Beyond The Degrees: Dr. Cherise Turner

We sit down with Dr. Cherise Turner to name what happens when educated Black women are overworked, underpaid, and pushed out, and we say the quiet parts out loud. We talk receipts, resilience, and real paths to taking back power when the system keeps moving the goalposts. 
• Dr. Turner’s story of being overworked, underpaid, and laid off after decades 
• microaggressions and the “angry Black woman” label used to silence truth 
• why degrees do not guarantee respect, fair pay, or promotion 
• why many women stay quiet, especially single parents carrying households 
• parallels between corporate workplaces and military leadership cultures 
• documenting incidents, building a paper trail, and protecting yourself 
• navigating EEOC complaints and the real-world limits people face 
• preparing young graduates for today’s job market and wage pressure 
• focusing on trades, skills, and business ownership to build leverage 
• community support, rejecting crabs-in-a-barrel thinking, and setting boundaries 
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Pick up your copy of the big take back, what I left behind, by going to my website, www.b3unstoppable.net. 
And if you're looking for a transformational speaker for your organization, you can visit that same website, www.b3unstoppable.net. 

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Transcript

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Opening Mantra And Stakes

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Some fires destroy you. Others rebuild you. From trauma to triumph. Your pain can become your purpose. Let's become unstoppable.

Meet Dr. Sharice Turner

SPEAKER_07 0:17

Hello, everybody. Welcome, welcome, welcome back to B3U, the big take back, what we are leaving behind this season. So this we are not just talking about what we've been through. We are talking about what we're taking back, right? So today's conversation is one that sticks to women in the in leadership, women in corporate spaces, veterans, and women preparing to enter the workforce. We're joined today by Dr. Sharice Turner, the author of Voices Beyond the Degrees, the workplace experience of educated black women. So I want to thank you all. Thank Pat, my co-host Pat Sniff. Hey girl, how are you girl? Doing good. How about yourself? Good, good. And now I would like to introduce you to Dr. Sharice Turner. How are you doing, Dr. Tina? How are you? Hi well. How are you guys? We are doing great. I am so excited. Look, I have been waiting for this interview. I am glad that you had the opportunity. Thank you for the opportunity, having the time to sit with us. So, Dr. Tyna, tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey.

Laid Off After Two Decades

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Well, uh I'm a whole lot of things. I'm a mother, I'm a wife, I'm a grandmother. I'm highly educated. I have five degrees. Um, I worked for a nonprofit for about 23 years, and I experienced a whole lot working there. And some of the things I experienced was like being laid off when you try to get promotions, um, extra work that you are expected to do without conversation. Um, people coming in getting paid way more than you and you training them. I started noticing things that were happening to me. And I was like, is it just me? You know, it felt wrong. And I was like, you know, I'm a staple parent. I got these kids to take care of. I'm scared to say too much because I don't want to lose my job. Because I loved my job, but I didn't like the way I was being treated. I didn't like the way I wasn't given opportunities. So it came to a head after COVID. Once they had laid me out during COVID, there was a lot of people got laid off during COVID, but they were able to go back. They laid me out, laid me off after 20-something years. And then after I thought they could be come back, and then it was a whole thing about okay, if I'm working in education and I have five degrees, I should be getting paid. Right. And I'm doing five or six jobs. I'm saving the company money because I know business or I know anything else, you know? And then I started getting ignored, emails weren't being answered, things weren't being done, and then they laid me off again. They terminated my position that they didn't need it anymore, and they created a new position for me, which embodied everything I was doing extra. Uh like two more dollars. When I seen them bring uh someone in of a lighter persuasion and asked her to do one thing and gave her five grand. So I'm just sitting here like, you asked me to take on two, three different jobs and give up my office and want to put me back at a receptionist standpoint with all different demands, and only want to give me two more dollars. I can't do it no more.

