Tokenism, Negotiating Your Worth + Money with Danielle

Author, content creator, and brand consultant Danielle Prescod (she/her) joins Ellyce on the podcast this week! 

Danielle shares the deets on her forthcoming memoir “Token Black Girl,” which chronicles her journey climbing the corporate ladder in the fashion and beauty industry as one of the only Black women in the room. She and Ellyce also discuss warped perspectives on money in corporate culture, changing your mindset to get paid what you deserve and Danielle’s evolving perspective on money as a content creator.

Here are some takeaways from Danielle’s episode:

• Money may not buy happiness but it definitely buys comfort
• Money – whether in big corporate industries or in content creation – is more free flowing than you think
• Never take the first offer: Use the facts to negotiate what you deserve in your career
• How to use your privilege in your career to help those coming up

Pre-Order “Token Black Girl” here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1542035163/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_HS3045F9T1K4X9BGQS2Y

Follow Danielle:
TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMNDEdapF/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/danielleprescod/?hl=en

Join the Queerd Community:
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/ellyce.fulmore/
TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@queerd.co
WORK WITH ME: https://ellycefulmore.com/

Ready to take control of your money? Well I’ve got you covered with my mini course library. 6 different courses priced at $47 each, these mini courses are an awesome (and affordable!) way to start taking control of your financial future.
https://ellycefulmore.com/mini-courses 

Transcript

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Hi, and welcome back to this week's episode of Keep Finance Queerd, a podcast that's putting the personal back in personal finance through complex and nuanced guest interviews and solo episodes. I'm your host, Ellyce Fulmore, and today I am joined by author, content creator, and co founder of 2BG consulting Danielle Prescod. In this week's episode, Danielle gives us the details on her forthcoming memoir, Token Black Girl, which chronicles her journey climbing the corporate ladder in the fashion and beauty industry. As one of the only black women in the room, we also touch on the warped perspectives that exist around money in corporate culture. We discuss changing your mindset so you can get paid what you deserve, and we talk about Danielle's evolving perspective on money. As a content creator, Danielle has experience working in the fashion and beauty industry, also for a large television network, and now as a dei, brand consultant, a content creator, and most recently, an author. So she definitely has a lot of perspective on a lot of different industries and also how money operates in those industries. We hope that you'll walk away with a fresh perspective on money and awareness of your privilege and how to use your privilege to help others and more confidence to negotiate for what you're worth and turn down opportunities that don't pay you fairly. Buckle up for Tokenism negotiating your worth and money with Danielle. Hi there. Hi. I'm Sydney. My name is Rebecca. I'm an autistic woman. I'm Jane. I'm a first generation Latina. I am a single mom and a survivor of domestic abuse. I am an ADHD plus size millennial on the autism spectrum and Add, creating other problems in itself. Even though I bring in decent money, I struggle with staying ahead of everything. I am now struggling to pay off my debt. My traumatic brain injury means that it's hard for me to concentrate long enough to sort out my finances, the hardest time managing my finances. My parents were never able to teach me. I love my Starbucks habit, and I'm not giving it up. Hi, Danielle. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited as well. Yeah. Okay. So before we dive into some of the other topics I want to talk about, I'd love for you to share with the listeners a little bit about who you are and what you're passionate about. Absolutely. Okay. So my name is Danielle. I am a writer, I guess author as well. It's like, what happens when you write books and I live in New Orleans. I moved to New Orleans from New York City about a year and a half ago, and I spent 15 years living in Manhattan. I went to NYU, so I spent a lot of time in New York. I'm from New York as well. I grew up in Westchester County, and so my whole life has been really localized around New York City. But in the Pandemic I just was like, I can't do this anymore, I really need a change. And so I patched up everything. I moved to New Orleans, I didn't know anybody and now I have a new life there. And I also founded a business with a business partner. Her name is Kristy Rutherford. In June of 2020 it is in Dei consulting firm and we work with fashion beauty companies to help them on their journeys to becoming more antiracist. That's amazing. How has that transition been from going from New York to New Orleans? It has been challenging but it's also like such a welcome change. I think that a lot of people in New Orleans, they're really into like partying and having the festivals and stuff. And it's so funny because I did not move here for any of that. Like I spent my entire career working in fashion magazines and then like the last four and a half years I worked for television networks, I worked in entertainment. I'm like the access and experiences I had can never be replicated ever. And I don't have like the desire to replicate them ever. So I'm like I don't care if New Orleans never had another festival again. It wouldn't make a difference to me. I moved here to get away from that aspect of my life and to really slow down and to have peace. Of course, I say this now, I hope that the construction that's been outside my windows for the last three weeks is not going to interrupt that. Because I'm like, I moved to New Orleans for peace and quiet and now we're under construction because it's about to be hurricane season. So they have to refurbish the roof and decide to make sure there's no leaking and stuff. And