by organizing inclusivity workshops for the whole company to attend. To be sure, this is not an easy responsibility, but the payoff can lead to productive conversations and greater awareness of office issues.

Meetings and workshops can also be safer alternatives to speaking to a superior or confronting an employee directly. It opens space for conversation without having to put yourself on the line.

If you do decide to organize a meeting, it could be a great opportunity to discuss how to make company culture safer and more welcoming for marginalized people and strategize inclusive hiring methods.

4. Start meetups for women of color.

Self-care can mean building community or actively surrounding yourself with people who nurture your soul.

This year, I co-founded a bimonthly brunch series for my friends of color, where we share food and engage in conversations about self-care and our lives.

It has been the highlight of my year: not only do I feel a stronger sense of community with women of color in my city, I’ve also gained a renewed sense of leadership, therapy, and event organizing.

I have a friend who engages in dinners for Black women in media. She says that some of the highlights of these dinners is the shared community of expressing work and career-related frustrations, as well as the casual networking.

Not only does she feel validated and comforted, she meets people she can possibly collaborate with in the future.

Organizing a dinner, brunch, book club or any other social gathering for your specific groups and identities is a great way to strengthen your bonds in those communities.

The suggestions above are meant to serve as methods to empower and excite you when you’re down about work or try to eradicate office microaggressions you may face. However, they are in no way meant to entirely resolve any unhappiness, unfulfillment or discriminations you may experience in response to your intersectional identity.

Things can get really tough and, if they do, I hope you are able to consider finding a new job or going the entrepreneurial route — maybe you’re meant to create or start something new within your field.

Ultimately, I am no expert on self-care — I’m just a passionate self-care enthusiast. But there are many people who do have expertise.

Originally, I hoped to interview Gianne Doherty, a wellness maven, for this story, but unfortunately did not get her reply in time. She recently held her first W.E.L.L. Summit: a convention promoting self-care and inclusivity amongst women of color.

There’s also Lauren Ash of the Black Girl in Om podcast and initiative, who frequently discusses the importance of women of color practicing and implementing self-care into their daily lives.

Ash and Doherty are two wonderful resources who inspire me to use self-care as an innovative and personal form of resistance during these trying political and cultural times.

I hope you’re able to find peace and comfort — whether through my advice and others’ — especially in the one place where all you want to do is make money, or make a difference. After all, negative vibes and oppressive forces should never get in the way of stacking your paper.

]]> https://theestablishment.co/america-worships-mom-and-pops-but-they-can-mistreat-employees-too-c9af48c50ce8/ Thu, 25 Jan 2018 23:10:16 +0000 https://theestablishment.co/?p=1611 Read more]]> In an effort to not only humanize, but glorify the small business owner, workers often disappear.

In an address to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a non-profit which counts over 325,000 small business owners among its members, Vice President Mike Pence gushed that small businesses “create jobs. You provide a pathway of opportunity for generations of Americans. And you are literally the cornerstone of American communities from the smallest towns to the largest cities.” Paraphrasing President Donald Trump, Pence added that small businesses “embody the American pioneering spirit and remind us that determination can turn aspiration into achievement every single day.”

This veneration of small business is by no means specific to the Trump administration. A recent Gallup poll found that 70% of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in small business, compared to 21% for big business.

It’s little wonder that, in pushing its unpopular tax plan, Republicans have focused on how it will benefit scrappy mom-and-pop business owners. Trump crowed that his proposed tax cuts will benefit over 30 million small business owners, cutting their tax rate by 40%. Never mind that this isn’t true, and that one of the small business owners advocating his tax plan actually runs a lobbying firm for big business. His promises have sparked optimism among some small business owners, and gushing stories in conservative outlets about how his plan is helping the little guy. (It’s worth noting that support for small businesses is not entirely partisan, with liberals often using it to promote “buy local” campaigns — but it’s conservatives who exploit the reverence to achieve their tax-slashing aims.)

“I know that a small business is really all about family — whether it’s your immediate family, your extended family, or the family of your employees,” Pence said in his comments to the NFIB.

Even liberals may find it easy to buy into this vision of the earnest, family-run small business embodying everything that makes America great. But the fact is, many small businesses treat their employees just as poorly as more readily criticized corporations. And importantly, employees in these situations are often left with fewer resources to fight back.

