Academia And How It Insidiously Perpetuates The Financial Abuse Of Its BIPOC Alumni
/I remember my first paid speaking gig. I was paid $500 to speak to a group of women entrepreneurs about bookkeeping basics and how to build a solid financial foundation. It was an incredible feeling to be compensated after doing it for free for so long in order to build my thought leadership.
Fast forward a few years later, I’ve been paid anywhere from $500 to $10,000 to give a one-hour talk. At this stage in my career, I prefer to be fluid with my fees. Sometimes I do it for free, sometimes I charge a nominal fee, sometimes I charge more, it all depends on what I want and what feels right. Right now, fluidity feels like freedom to me and freedom is why I became an entrepreneur.
With that said, I now realize that my alma mater preys on folks like me and discriminates in the way that they allocate funds to speakers. As we can all see from the predatory student loan system, academia is a cesspool of financial abuse. They exploit BIPOC in order to check the proverbial diversity box without doing anything to fundamentally change a system that overtly (and insidiously) upholds the same pillars used to build slavery in the United States.
Photo by Joshua Mcknight from Pexels
Case in point: 2016
I am a graduate of DePauw University, a liberal arts school based in Greencastle, IN. It is a predominately white school and has a long history of breeding traumatic (sometimes violent) experiences for its small population of students of color.
I graduated with the class of 2008. In 2016, I was invited back to campus as a speaker. I felt so honored. As someone who graduated with a grade point average of 2.9 - mostly because I spent more time listening to the campus guest speakers rather than diving into my classes’ material - I was excited for the opportunity to now be a speaker that could potentially plant a seed of possibility into the mind of a student who may be just like my younger self.
2016 was two years after I had started my business, and any entrepreneur will tell you that the first three years of business is challenging. I was in an eager state- ready to take on any opportunity to build my credibility, but the time away from my business also meant time away from making money. Something that I definitely needed.
Naively, I accepted the three-day speaking opportunity for no pay. The school offered to pay for my airfare (which I had to cover first and then get reimbursed for), my meals (I primarily ate on campus), and my lodging (I stayed at a hotel owned by the school).
Undoubtedly, I had a great time. I was able to see my beloved accounting professor who I credit for awakening my love for accounting. He was also a big reason for why I feel confident in my speaking abilities. And looking back, the independent project I did with him on the black beauty industry was the impetus of why Money & Mimosas blends financial principles with lifestyle concepts. During that trip, I was able to see Professor Musser and thank him for seeing the gifts within me even though I wasn’t his best student (far from it, in fact). Professor Musser later passed away in 2018.
However, while I am grateful for the experience, the school that charges its students upwards of $50,000 per year to attend, chose to allow me to work for free. All for the sake of their predominately white student base.
Case in point: 2019
Fast forward three years later, I receive a Facebook message from the same white woman who organized my speaking trip in 2016. She asks if I’ve received a letter from the school and hopes that I will accept the offer. I check the mail and behold there is an invitation to be a part of the Darnall Alumni fellowship. As a fellow, I was invited to speak to students and share my story.
WOW. I feel so honored. Again, as someone who graduated with a 2.9, I was eager to show college students that you don’t have to be on the honor roll to be successful. At this point, my business is at a whole other level and I’m in a much more comfortable place financially. And although speaking is not one of my main revenue drivers, by now I had been paid $10,000 on a few occasions to do a talk.
I read through the invitation and realize that the fellowship does not offer compensation. It would be the same deal as in 2016, travel, lodging, and food would be covered.
This gives me pause. I’m not angry, but I am certainly not pleased with the fact that they expect me to take time out of my schedule without compensation.
But, do they know how to pull and manipulate those heart strings. The white woman who organizes the trip gushes about how much this would mean to the students and reminds me of how these speakers were so helpful to me during my college experience.
Well, sigh. You’re right. I can see this as giving back. So, we schedule the trip to occur in Spring 2020. Well, we all know what happens. Covid-19 happens, and my trip is postponed until further notice.
Case in point: 2020
Covid-19 has pulled back the veil. In my personal experience, I began to deeply reflect on all of the financial abuse I had endured and the boundaries I was going to set moving forward. In July, I receive an email from the white woman about rescheduling my trip. I respond and share that I am not traveling for speaking gigs for the remainder of 2020 due to the pandemic and, ALSO, that I now have a base honorarium.
Instead of supporting me, she plays damsel in distress and allows the white man boss to handle the situation. Here is the response I receive.
I wish to highlight a few points:
“Energy and spirit” - they were completely fine with extracting my energy and spirit to give to white students without providing financial compensation. This hits the core of why Money & Mimosas spends so much time sharing information about the emotional and psychological impacts of money. White folks falsely believe that someone’s energy and spirit are not financially valuable so they are fine with exploiting it. This is why cultural appropriation exists, why they are ok with not paying BIPOC for emotional labor, and not compensating (or promoting) BIPOC who lead diversity committees. Thankfully, in 2017 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a report identifying that feelings make up a hugely vital component of one’s financial well-being. You can watch my full one-hour talk on it at this link (this lesson is usually only available to our Money Makers who pay for Money & Mimosas trainings, but I’ll open it up to the masses for the sake of this article).
“Sandy had put together a full schedule” - as if to suggest that Sandy was the only person who has put in copious amounts of work, time, and energy into this situation. How many years have I spent building my platform brick by brick, researching financial topics until my eyes can’t stay open any longer, negotiating my pay because others refuse to see my worth? Really. Try again.
“Potential Spring speaker” - so now I am a potential speaker? Did my qualifications change? Oh, the only thing that changed was the nominal fee that I asked for in exchange for my time, energy, and spirit. Got it.
Lastly, there is no mention that my honorarium will be in fact be honored.
Which is why I responded with this email:
To which he responded with this email.
Keep in mind that this was sent after the white woman watched my Instagram stories and saw my Instagram post about the situation.
I’m not even going to waste my time with annotating this nonsense. It wreaks of gaslighting and lies.
I will point out that they do NOT always offer to pay for travel, lodging, and meal expenses. I have spoken to alumni who have asked for this and were denied.
The financial lesson and additional resources
I’m not going to make a public judgment on where these folks’ hearts are, but I will make a judgment on the system that allows BIPOC to continue to be financially abused.
Why did I have to state an honorarium? Why is it not assumed that we need to compensate our BIPOC alumni for their time, energy, spirit?
If I wanted this to be a volunteer experience, why not offer the fee upfront and then allow me to choose to have it donated?
This is why I went to my Instagram and asked white women to make a case for why it is not ok for a University to ask their BIPOC alumni to give their time, energy, and spirit without compensation.
I asked them to make the case for me, because as you can see white women are quick to play the damsel in distress and not stand up for their Black sisters.
I have included the links they shared, as well as screenshots, so you may use this information if a University does not offer to pay you.
Maria Bamford gives a commencement speech at her alma mater and states they tried to lowball her (side note: the University of Minnesota also offered a speaking opportunity to me back in 2017-2018 and refused to pay me. I declined.)
White Women Take Action
All white women have financially harmed BIPOC. If you are a white woman, here are steps you need to take to start to rectify the harm you have caused.
Read our article on why white women continue to not stand up for BIPOC, especially in financial situations
Buy something from a BIPOC-owned business (do it now)
If you attended a university, write your alumni council to demand that all speakers be compensated a minimum of $2,500 + travel, lodging, meals