so they have been working very tirelessly but very loudly. And it's so funny because I haven't heard them today and I'm like I wonder if they are coming. But other than that, it is a very peaceful life and that's what I really wanted. I was like, it's too crazy living in Manhattan. The noise is driving me nuts, having no space is driving me nuts. Having no outlets to be able to go outside and an easy way is driving me nuts. So I was like, I have got to make a change. Yeah, I really felt that during the Pandemic as well. Like my apartment just wasn't cutting it anymore because I was suddenly home all the time and I was like, there's not enough space for me to like I just feel trapped in here. I'm in the same little tiny 500 sq ft every single day. So yeah, now I'm renting a house with my girlfriend and we moved city so it's like a way cheaper city. So we were able to get like a house for basically the same cost as my apartment in the old place. I was living. So, yeah, that was a huge thing for me. Same for me. Yeah, I now live in a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment, and I used to live in a studio, and I pay less money now that I live here. Yeah, that's insane. It's so crazy. But yeah, I think we've all realized how important physical space can be, especially when you're stuck at home. So I know that you're writing your debut book right now. You've written it, it's already written. Your debut book, Token Black Girl, is set to come out very soon, which is so exciting. And writing a book is such an incredible accomplishment. I can't imagine how much time and work and energy went into that. So tell me what inspired you to even begin that process of writing a book. So I went through a terrible breakup in 2018, and I was very determined that I would use that experience to my benefit. I was like, there's got to be something in here that I can capture and either make it a book, make it a television show, or something like that. And I started writing, and I ended up trying to write fiction. And it was so difficult for me because I again spent most of my career writing in fashion magazines and then later in entertainment. So all of my writing has been its first person narrative or through research or I'm writing features. So I'm either interviewing somebody and like, writing about their life, and I've researched them and we talk and then I'm cataloging my observations and basically what happened, or I'm writing something about myself and it's a personal story. And so I had never attempted really to write fiction before, and it just was so bad and it was so hard, and I was like, this is not working. And I've been in therapy for various reasons for years. And one of the things that therapists kept saying to me over and over again was like, well, you really need to find self love. You really need to explore self love. And I'm like, Okay, I love myself. I was just like, I don't understand why they keep telling me this. And I was like, Oh, there was a moment where something clicked, and I was like, Oh, wait a minute. Like, my kind of careful codifying of the way that I look and how I present myself to the world is so based in the opposite of self love, which would be like, self criticism. And all of that has been influenced by white supremacy. And so I was like, let me kind of trace back the origins of these thought patterns and processes. And so I was like, I'm going to try to figure out when and how I was receiving information that conditioned me to think that I wasn't good enough or to believe I had an imposter syndrome, or to believe I needed to perform X, Y and Z in order to be worthy, etcetera. So I did. And that is how token black girl was born because a lot of my childhood and youth was spent in predominantly white spaces. And like I said, I went to NYU, which is a PWI as well. And then as soon as I graduated, even before I graduated, I had my first job at a fashion magazine where I was often the only black girl either in my department or sometimes in the whole magazine, and recognizing how I perceive myself, how other people perceived me, and kind of the effects of, like, what that meant. But then also the flip side of being the token black girl is that other girls who are black or other girls of color would see you and be like, wow, it's so great that you're doing this, not really knowing how awful it might be or the torture that you're going through because of it. And I was like, there definitely has to be other people who are doing this. And then I kind of did a lot of research about other women who have been in similar positions, and it's really about identity and really defining yourself without the influence of white supremacy. And so that's what the book is about. And that's how I got to writing it. It was a long but also short process. Like, it came to me pretty quickly. But like I said, publishing is just such an old industry and it really takes so long for things to happen. Right? Yeah. And there's somebody, like, nodding of the eyes, like always, the hoops you have to jump through to actually get it completed, even once you've actually done the work and written it. Yeah. That's so amazing. I am so excited to read it. It sounds like it's such a powerful book. And I'm curious how your perception of self love changed after writing the book or through writing the book. Yeah, I think that the biggest thing that I came away with after writing the book was that there's too much pressure placed on the individual where conditioning people to believe things about themselves is like a systemic issue. And if you want people to be able to say, like, yes, I love myself unconditionally, you have to stop giving them opposing messages. That's like in the book, I write a lot about fat phobia. And so the narrative that, like, if you are plus size or if you're fat, if you have fat, you're lazy, you're unworthy, all of these things, it's like we're not really doing much to combat that narrative that has existed for years, decades, and things like colorism that is present in almost every culture in the world and all of it is a direct kind of effect of colonialism, and we have to be constantly questioning that. But none