The employer-employee relationship is inherently unbalanced; treating small business owners as the benevolent personification of the American dream just tips the scales even more in their favor. In a system that so adamantly favors small business owners, worker self-advocacy and unionization efforts can seem like a kind of betrayal.

This is a dangerous view — not the least because, as it turns out, small business owners don’t always treat their employees all that well.

The NFIB page, despite its cheery presentation of facts, isn’t actually very impressive. In “The Benefits of Working for a Small Business” infographic, under the headline “Major Benefits,” the association boasts that a mere 38% of small businesses offer a retirement plan, while 42% offer disability insurance and 25% offer dental. The survey that provides these numbers also reveals that 21% of respondents exempt all their employees from overtime pay, while only 53.2% offer overtime to all qualifying employees.

Meanwhile, 95% of large firms offer a retirement plan (and such plans are often better than those offered by small firms) and 89% offer dental. According to an analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average 34.4% of employees at large firms have access to disability insurance, compared to 23.4% of workers at businesses with under 50 employees, and a mere 10.9% of those employed by businesses with 50–99 employees. As for overtime pay, the 2016 Obama overtime rule would have made it harder for small businesses (and businesses in general) to exempt employees by raising the salary threshold for overtime by 100%. This law, however, was struck down in late 2016, a defeat celebrated by the NFIB.

In fact, compared to large firms (over 500 employees), small businesses are consistently less likely to offer benefits, and 2017 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics find that access to benefits like health care, retirement, and paid leave decrease along with the size of the business. This is, of course, unsurprising, and it’s true that small businesses have a harder time meeting the costs of these benefits. But that fact does nothing for the workers going without health care and fair pay.

And it’s not just large corporations that find themselves embroiled in scandal — some high-profile labor cases have involved small businesses exploiting and mistreating immigrant workers. In 2012, Flaum Appetizing, a food distributor in Brooklyn, New York, paid a $577,000 settlement to 20 former employees, mostly Mexican immigrants, for withheld compensation. Workers were denied overtime for work weeks as long as 80 hours, and also endured discrimination and verbal abuse, including anti-immigrant comments, from senior management. From 2002 to 2003, there were a total of 1,441 lawsuitsagainst small businesses, with the most common reason being civil rights (15.7% of all cases).

In his August remarks, Pence declared that every member of the NFIB “has a story that springs straight out of the American dream.” But this dream — that the U.S. is a fundamentally fair meritocracy in which anyone can succeed through hard work and determination — is not reflected in small business demographics. In fact, 2013 data from the Small Business Administration show the same racial and class divides prevalent in all sectors of society. People of color are far more likely to be employees than owners, and owners’ education levels are comparatively high — 39.2% have a Bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 29.2% of their employees and 31% nationwide. Employees are also more likely than owners to have a high school degree or less. The same SBA report notes that the numbers of female and, especially, Hispanic business owners have increased over the years; even so, the idea of the small business as the embodiment of the American dream — at least, for anyone not already highly privileged — simply isn’t supported by the available data.

Yet still, the image persists — and so does the centering of small businesses in debates over worker rights. Not only are small businesses used as arguments against regulation, opponents of a $15 minimum wage often invoke the plight of small business owners as well. The Faces of 15 campaign, launched this year by the right-leaning think tank The Employment Policies Institute, profiles small business owners who have been forced to shut down, allegedly due to minimum wage increases. In short videos set to melancholy music, with frequent cuts to locked front doors and empty shelves, small business owners share their stories, often stating that, as much as they would like to pay their employees more, they simply aren’t able to. In some videos, former employees mourn the loss of their jobs. Notably, it is rarely just minimum wage increases that force closure; numerous owners refer to such increases as “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” But Faces of 15 never addresses the other straws.

From 2002 to 2003, there were a total of 1,441 lawsuits against small businesses, with the most common reason being civil rights.
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These concerns are, of course, legitimate — but so are the rights and livelihoods of workers. In these efforts to not only humanize, but glorify the small business owner, workers often disappear.

I corresponded with several small business employees about the labor abuses they have experienced. All asked that their last names be withheld, due primarily to fear of retaliation from their employers and people in their communities. While their experiences vary, all have faced obstacles in reporting violations and advocating for their rights, due in part to the image of the noble, well-meaning small business owner.

When she was 16, Emilee started working at a store that sold food and camping supplies in a state park and employed eight students (high school and college) each summer. For most, including Emilee, this was their first job. It was, she wrote via email, “a good situation compared to other prospects,” as the work was fairly easy and employees had significant latitude and free time. Yet Emilee also describes a toxic environment made possible by the exploitation of youthful naiveté and the manager’s community standing.

