Zach has the pleasure of sitting down to chat with Dr. Janice Gassam, Ph.D. in an episode themed around discussing emotional labor. She and Zach touch on the concept of self-care, and Dr. Gassam shares a few ways she believes that organizations, aspirational allies, and leaders can help ease the emotional labor lift for black and brown folks in majority-white spaces.

Connect with Janice on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

Check out her articles on Forbes!

Visit our website.




TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and yes, we're here. We're back. We're having conversations, you know, that amplify the voices of black and brown people at work, and we do that through what? Now, I'm talking to y'all like this is a live podcast, but this is the part where you would say "by having authentic available transparent conversations with black and brown educators, executives, entrepreneurs, influencers, creatives, activists, and non-melanated or lower-melanted allies," right? People who are advocates of inclusive, diverse, and equitable spaces, and so we do that, right? Like, we have these conversations--honestly, I feel like every time we come on here we have a great guest, and today, today is no different. Today we have Dr. Janice Gassam. Now, listen, Dr. Gassam is a diversity and inclusion consultant and founder of BWG Business Solutions LLC, a company focused on creating strategies to foster an equitable workplace. Gassam is a professor at the Sacred Heart University, teaching courses in diversity and inclusion, performance management, data analytics, and employee engagement. Now, look, let me just go ahead and give y'all some stats, okay? Just real quick so y'all know, 'cause, you know, this is the thing. You know, we're gonna talk about this in the interviewer, but sometimes, you know, folks kind of look at these platforms--and Living Corporate is fairly unique, but they look at this stuff like, "Oh, this is just, you know, passionate stuff," quote-unquote, and it gets dismissed. No, no, no. Dr. Gassam has bonafides, okay? So she has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology, a TedX speaker, and she's authored over 100--listen, yo, 100. 100. Hold on, they're not hearing me. ONE HUNDRED articles. Now, you might say, "Articles on what? Articles on Lipstick Alley?" No. "Articles on Shade Room?" No. Articles on Forbes, what you talking about? [Flex bomb sfx] Okay? She's out here. She's making moves, okay? And listen, she has a competent communicator certificate from Toastmasters International. So not the local spot, okay? Catalyst certification in unconscious bias awareness, has spoken for Yale, H&M, and various other conferences and universities, and she's taught undergraduate and graduate courses in employee engagement, performance management, diversity and inclusion, amongst others. Dr. Gassam, how are you doing? Like, I just gotta--hold on, I gotta at least give you a cheer or something. [applause sfx]




Janice: [laughs] Thank you so much, Zach. That was a really nice intro. You made me sound so important, but thank you so much for having me, and it's a pleasure to be here, and I'm really excited to get into this conversation. How are you today?




Zach: You know what? I'm doing really, really well. I'm in New Orleans. My cousin-in-law is getting married.




Janice: Congraulations. That's fun.




Zach: Absolutely.




Janice: Are you gonna go to Cafe Du Monde?




Zach: Ooh, I might. I may.




Janice: Yeah, you gotta have--you gotta. I think it's 24 hours, but the lines are usually pretty long. But if you have a chance, if you're there for a little bit of a time, that would be fun. Wow, that sounds really nice.




Zach: It should be great, you know? And this is the challenge, right? So when you get older--so I'm just now hitting 30, right? So you get older and, you know, you can't just kind of eat and do some of the things that, you know... your body, your body sends you a memo later like, "Ayo, I know you tried to be cute earlier, but it ain't happening now. You've got an appointment now, so what's up? And now your knee hurting and you don't know why," right? But no, I'm doing great. How are you doing? What do you got going on these days?




Janice: I'm doing good. I aim for seven hours of sleep, seven to eight hours, so I got my seven hours. Today I have to do--I'm writing some articles. I did some Forbes interviews, so I have to just transcribe them, and then I have grading of course. So that should be--should keep me pretty busy.




Zach: Okay. Okay, all right. Now, look, it can't just slay by itself. You gotta put in the work, and you're doing it, so we appreciate you. So thank you.