of that is any individual's fault. So if, like, a child looks at themselves and says, well, I don't think I'm pretty, the child did not give themselves that message. The world gave the child that message and then they received it accordingly. And so I think we have to stop pretending like it is up to you to raise yourself up solely and be like, yeah, now I'm just confident. And even if you do, there will be so many people who will be intentionally trying to tear that confidence down or tell you shouldn't have this or you shouldn't have that. And none of that is an individual issue in my opinion. Yeah, I completely agree. It's like society is like love yourself, but also you have to look this way and talk this way and act this way and you can't do these things and then it's like, how am I supposed to you're right. It puts the pressure on the individual. Like, oh, you need to go do the work to love yourself. But in reality it's like all of these systems and society that's placing all of these things on you. So yeah, I completely agree. What do you feel like is the next steps? What is the way that we start shifting this? What I do think has to be an individual responsibility is like decolonizing the things that you interact with on a daily basis. And so things you consume is not just food. It is the media, it is people you follow, it is things that you like spaces you're putting yourself in on a daily basis and that is truly like a personal choice, I feel like. So if, you know, looking at the Met Gala just happened on Monday. I'm not sure when this is going to release, but we're in early May now and so if looking at the Met Gala and I'm like, I've been to the Met Gala, there's no worse place to feel poor and ordinary than going to the Met Gala. It's horrible. It's also very cool, but it's like, wow, we're not the same. But if you are looking at that and it's making you feel bad, stop looking at it. Change the things that you let in to your space because you should really only be doing things that affirm your existence, that help lift you up because that is what the thing that is in our power to choose. Right? Yeah, I love that. That's a very good tip that we can all walk away with and work on. That's something that I've been trying to cultivate with Tik Tok, especially because it's like new platform for me is like really being aware of who I'm following and who I'm engaging with. And I think there was a trend going around a while back where it was like, oh, show me your like, the videos. And they were talking about how much diversity is in those liked videos and that was like a really good check for me of like, okay, I need to really be aware of whose content am I consuming and is it a diverse group of people. When I look at my liked videos, is there different people that are sharing their voices and not just like, people that look like me and are in the same income bracket as me and like those types of things. So, yeah, I think there's a really big opportunity for us to be aware of that. And it's something that I feel like it's not that much work to do. It just takes a little bit of awareness and a little bit of effort. So excited for your book. I'd love to know when it's releasing and how the listeners can purchase a copy because I'm sure that other people listening are going to want it to. Sure. It comes out on October 4 of 2022. So this year it's called Token Black Girl, and it's available for pre order on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble. It will be in select bookstores, but I'm not sure which ones yet. So I order all my books on Amazon, and I usually read on my Kindle app because I read a lot. And so when I lived in New York City, I did not have a lot of space for books. So it was actually very good to have them digitally. But I understand that people really like having a physical one. So you can definitely still order it. There will be an audiobook version as well. Oh, amazing. Okay, so Amazon, Barnes and Noble, go get your pre order. Is the pre order available right now? Yes. Okay. Amazing. I love that. So you've had quite a career journey working in the beauty and fashion industry and now working as a Di consultant to those brands and also as an author. So fashion and beauty are billion dollar industries, and you've been exposed to that first hand and really seeing how that money is used in those industries. How did your perception or understanding of money change after working in those industries? I think it really skews your perception of what money is if you are interacting, especially with big brands. And what's funny is, yes, I worked with fashion and beauty brands for a very long time, but then the last four and a half years, I was working at BT, which is a television network, and our advertisers were things like Pepsi, things like Walmart. So it's like if you thought a fashion budget was huge, like, wait till you see what Walmart money can do. Wait till you see what Apple money can do. Some meetings I was in, I was like, Oh my gosh, the limit does not exist. They were like, how about we get a whole island and build this structure on it just to shoot one video? And I'm like, we're going to do what? Oh, my gosh. In those situations, it's very easy to kind of, like, forget what money is because it's just so free flowing in a lot of ways. It's frustrating, though, is, of course, it doesn't always trickle down to the employees. And ultimately, why I left VDT was that I felt that there was just such an abusive environment for the people who worked there. And I was like, especially for black women, I cannot co sign them not having health insurance and us working insane hours. And I was like, it was just so icky to me, and I didn't really see it improving anytime soon. So I was like, for my own mental health, I'm going to walk away from this because there is a ton of money there. It just doesn't always translate. So that same thing happens in fashion magazines, too. They're putting on massive gorgeous events. Like, I don't even know how much the Met Gala cost, but I do know that salaries are very low. And in fact, because of the way the economy has gone in the last few years, what they'll do is they'll