How To Survive A White Workplace As A Person Of Color
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Basic cleaning and safety standards weren’t met — according to Emilee, “It was a running ‘joke’ that if the food safety inspector ever actually came out we’d all be out of a job in a heartbeat.” Employees received no breaks, no overtime, and had to underestimate total work time when clocking out. Sexual harassment was a pervasive problem: “The boss would rub the female employees’ shoulders, hug them frequently, [and] kiss them on their heads,” she says. When the girls, most of whom were underage, complained, the boss argued that “he knew most of the girls growing up so it couldn’t be inappropriate because the relationship was like a father/daughter, or so the claim went.”

Since there were no other supervisors and no HR department to field complaints, pursuing grievances would have required filing a lawsuit, which none of the young employees were empowered to do. Because the community was small — approximately 4,500 people — and the manager so well-respected, even disclosing their frustrations to others could result in pushback from people in the town and difficulty finding future employment. With regard to the sexual harassment, the female employees worried about being dismissed as lying attention-seekers: “It was young, underage girls against a married man with children who was also a revered community member.” That the manager was a teacher who had taught some of the employees in the past made it even harder for them to report infractions. Emilee says the boss “saw himself as a father figure to many of his employees […] and the converse was also true. Many of his employees felt a kinship to him.” Even those who didn’t feel this way “had a great deal of ambivalence about doing anything that might cast him in a bad light.”

If they had done so, they would have had to contend with a lack of community support. Emilee notes that people in small towns not only “know everyone’s business,” but that “everyone has an opinion — usually a very strong one — about everyone else’s business,” which can “concretize in behavior that can ultimately harm the complainants.” Thus, Emilee worried, “Would I be shut out from other jobs because public perception tends to favor men in situations of assault while framing women as liars? Would I even want to work in the community anymore because of the oppressive environment?” For her and many of her coworkers, she concludes, “it was a deeply unsettling, frustrating entrée into employment.”

Autumn works at a bridal shop with fewer than 10 employees. Though she was recently promoted to a manager position and still performs managerial tasks, she lost the promised title and wage increase after asking why she hadn’t received her overtime pay. According to Autumn, the owners told her “they would only pay me straight time, and that they were taking away my position because the ‘management position only seemed to corrupt.’” Lack of overtime pay is a persistent problem at Autumn’s workplace: “My previous manager consistently worked 90+ hour pay weeks and never received any overtime pay. However, she never complained about it, and […] I believe that’s why she was allowed to be kept on and I wasn’t.” The owners’ reason for denying overtime was that they couldn’t afford it — a common defense — but according to Autumn, “they built a million dollar house by the beachside” and “spend thousands of dollars on personal items for themselves.”

Autumn believes that “as far as pay goes we are all equally abused.” However, “any rude comments or distrust are directed mostly toward our employees of color.” The owners told one Black employee that “she looked ‘too ethnic’ when she came in the store wearing a head scarf, or when she came in with her natural hair”; when this employee called the owners’ comments offensive, they cut her hours to the point that she had to find a new job. And Autumn notes a clear double standard in the way the owners treat her, a white woman, compared to Black employees. For example, while Autumn received her key to the store within a month, “we have another Black employee who they’ve stated that they don’t trust with the key […] even though she managed multiple stores.”

This is not to suggest that all small business owners exploit or mistreat their employees. Even those who fail to compensate employees adequately or provide breaks don’t necessarily do so out of malice or disregard. Suzanne used to work at a daycare where staffing shortages often resulted in lack of breaks. This did not go unnoticed by administration, and the assistant director would add missed break time onto the staff’s total hours when doing payroll. “That was a nice thought,” Suzanne wrote in an email, “but not a solution. Still this was the only business where I actually believed that yes, the administration felt bad that this was occurring, and they did their best.”

Suzanne’s current workplace, an assisted living facility, “is a small family-owned business and they push the ‘homey’-ness factor of the place quite a lot, which I think makes them feel like they can ask more favors of us.” Suzanne has had to assert their rights numerous times, reminding the owners that, for example, paid breaks are mandated by law. “I think it surprises them that I would bring state requirements into their little homey business,” Suzanne says. Nonetheless, the facility “is viewed quite highly [in the community], and I too believe that regardless of these violations, it is one of the best places in the industry that I’ve worked with.”