Janice: Thank you so much.




Zach: No, no doubt. So look, let's get into it. You've established a deep brand in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Your profile--at what point in your life did you realize that this was the work that you wanted to do and why? Like, what led you to come to this point and create this brand for yourself?




Janice: Well, I guess sometimes people ask me this question, and I think it's a combination of the fact that I come from a--my parents come from Cameroon, which is a West African country, so I--throughout growing up I kind of grappled with not being Cameroonian enough, you know? Because I don't speak the language, I don't cook Cameroonian food, and I didn't really know a lot about the culture growing up because I was born and raised here in America. So I think that that combination of the different culture, as well as, you know, growing up in predominantly white neighborhoods and going to predominantly white schools and also just recognizing my blackness, it's almost like--DuBois talked about, in "The Souls of Black Folks," a double consciousness that black people in America experience where it's kind of like they have to grapple with their own blackness as well as being a black person in a white America, and I think it was, like, a triple consciousness. So trying to figure out where--you know, where I fit in the black sort of scope as well as, you know, trying to assimilate to white America, and I did a lot of that in school, you know, so that I would be accepted and then also embracing my culture and being true to my culture and that aspect of my background. So I think that that combination always made me really interested in diversity and inclusion. In 2011 I started a YouTube channel where I talked primarily on race and quote-unquote black issues and things that I felt were relevant to the black community, and I've kind of scaled back, and I haven't made a video probably in six or seven months, but I still, you know, post videos on there here and there, and I was able to cultivate a pretty loyal and strong audience. I had about 20,000 subscribers on that channel, but-- [ow sfx] I actually moved my focus to corporate diversity and inclusion because I saw that there were holes in the system when I would work in different companies. I noticed certain things. So I guess my focus moved from sort of these issues that are relevant to black America to "How do I fix these issues in corporate America?" 




Zach: And it's just such critical work. First of all, let me take a step back. So I think it's interesting when you think about, like, just black identity, underrepresented identity, and just all of the nuance of that, just of your own identity period. Like, let's just--not talking about within the context of any other social framework, but you have yourself, your own lived experience, which is complex, and then you're placing that within a context of being, like, in a white majority, and then--I don't know. It's just a lot, and I wonder--and it kind of leads me to my next question. When you talk about, like--when we talk about this space in diversity and inclusion and we talk about really kind of taking these conversations that black America is having--and I'm not trying to exclude other non-white spaces, but I'ma speak to black America because that's the experience that I live in. So historically over the past, I don't know, what, 100 and something odd years, like, we've had thought leaders talk about and have these internal conversations or in-house conversations about what it means to be black, and then of course we've had--you know, we're knocking on the door today, but there have been people who knocked on the door before us having these conversations and bringing these discussions to light. I guess my question is, as I look at your profile, do you ever see or feel a sense of being in, like, two worlds at once? And these two worlds that I'm talking about is one I'm seeing, like, a bit of--I'm seeing, like, one camp when it comes to this corporate D&I space, this corporatized D&I space that is very heady. It's very academic, and it's largely white and institutionalized a bit. And then there's this other group that's continuing to grow and build that is more activist in its function and more driven and founded by themes of justice, and also driven by themes of lived experience. When I look at your profile, and even what you just shared about you being a first-generation American and you being a first-generation professional, like, a first-generation in a variety of ways, but also having this academic background, do you see yourself straddling both of these worlds? Do you see--I mean, I'm kind of making an assumption that you even agree with my analysis of, like, corporate D&I. I'm just curious about, like, how do you see yourself as you operate in this space?




Janice: No, absolutely. I have a close friend who, you know, I've been doing these diversity dinner dialogues in New York City, which is just, like, a free workshop where anyone who has an interest in diversity and inclusion can come. You know, we talk about a specific topic. Papa John's sponsors it, and in doing that I actually got to know a girl who has become one of my close friends. Her name