slash, which means cut certain positions in departments and then put those same jobs on existing employees. So when you're hired to do one job, now you're ending up doing four jobs and you're not making any more money, and no one is being any more supportive or kind about how they're asking for things. The same schedule still sticks, the demand still stick, but like, you now have to twist yourself up to meet these and that's really hard to see. Yeah, and it's scary too, because when you're in that position now, you're feeling like your job is at risk if you don't do these things. And it's like you're stuck in that. You're trapped in that position of like, now I have to do the job of four people, but if I say no, then they might fire me. And then it's a tough situation to be in. Do you feel like the way that you saw money being spent and used and then again, not trickling down to the staff, did that affect the way you personally spent your money or viewed your money in any way? No, I don't think so. Of course, it's hard to get used to a certain lifestyle. Like, even when I was like, Thank God, the pandemic really opened my eyes to a lot of things that I was using as crutches for just sticking with a situation that made me unhappy. You know what I mean? So I was like, I can't give up my corporate card. This is amazing. If you are working and it's past certain time, you get to take an Uber home, you get to order dinner. It's like, because of the schedule and demands of the job, you're basically doing that every single night. So it ends up being like an offset to how you might spend money otherwise, because you get to fund it through your job. But for me personally, it didn't really affect the way I spent money. I think I always had some sort of understanding that I am around people with like, insane wealth, but that is not me. Or a brand will be able to send me a car or fly me somewhere, put me up in a hotel. I'm like, I know that I'm never going to be able to stay in this hotel. Of course, it does start to shift your perspective on what I enjoy. For example, I just went to Coachella a few weeks ago and a brand took me and it was luckily and then New Orleans Jack says this week and I was like, oh, like, no one's taking me. I'm not going to that. I saw that you got to go to the artist. Like, you had the artist path. You got to go to the I don't know much about Coachella, but like, the VIP area looks amazing. It was insane. I've been to Coachella several times and I've always gone VIP. But this year my friend got me an artist pass and I was like, no wonder all these people love this so much. It is amazing over here. The artist pass is essentially the same access that artists who are performing at Coachella have. Where we were the weekend, just came to like, watch a set from the same place and I was like, what the hell is going on? It was truly amazing. But I'm like, once you start to experience things like that, you can't really go back. I'm like, I don't want to go back to VIP. I now know this other world exists. I don't want to do that. And look, if I can't get it, then I can't get it. But I'm also fine with staying home. I think that you can't be like, super thirsty for things. It's like, if it comes, it comes. If it doesn't come, you also have to live with that. Yeah. So now I know that you're on TikTok and you're also creating content on top of all the other things that you do. So, like, for starting negotiating brand deals after seeing brand deals in the entertainment space, has that changed how you negotiate brand deals? Oh, absolutely. But I think that even having a book agent has taught me so much about negotiation. I'm not allowed to say what my book deal was based on my contract, but when the number came in, I was like, whoa, that's crazy. And then I wanted to accept it right there. And my agent was like, we'll be asking them for double. And I was like, what? It's so cool to have somebody advocate for you in that way. And it really has opened my eyes because I am not a content creator. I have so many other skill sets and so much other experience in other areas that gives me credibility, right? And not to say that content creators that don't have that experience are not as credible, but we're different. And so when brands approach me, I'm like, I don't care what the following number is. You are contracting to work with someone who is about to be a best selling offer, is going to be a filmmaker, is doing all these other things. I'm not doing something for $400. That's not how it goes. And I actually want more creators to be demanding that from brands because I think that what happens is so many people feel so special and lucky to be asked to do something at all that they really lose sight of the fact that you cannot pay a rent on cloud. You cannot pay a rent with jeans or beauty products or whatever it is they're trying to offer you because essentially what they are doing is using your image to sell things and you have to like look at yourself as valuable. And I think that that was like a huge piece of the selflove puzzle that I was missing is that when you are the quote unquote token, you're essentially being told that you are so lucky to be here or you're only here because of affirmative action or whatever. And that lets people use you in ways that it's like, I'm not cool with that. I have been on every brochure for every camp, every school, every activity I've ever done and I'm like and I don't get paid for any of that. But guess what? These people get to be like, oh, look at us. We're so not racist. We have this one black girl who's really good at this sport and she goes here and I'm like, whoa, whoa, I don't get a discount on any of this. None of it's good for me. It's actually harmful. So I want people to be able to have that knowledge and be like no and walk away. I walk away so often like a brand just came to me and I was like, I'm not doing this. And what I think is really twisted we've got to start making content about this, actually. But I think it's really twisted about what brands do is they try and say things like, well, we're just a small women owned business. I'm a small women owned business, but I don't care