‘As far as pay goes we are all equally abused.’
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But what the differences in these experiences show is that, for workers, finding a fair employer is largely a matter of chance. Furthermore, the lack of avenues for small business employees to file grievances means that one’s ability to self-advocate depends on factors like age, knowledge of labor law, and relative social capital. The more vulnerable a worker is — whether due to race, gender, documentation status, age, or disability — the less empowered they are to take action against exploitation and mistreatment. While Suzanne felt empowered to demand breaks, Emilee and her underage female coworkers didn’t even feel comfortable complaining to anyone outside the workplace. Autumn has both seen and experienced the financial repercussions of voicing her concerns to management. And factors like documentation status can make complaints dangerous to pursue.

Small business owners do face unique difficulties, including stiff competition from large competitors, and patronizing local businesses does benefit local economies by keeping money circulating within the community. But none of this excuses abuses against disempowered employees, and small businesses are not inherently ethical or fair. Furthermore, the policies small business owners are often used to advocate — conservative tax reform, ending the Affordable Care Act — overwhelmingly benefit big business.

Worker activism, then, must include not only employees at large firms, but small firms as well; and rather than merely “buy local,” consumers should educate themselves about the working conditions at local businesses. While concerns about the welfare of small businesses should factor into debates about the minimum wage and regulations, owners should not be privileged at the expense of workers. And we certainly shouldn’t push an inaccurate narrative so easily weaponized by anti-labor, big business advocates on the Right.

I was retrieving a pen under my desk when I heard the unmistakably tight voice of my HR manager. Jerking up, I banged my head on the underside of my keyboard — a precursor to the equivalent headache I was about to receive from his words. He was here to force me to go to a mandatory “diversity training” — the very one I’d been avoiding by hiding at my desk.

Dragged to the hour-long training, I sat sullenly in the back like the class punk while my worst fear was verified. The teacher was a white man who gave merit to reverse racism. Leading a diversity training. Repeat that to yourself: Ignorant White Man Teaches a Diversity Training. I kept waiting for my HR rep to jump out from behind a stack of chairs and yell, “Got you!”

I was the only person of color in the room. After an hour of opinions that could’ve given my Asian-American Studies professors heart attacks in less than 60 seconds (including an assertion that we must be doing well because our company had “so many” Asian-Americans), I started thinking about getting out. Not just out of the training by faking severe gastritis, but out of mainstream corporate America entirely, because it was definitely giving me internal distress.

When Your Workplace Gives You PTSD

I had been in the rat race for a decade on and off, where I’d seen that Asian-Americans were often given a messed-up model-minority pass. However, having been burned before, I carefully code-switched my speech, concealed my radical political views, and cloaked my Korean tattoos in modest dresses and my undershaved head with hair I had grown out over the top to provide cover-up as needed.

But there’s more to surviving a mostly white workplace than disguising the real you with a Harry Potter invisibility cloak. Here are a few ways to survive.

Rest, replenish, and vent.

Talib Kweli said it right: “Job one is self-preservation; I gotta stay healthy.” Have you been run ragged — in body, mind, and spirit — by your job? Get yourself some R&R.

If you’re a workaholic, skip those supposedly career-advancing coworker drinks once in awhile and book a dance class after work instead. Use lunch like a mini-vacation, if you can. Make recurring weekly lunch plans to do something quirky (I like to act like a kid on the swings or carousel in the park) with people who lift you up. Head to the gym during lunch and forget your worries on the treadmill. Watch Dear White People or Hasan Minhaj on your tablet while on said elliptical and laugh your ass off. Eat comfort food by a fountain (if yours is kimchi jjigae like mine is, you’ll also get fewer weird stares outside the lunchroom). Duck into a beautiful cathedral to pray or meditate. Spend one hour reading authors who uplift you and/or make you laugh. Get a mini-massage at the nail salon. Unfollow an ignorant Twitter account. Pop outside for sanity-lifting phone calls with friends. Ask them to send you funny memes to take your mind off work microaggressions (or specifically to make fun of those exact microaggressions). Complain to your friends about the corporate schmuck who tells you Syrian refugees are terrorists when you tell him you’re organizing a fundraiser for them (yes, this happened); then, forget him for a moment while you enjoy your life. When you come back to work, have a Teflon mantra for deflecting him every time he says dumb shit. Say it out loud or in your head, depending on how likely that is to get you fired.

