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Vote on Desiree Davidson's Story
Were they afraid we were planning a coup d'etat?
I spent my first summer during Columbia Law School at a firm in Philadelphia described as one of the best places in the city for black lawyers. I believed that if there was any place where I would have an equal chance at opportunities, be treated fairly and succeed, this would be it. There were three black female summer associates out of sixty that year but any time all three of us were in an office talking, one of the partners would knock on the door to see how we were doing. It happened too often to be a coincidence that sometimes we would purposely agree to meet in so-and-so's office to test our theory that we were being monitored. Like clock work, ten minutes after we would get together a partner would stop by.
There are two obstacles you face
- Workplace Unfairness
- Male
- African-American
- Biotechnology/Pharmaceutical
- Left & is now a Small Business Entrepreneur
- Engineering
- Assumptions
- Double Standards
- Low Expectations
- Stereotyping
I got $2 million dollars to start a company, two months after 9-11. The capitalists asked, "Can you run a company?" People think of you as a technology entrepreneur, but technology entrepreneurs are not thought of as being good at running companies. They can start a company, but they need someone to manage it. I have a friend who was not an engineer who got 8 million dollars without the skepticism about his ability to run a company, but he lost it all 'cause he couldn't run the company and it ran out of money. It's a perception thing. There are engineers who came out of Stanford who get millions of dollars and start hundred billion dollar companies. But that doesn't happen to African-American engineers. There are two obstacles you face. There is a perception that if you are African-American, you are not going to be the best and the brightest when it comes to engineering. The second problem is that sometimes people are down on you for being an engineer. There is the perception that you are only good at engineering and you can't run a company.