about selling your products as much as you do. So we have to work together. And I work with because of our Di consulting, I work with many brands who I'm like, you have to invest in this. If this is part of what you're saying is important to you as a brand pillar, then you have to actually show up financially. You can't just say like, oh, we want to do this. Meaning like, we want to exploit people. That's not cool. Yeah, I had no idea how much money was in the content creation side of things until I was in it for a bit. But I remember I think the first brand deal, I asked for $100 or something and the other time I had like 2000 followers or something and they said no. They said no they tried to negotiate with me for, like, 50 or something, and I was like, I said no, and I walked away. But I was like, even looking back at that, I'm like, I had no idea what I could charge or what, like, at the very beginning, because I had that mentality too. Even being in the finance space, I still had that mentality of like, oh, I'm lucky that a brand is reaching out to me and that they want to work with me. And that only happened, like, a couple of times, and then I was like, Okay, no, I'm like, enough of this. When I tell creators, I'm like, pick one bill. Pick one bill that if you did this job, you could pay it completely, and then that's worth it. It makes it worth it for you to do so. If you can't pay a single bill with it, then walk away, because who cares if you're already paying your bills just fine? Don't accept $100. That's just ridiculous, because from the brand perspective, they're just trying to get as much out of you as they can. They don't even see you as a person. They see you as, like, a box on an Excel spreadsheet, and they're just, like, putting next to you how many followers you have. They don't even look at you as an individual. So it's really messed up. Yeah, it is. And I'm glad you brought up the follower thing because I think that was also something I didn't take into account, is, like, how much work actually goes into doing a brand deal. Like, coming up with the script and doing changes and filming a video and coming up with the concept and revisions. It takes a lot of work, and just as a baseline of that work is worth a lot of money without even adding on any of the followers I have or anything like that. So, yeah, that was definitely, like, a learning curve for me. But I'm glad that you brought that up because I think it's really important as a content creator to understand that you have value just with the skills that you have and not even taking into account any of your social capital or anything like that. Exactly. I feel like the followers it doesn't even matter to me. It's a moot point, especially if you're, like, someone who is a credible voice, has experience, and it's, like, a decent person, because I'm sure, as you've, like, observed as getting more into the creator space, like, there's just so many things that are for sale, so many people that are just, like, will do and say anything or whatever. And I'm like, even if it's aligned or not with the brand, it's like, almost like they don't care. It doesn't matter. Go hire those girls. It's fine with me for you to hire those girls who are not bothering to talk about serious and complex issues on their platforms, who are just like, here I am looking cute. And it's like, if that's what brands want, but out there, I'm like, by all means, then that is your person. What do you want with me? Yeah, I'll work with someone else. So how have you been able to advocate for fair payment, not just in content creation, but in everything that you do? And how does that also then manifest in the way that you can now pay your employees? So I've been so, so lucky that I have had bosses and mentors who have really advocated for me to get paid fairly. I had a boss who was like, you are working this amount of hours. You need to get paid overtime. You know, when I was 20 years old, or like, we would do extra jobs and she would pay me in cash on the side. And I truly think that the best thing that you can do for somebody is give them a financial opportunity, like, pay them fairly. And so that has really stuck with me for years and years and years. And it's always something that I have fought for people who have to report to me. I recently I'm working on merch and having a designer do things, and he happens to be a college student at Two Lane, and he did some really good work. And I was like, I will pay you for the mockup of the designs just to see, because I was like, I want you to understand you're in a bidding war against other designers. So whoever I end up liking the best, like, that's who I'll go with, and then I'm going to use that to sell on the merch. And he gave me a number that was so low, I was like, I had to send him an email. And I was like, I understand you're still a student, but you have to recognize you have a skill set that other people don't have to be you have to be charging for this. But it ended up taking him essentially seven times more than what he asked for. But I was like, even that seems really low to me. But I want other people to understand as early as possible that as a creative, your time is valuable, your skill set is valuable, your art is valuable, and that we need to be just normalizing. That I don't want to be the person who's like, oh, yeah, I just got away with a deal, especially if it's like, I can afford to pay. And if I couldn't, it would have been a different story. But since I can afford that and the intention is for me to sell these things and to make even more money, I need to be paying those people fairly. I don't want him to be looking at this a year from now being like, well, damn, I really should have charged more. I want him to feel like, wow, I walked away from this project. Yeah. Not be like the story, my story of, like, I just charged this little at the beginning. Yeah. You want to look back on it and feel like that was worth. My skill set at the time and the effort I put into it, 100%. What tips would you have for women who are struggling to advocate for their work? It is so difficult. I mean, I still struggle with it. I'm constantly