No one needs a memo re: your 5 to 9.

Your outside life can be your outside life. If you just happened to write a The Office-style musical where the co-workers critique the protagonist’s “interesting,” stinky, spicy Korean fish stew in the office fridge, you do not have to invite any of your coworkers or even tell them what you’re up to. You can choose to befriend and trust coworkers if and when you feel it is safe to. If you need privacy, use a nom de plume at work or in play. Keep those activities on the other side of town, or in a town where none of your coworkers live, if you need complete compartmentalization. You owe no one your “extracurricular” self, unless you feel comfortable sharing and want to do so. This Onion article may assist you in faking a really boring weekend watching Scandal when what you really did was stage your own radical musical, attend an anti-ICE protest, party with your favorite band, and throw a food pop-up.

Bolster yourself and fight when it’s right.

If you’ve never worked in an all-white workplace before this (Where are you, Hawaii? Can I have your job?), it’s going to take strength to keep you going day to day. This part is not about rest and relaxation and fun; it’s about #hwaeting, as the Koreans say. Put inspiring books, photos, mementos, and quotes around your desk to remind you of who you really are (I had an Audre Lorde quote, a Sandra Cisneros poetry book, a framed photo of Aung San Suu Kyi, a Rita Dove poem, a gif of Grumpy Cat pressing the escape key, and a portrait of my grandmother). Put a dollar in a jar to donate to a non-profit every time someone at work says or does something stupid and watch that money grow. Form alliances with people of color (PoC) and allies, and be an influencer, if you can, to create a more truly diverse and inclusive workplace. When it’s morally incumbent upon you (and if you feel safe), fight the good fight. That could mean going to HR to witness for a person of color (including yourself) who’s being bullied or sexually harassed; it could mean asking the company to take down signs that are sexist, racist, or anti-queer; it could mean asking that the work charity of the month be an explicitly anti-racist org.

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Put a dollar in a jar to donate to a non-profit every time someone at work says or does something stupid and watch that money grow.
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Support your Black coworkers.

Recognize that different PoC are treated differently. I’ve had white people in workplaces mistakenly believe that because I am Asian, I am in on the racist patriarchy and they can crack that racist joke around me using the word “thug” or “ghetto” and we will all slap our knees and laugh together. Uh, no — I’m about as okay with that as I am with you stealing my kimchi fried rice from the fridge. #Notyourmodelminority, okay? Non-Black PoC, as well as straight-passing folks like myself, people with “perfect” 2.5-kid families, and people who consume white culture may be given preferential treatment in a white workplace. It’s important to not deny this and to work to change it. If a Black coworker is continually passed over for a promotion or her statements are ignored in a meeting, recognize her achievement with this shine technique that President Obama’s female staffers used.

Fight for your place at the table.

Looking to move up? You already know you have to work 10 times as hard. The authors of Good Is Not Enough: And Other Unwritten Rules for Minority Professionals advocate that PoC stay current on company pursuits and work to be visible in meetings where dominant forces may slate them as ghosts. Clearly state your career goals out loud and in writing to bosses, mentors, and top executives. If you don’t have a mentor, socialize with and recruit allies who will mentor you. Lastly, you can gracefully take credit for what you did, instead of watching white coworkers take credit, by documenting what you’ve done via statistical progress report emails and making it clear that a project’s success was in large part due to your excellent work product. Statistics are hard(er) to argue with, and companies love them.

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Looking to move up? You already know you have to work 10 times as hard.
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GTFO.

If you can’t take it anymore, make an exit plan complete with monthly and weekly benchmarks and start looking to dig yourself out. Start auto-saving via a CD, so your money is locked up until the year you’re due to leave, or join Digit, which I call “Easy Savings for Impatient Millennials.” As far as where to go, look at Glassdoor reviews and message folks on LinkedIn and Facebook about what companies have the best environments for PoC. Join every online networking group for PoC you can find. Forbes, Fortune, Essence, Black Enterprise, and other pubs also have lists galore. Fast Company even made a list of the best tech companies for folks of color.

And, if you’re ready, the authors of Black Faces in White Places: 10 Game-Changing Strategies to Achieve Success and Find Greatness encourage entrepreneurial pursuits, because if you own your own business, you can set your own rules and uphold ethical standards. While starting your own business is easier said than done when loans are hard to come by as a Black or Latinx entrepreneur, sometimes entrepreneurship and freelancing are the best option when you’ve hit your corporate limit and are not located in a large, progressively liberal city with better workplaces. Is it worth it to cash out that 401(k) to start your own business? If you have a solid business plan, the answer could be yes.

Here’s to whatever path works for you: scaling the corporate ladder, finding a more inclusive workplace, finally securing that loan for your own business, or freelancing from home while lying down Ali Wong-style — it all works so long as you never have to sit through a corporate diversity training led by an anti-reverse-racism advocate.

According to a 2015 Gallup study, LGBTQ business owners make up 3.7% of small business owners in the U.S. The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce estimates there are 1.4 million LGBTQ-owned businesses. LGBTQ business owners tend to be younger and earlier in their careers compared to the general population, the Gallup study showed. They’re also more likely to rely on credit cards than their own cash reserves. Twenty-three percent of LGBTQ business owners said that being LGBTQ made it harder to run their businesses.

Despite these disadvantages, LGBTQ business owners are attempting to use their status as LGBTQ business owners as an advantage rather than a deficit. They’re finding microlenders aimed at financing LGBTQ businesses, supplier diversity initiatives are opening up to LGBTQ people, and business owners are finding ways to make their stories of love and adversity part of their business’ appeal.

Not Protected Against Discrimination

Like all business owners, LGBTQ people need to go to the bank and meet a loan officer in order to fund their new businesses. In fact, LGBTQ people are especially dependent on loan officers, because they are less likely to have savings they can use to fund their business. But straight, cis loan officers may be uncomfortable with LGBTQ business owners, whether consciously or unconsciously, experts say.

Eric Weaver, CEO of Opportunity Fund, which provides loans to small business owners who may not meet the requirements of traditional lenders, said he has heard LGBTQ business owners discuss these biases.

“Some of our clients have told us when they try to approach banks, it’s the same as what you might hear from a black [straight] business owner — I didn’t feel comfortable. I feel like I wasn’t wanted there. I didn’t feel like people wanted to do business with me as I am,” Weaver said.

And if the loan is co-signed, the applicant’s relationship to the co-signer may also be a factor. Because same-sex marriage hasn’t been legal for much more than a year, many same-sex couples haven’t been married long enough for loan officers to consider them financially stable.

“Some loan officers might put more stock in a co-signer who is legally tied up with the other person and own joint property and the rest of it,” Weaver said. “As you get into larger loans, there are human decisions involved and there are subtle biases and a traditional underwriter may look at someone who has been in a stable relationship for 20 years more favorably than over someone who is single or who was only recently married.”

Tammy Powers, owner of a Tran’s Bay Bike Shop on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay and Tammy’s Chicken in Waffles, a waffle cart, said she has experienced this bias with bank loan officers before.

“It’s hard and when you’re asking for money or loans unless I have a rapport with that bank or that microlender,” Powers said. “You walk in and it’s that weird shocked look on their face of ‘Oh my god this person is talking to me and they’re transgender and I’ve never talked to a transgender person before.’”

There are only 12 states where LGBTQ business owners have the ability to make a complaint if they are turned down for a loan and believe it was discriminatory, says Jonathan Lovitz, senior vice president of New York LGBT & Allied Business Network. A federal bill, The Equality Act, would allow national credit protection for LGBTQ business owners but it has been stalled in Congress.

Lovitz said it is especially important for female LBTQ business owners of color to have these protections.

“You know from all the stories for women and ethnic minorities, it’s hard enough to get any kind of venture capital that way, let alone throwing in the sexual orientation and gender identity component on top of it. Many people throw their hands up and say it’s impossible,” Lovitz said.

Natasha Case, co-founder of Coolhaus, an ice cream sandwich truck business, founded the business with her partner, Freya Estreller, in 2008. Case said that people she worked with often did not realize she and her business partner were a couple. Sometimes, people reacted badly when they found out, and she had to choose whether to continue to do business with them.

“I do think that particular facet of being a gay couple when we started, even though it’s not that long ago, we felt like it was trickier territory to navigate, even in L.A. being in a young brand,” Case said. “I still think there was more of a question mark for some of the people who were starting to work with us about their opinions. When you’re younger and starting out, you think, ‘I’m going to work with this person and neutralize it a little bit,’ and when you’re a little older you realize, ‘Why would I even want to work with someone who is not accepting?”