like, should I do this? Should I not do this? But it's like, I think it's just like, anything a practice, so every time you do it, you will get better at it. And once you have other people in your corner who are validating your worth and saying that yes, make sure you have people around you who are like, make sure you charge this. Make sure that this is the baseline that they're covering. Like, it really helps you to build up that confidence. And also know that when someone offers that's just their starting offer, they could always go up. Right. Negotiations. Yeah. And I think something I'll add to that is if someone says no to you, it doesn't mean that your prices are too high. Like, there's, like, so many brands. Like I said, that brand tried to negotiate with me over $100, and then me thinking like, oh, I asked for too much. But now I'm like, no, brands have so much money to throw at creators. So much. Yes. I have another friend who is an author, and I think sometimes, listen, guys, I don't love men. I mean, I'm unfortunately straight, which is how I know nothing is a choice. So I don't love to listen to men about anything. But in certain cases, because they benefit from the patriarchy, I'm fascinated to watch them negotiate on things, and just even observing that can be very helpful. So, for example, I had a friend of mine who has a brother. She's ten years older than her brother. So her brother just graduated from college. He's 22, she's 32, and he got a job offer. And he was like, okay, yeah, I think I could do this, but I'm going to need $50,000. More dollars. And my friend was like, Oh, my God, I can't even believe he had the gall to ask this employer that. And essentially what he said to her was like, well, I figured that I'll be at the office, like, more than they're accounting for. I'll probably be working some weekends, and so I need to do more. And she was like, and this is where the wage gap starts. Because he's 22, they ended up saying yes to giving him 50,000 more dollars, even though he has zero experience. Zero experience. First job. But at your first job to start with, plus$50,000, that means you're only going up from there. And so in between ten years, she's like, he's already making more money than I did, because I was just like, yeah, I'll find the first offer every single time. And the way that he approached it was like a very analytical way. And I'm like, in some ways that's what benefits men to do, to approach things with a way that's like, okay, I analyze this and here's what I came up with. So I have a male friend who's an author and he got approached by a brand to do a Black History Month talk. He's a black man, and they offered him $200 and like speaker fees are like thousands of dollars. So he decided that he was going to go on their website or not their website. Like, look, Google them and he found out that in their third seed round they raised like 600 or $700 million. Then he sent them that article and he was like, I bet you this money could be put to better use if you weren't trying to nickel and dime people over Black History Month discussions. It's like, he ends up getting what we wanted. And I think that a really good way to approach it. Be like, here are facts. And one fact that a lot of women and especially women of color, have to their advantage is that we know the statistics on wage inequality. Use that to your advantage. I don't care if the person's like, oh, well, I didn't start this, I'm not responsible for it. Okay, well how about be responsible for fixing it then? I didn't start it either, but it hurts me. And what's weird to me is that brands try to cultivate this kind of atmosphere that they are individual people. And I'm like, they're not corporations are not people. So you're not asking an individual person for this. It doesn't hurt anyone to ask for it, so don't look at it like that. And the person that you are speaking to is simply a representative or a proxy of the corporation. They're not the corporation themselves. So, like, divorce from that emotion attached to it and I think that things start to improve. Yeah. And especially when you're talking to like, a brand or corporation, they have money. Again, you're not talking to an individual person. They have money to pay you. We just all need the confidence of CIS white men in negotiations. I know that there's a statistic that actually backs this up, that men are more likely to just like, if they want to do something, they'll just do it. Whereas women are more likely to be like, oh, I don't know this thing yet, or I haven't learned this thing and we're more likely to be like, oh, I'm not qualified. But men, even if they're not, have no qualifications, they're like, I'll just do it. I don't know. So we need to replicate that confidence of like, I'm just going to ask for it and just see what happens. Yes, exactly. Okay, so something that you mentioned on the pre interview form that you filled out was like, that you're trying to stop apologizing for things, which I know is often hard. Like, when people make assumptions about you as a public figure, as a social media creator, it can be really difficult. So what advice would you give others who are also in this journey of, like, trying to set boundaries and be unapologetic for how they show up? I think that especially when you do share certain things on social media, it's so hard to explain because people are like, but you share so much of your life. But I'm like, it's still not everything. This whole past week, I haven't ticktocked at all because I'm writing an article for a magazine and I'm in work gremlin mode. I literally had my hair half up most of the time and hunched over my computer screen looking at Excel documents, looking at articles, having interviews transcribed. It's not glamorous. I'm like, it's kind of boring. I'm like, no one really wants to see that. It's different when I'm, like, unboxing a Birken bag and everyone can be like, OOH ah. But, like, the work that it took for me to get the Birken bag, like, no one gets to see that. And it's hard to because I want to acknowledge that I understand that I have privilege, that I have disposable income, and I know that I'm lucky to have that, but I also know that I work hard to have that. And so it's finding a balance between, like, I don't want to be obnoxious ever. I don't want to be obnoxious about anything. So I think that especially moving from New York City to New Orleans, where the income disparity is massive, whereas in New York, because the cost of living is so high, hustle culture is everywhere. The bloodline of New York is green because that's what everyone's always doing. You're always like, hustling to make money. You are always like it's just in the air. Because there's actually no other way to survive in New York if you are not doing that in New Orleans, it's very different and there's no real centralized industry. Hospitality and tourism make up a lot of the bulk of the job market. However, because of the pandemic, like, both of those things are kind of like, on the slower side right now. So there's a lot of people who are out of work, and it is difficult to move to a place where I never, ever thought of myself as someone with means. I'm like, I'm working to become wealthy, but I also didn't really have to interact with people who are, like, below the poverty line often. And so it's bringing a new awareness. So I would say I have to say I don't try to be obnoxious, but I also can't constantly be, like, apologizing for things that I have and things that I've worked hard to get. So sometimes if I start talking about racism and issues of white supremacy, white people will say things like, well, your kitchen is nicer than mine, so I don't know what you're talking about. Or you have XYZ, so I don't know what you're talking about. There is no discrimination. Like, you've gotten things. It's like actually that kind of example of exceptionalism. It hurts our fight for equality. It hurts racism. So I don't want to be the mouthpiece that is in the way of, like, being able to or the figure that's in the way of people being able to express their pain about systemic injustices. Yes, I suffer systemic injustices too. Not at the same level as somebody who was not able to have the education level that I have or did not have two parents who can financially support them. And I don't want to be a distraction from that. But it's like we all have the right to talk about things that affect us and it all helps, essentially. But sometimes I do feel like seeing what I have or what I've been able to accomplish becomes a barrier for people to be able to take seriously the argument that racism still exists. But I'm like but trying to use my proximity to whiteness and proximity to these people in power, I hope helps people to gain a better understanding because it's like, you might have access to me, but you might not have access to people who are living in a very different way. So I hope that can be a bridge, but sometimes it ends up not working out that way. Yeah, obviously I have a different perspective being a white woman, but I think that it's so important, the work that you're doing, and I think it's really important to hear from all different people in different levels of different stages of their life, different income levels. I think that's super important. And I get this comment a lot when I talk about white privilege on my page. It's like, people don't understand that there are different types of privilege. You can have white privilege and you can also have financial privilege. And I always get the same arguments of like, well, I had a horrible life and like, I'm white and I'm like, yeah, but that's not the point. Or they'll be like, Oh, but what about Oprah who's black and rich? And I'm like, no, people just don't, I feel like, make that connection. But I think that's, like, it's even more important to keep talking about it. And yes, I think that it's also really important to see black people succeeding and also just like women in general succeeding and building wealth, because I think that's an important thing too, because we're often told as women that we're being maybe not greedy, but we're showing off our money if women have money, whereas men can just show off their cars and they're like, whatever. And it's like, aspirational people are like, wow, I want to be like that. Like, this is so inspirational. You worked so hard, but then when a woman does it, it's like, oh, daddy's money, or you're bragging and things like that. So I think it's really important to show your accomplishments. And like you said, you worked hard for them. You should be proud of everything you've done and be able to show up and talk about those things. But it is like a very complicated thing, like anytime money. Yeah. And it's sad because people get so emotional about it. And like you said, privilege does not automatically mean you have economic privilege. In a lot of ways it does, but being able to walk means that you have privilege. Being able to speak and communicate means that you have privilege. Can you imagine your life without that? You would make everything so much harder. A lot of people don't even realize that there's not a lot of handicap rants in buildings. I look at the streets of New Orleans, I'm like, now how would someone get around here in a wheelchair? Really? And I'm like, that is a privilege. You're able to walk around. So you have to think about privilege on levels and not just as like this overarching thing that means that the royal family has privilege. Okay, yeah, sure. But you also have privilege in your individual life. Yeah, I feel like people associate privilege with having good life or living comfortably, having money beat, like all those things when, like you just said, there's like even just being able bodied is a privilege. Being able to not have to worry about how you're going to access buildings when you go out in public. Those are all privileges. And I think that's like a good reminder for everyone listening. Probably every single person listening to this podcast right now has some sort of privilege in one way or another. And I also think people have made it seem like super bad. And I'm like, it's actually quite neutral, but it's like what you do with the privilege that makes it good or bad. Same with money. Money is quite neutral, but if you