She said there is also a lack of representation for lesbian business owners on LGBTQ business panels, so there is a lack of role models.

“For LGBT people, it’s very different between the G and the L. And G is still in a man’s world,” Case said. “Whenever I speak on panels, I speak openly about Freya and I hope that encourages people who don’t know I’m a lesbian to see a positive role model. On a UCLA panel, I was the only woman on the panel. It was like eight gay dudes and me. I’m really glad to be up there to be representing the women.”

She said her sexuality is not always a disadvantage in that sometimes male business owners are more comfortable around her. But sometimes they get too comfortable and make misogynist comments, which she speaks out against.

Powers said she has also experienced professional exchanges with cisgender people where they feel incredibly comfortable asking invasive questions about her body.

“They jump into really rude questions — ‘Are you pre-op or post-op?’ — and I’m like ‘You’re asking about my genitals.’ And they’re like, ‘You’re transgender so I thought we could talk about everything’ and I say, ‘No not at all. That’s not normal,’” Powers said.

She said her gender has also affected the way people view her capability as a business owner. Whereas her ambitious plans received praise before she transitioned socially, now she faces a lot more skepticism.

“I still have that same exact drive. It’s just how people perceive me,” Powers said. “Because I’m no longer a male, I’m not as much of a leader or I need someone to show me something or ‘You can’t do this all by yourself,’ but I’m the same person!”

Visibility Is Everything

There are times when LGBTQ people can use their identity to create a powerful story for their brand. Natasha Case and Freya Estreller‘s love story created interest in their brand and helped spread news about their business to the national level. They now have a national fleet of ice cream sandwich trucks. They released a book, with beautiful photographs of the electric blue California sky and pastel hues of their ice cream, with ice cream sandwich recipes and stories about their experience building a business together.

Case said it was a challenge to bring their personal life into their business brand at first but they adapted to this reality quickly. She said it is “undeniable” that their story is a big part of their brand.

“Just being younger in business and wanting the business to be about the business, we didn’t necessarily know how to tell a story or be a face in the way we do now,” Case said. “I think over time as the business grew, it became easier to bring in all of this other stuff about who we are, such as my design background, being from L.A., being women, being a couple who is married, being ethnically diverse, whatever those identities are.”

Powers also has a powerful life story as a woman who built her business against difficult odds. Four years ago she was homeless, but despite that economic insecurity she managed to share her vision of a bike shop on Treasure Island with the Treasure Island Development Authority and rent out space in a basement to get started. She didn’t have next month’s rent or the phone or internet hooked up yet, but after hanging up signs at bus stops, people began to come in.

“They were shocked there was a bike shop, shocked it was owned by a trans person and people warmed up to me. I’m a very friendly person and I love bicycles and so eventually people were like, ‘Wow, there really is a bike shop on this island,’” Powers said. “It has almost become an advantage to me that I’m trans. Once you pick up the ball and start running with it it’s like, ‘Holy cow, look at this person who is running with the ball and wow they happen to be trans and they’ve overcome all these things,” she said.

An investor recently reached out to her and loaned her $5,000 after hearing about her life story and her businesses. Powers hopes to expand her business and open another bike shop on the island.

Visibility as an LGBTQ business owner can also help grow a business. For example, the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce helps LGBTQ business owners get their businesses certified as an LGBT-owned business. This certification allows business owners to connect with corporate supply chains since corporations have diversity initiatives and look for these businesses in a database of LGBTQ-certified businesses.

Several states have been including LGBTQ business owners in diversity initiatives that include people of color and women. California’s utility supplier diversity program, which certifies woman- and minority-owned businesses to bid on business from large corporations that mandate supplier diversity, now certifies LGBT business owners as well. Similar programs are underway in other states: Last fall, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker issued an executive order to include LGBT-owned businesses in its supplier diversity program, and New York state senator Brad Hoylman has introduced comparable legislation, though it hasn’t been enacted.

This friendlier business climate, despite continued challenges, is encouraging owners like Powers, who looks forward to employing people and treating them fairly, in contrast to the way she has often been treated during her career. Through the success of LGBTQ business owners, there may be more opportunities for LGBTQ employees to thrive.

“They’ll say, ‘I work for Tammy Powers. She takes care of me. I have a good coverage. I go on vacation, and she pays for it,” Powers said. “I want people to work hard for me and then I want to pay them and provide them a good living. That would be so satisfying.”