do bad things with your money, then that makes it bad. If you do good things with your money, then that makes it good. So the same works, I think, for privilege. It doesn't have to have this big kind of like philosophical attachment to it. It can just be something that you acknowledge. And so if you then want to use your privilege to advocate for people who don't have the same privileges, I think that's like a good thing to do. If you want to abuse your privilege and make sure that hoard it and make sure that you're the only one with it, and people who look like you or who have the same similar privileges are the only ones that have it. Yeah, that's probably not great. Yeah, no, I agree. I love that it's neutral and the idea of it's what you choose to do with it. I think that's really powerful. So I have one last question for you. How has money changed your life? Yeah, I was thinking about this the other day. I was like, Why do I want more money? Because if you think about it, you're like, when is enough enough? I'm always just like I looked at some people at the map. I'm like, Why are they even doing this? If I had this level of money, I would just be, like, gone. I would not even be on the Internet at all. I would just be gone. The only reason I do any of this is so I can get more money, so I can leave. I want to be retired, and I want to do it, though. I want to be comfortable. People are like, Money doesn't buy happiness. Fine. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it buys comfort. It buys security, it buys safety, it buys healthcare, doctors, etc. It just like, there are so many reasons to want money. To me, none of it is like, I want, like, flashy jewelry. I want you know, like, I don't want to have to worry about stuff. The feeling of opening your refrigerator and seeing that you have food in it, and you don't have to worry if you have that feeling. I'm like, imagine that feeling, like, tenfold. Imagine that time being like, oh, I can just pack up and go anywhere I want. I would love that feeling. And I think that that's what money gives you, freedom. And also the ability to walk away from situations that are not good for you. Think about how many times you've stayed in a job where you've done something. You're like, I hate this so much, it's wearing me down. But I'm doing this because I need money. What if you could just eliminate that? That's the dream, right? So that's why I feel like I work so much, and what I'm working towards is some semblance of freedom. That's how I use money. And that's, like, what I want money for. And also should be able to like one of my love language is a gift. I love giving my friends gifts. I've loved seeing people light up when you invite them to do something fabulous or you give them something amazing and they're so grateful. I'm like, I love that. I love gift giving. So I'm like, I want to be able to do more of that. I'm like, I'm great at it. I'm like, the only thing that's stopping me, really, is budgets. Yes. I say the same thing all the time. I'm like, I just want to be able to take my friends on vacation. That's a life goal. So would you say that you've achieved some of that freedom already? Has money allowed you to have more of that freedom? I would say yes, definitely in the past two years. But even still, I think that I rent now. I'm like, if I want to buy a home, I'm going to have to get another full time job because lenders don't love freelance workers. They don't love people whose income isn't guaranteed. Same thing. I was thinking, if I'm going to have a baby, I need to get a full time job. Why? Because my health insurance is better if I'm working for a corporation than it is. I still pay a huge premium on health insurance because it's based on your income. And so it's really expensive every single month. But I don't really have great health insurance. I'm like, I don't want to have a baby with this health insurance, not with the maternal mortality rate the way it is now with me living in Louisiana, now with me being a black woman. So I'm like, I know that I have to go back to that if I want the best, right? And so, again, that's what money gives you. And I'm like, I'm going to have to maybe make some sacrifices in my personal life in order to get back to that. And I'm like, I know that it's a reality that I've accepted, but I don't know at what level you become, like, truly free of it all. There probably has to be, like, some magical number. I know it's less than a billion. I'm like, there's no reason you need to get to a billion, but like some sort of multimillion. Yes. I feel like there's a magic number for everyone. I feel like it really depends on where you want to live, where you want to retire, like, how much your cost of living is, if you have children, if you are supporting other people, like, so many different things. But, yeah, I think there is like, a number for every person that would be like that number where you are truly financially free and don't have to worry about money ever again. And that's what we're all striving for. Yeah. Amazing. Okay, well, I just want to thank you so much for coming on here and just sharing so much about your book, about your experience. And I just know there's going to be so many takeaways, especially with advocating for yourself and asking for what you're worth. I think that was a really important conversation. So thank you for being here. I appreciate this conversation so much. Thank you for having me. I'm sure you all are dying to read Danielle's book after that interview. You can preorder Token Black Girl through the link in the shownotes and also make sure that you go and follow and support Danielle on her journey of launching her first book. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, we'd love it if you would share a screenshot on your social media and tell us what you loved about it. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can subscribe to the Show Rate and leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. I will be donating $1 for every review left in the first months to organizations that our podcast guests have chosen. Thank you for listening, and remember to keep finance queerd.