Depression, Therapy, And The Book

SPEAKER_07 4:03

Right. So inspired inspired you to write the voices behind the degrees.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

Yeah, I had to walk away. I just I called my husband at TS. I was like, This is what they're doing to me. And he was like, I had just gotten married too, and he was like, quit. And I said, I can't quit. He said, You can quit. I got a job. And I packed up my office and I left, and I cried, I was so depressed I didn't even want to go to work. I used to cry in the closet in the morning, get ready to go to work. So that period after that, it took me about two years to find another job, and during that depression, I was writing, going to therapy, and that's how these books came about.

What Readers Should Take Away

unknown 4:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 4:50

So from your book, what do you want the um readers to gain from your book? What do you want them to get out of it?

SPEAKER_03 4:57

I'm on black women, first of all, because a lot of us, you know, we stand alone. We have a lot of um stress, we have a lot of responsibility, a lot of us are single parents, a lot of us are navigating the world on our own because we don't have a choice. We gotta be strong. And when you're going through it on your own, when you're going through things, sometimes you think it's isolated. Like, this is just it's just me. This is just something. Am I looking into this too much? Am I being overcritical? Um am I putting too much on it? Am I being sensitive? No, it's not you're not being sensitive. It's really happening. All this stuff that we're going through, it's really happening, and it's unfair. And I want to show it's not just you going through this, it's multiple black women going through this. And it's not a coincidence, it's the it's the system design because there's so many of us. Now, I'm not saying that all black women have a hard time in the workplace. Some people can navigate it, some people have been promoted, and that's a blessing. But it's more of us that have a problem in these faces than not. And I think the first thing is to bring awareness to the different things that we're going through. Because one woman could read a chapter and be like, I don't went to that too. You know what I'm saying? And you don't know till you know, like you need to document these experiences, you know what I'm saying? If it's something happening to you, you need to go to EEOC and try to file a complaint and try to, you know, rectify however you need to. If you need to sue, you need to sue. But it's not easy to do that because I went through that process too and it didn't work for me. They told me I could sue, but what difference do it make if you ain't got no money from the lawyer? Exactly. Because they gonna companies got money, they're gonna drag it out. So if you can't afford to pay a lawyer and ain't nobody gonna take it pro bono, right?

SPEAKER_07 7:03

And you're correct. This happens across the spectrum, not only in the civilian, but in the military sector. You know, we deal with that, we deal with that people being promoted uh before us. We got the skill, we got the knowledge, we got the strength, you know, and not only is it just you know, um, against our skin complexion, but because we are women, yeah, like you know, we get discriminated against because you know, we are we have women out there that can smoke a dagger male in physical training, but that male will still get that that promotion before the woman. Uh so yeah, you're you're you're correct. You're correct about that. It's it's it happens, and it's like what do you do? Who do you take it to? You know, uh, you could take it to the highest, you know, the most the uh the higher ups are men are gonna take, they're gonna take that same mentality, that same mind frame.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

Um have to look at because we're women, we're dealing with double jeopardy and intersectionality. So we get racism because we black, we get in discrimination because we're women, and especially in the higher positions. So it's a lot of things that we gotta go through that we gotta navigate, and I think we need each other to be able to join together to help us navigate those spaces.

SPEAKER_07 8:28

Yes, yes, the and you you are this this this is why I'm so honored for you to come on and talk about this because what we have to change the narrative of being afraid to talk to other black women, not talk to, but work with other black women to come together to build that stronghold. You know what I'm saying? It it is so uh you you do have to be careful of some, but not the many, you know what I mean? There's there are many of us out here that are ready to willing to partner, willing to build that stronghold. We can't just say um, you know, black women are this or that, and I don't want to deal with it, and just cut them all off because you block it lessons by doing

Patterns From Workplace Research

SPEAKER_07 9:14

that. Um, what are some um some of the kind and experience that educated black women shared in your research?

SPEAKER_03 9:25

So I didn't look, I shouldn't have turned in that first. I started this journey on this book particularly when I was getting my doctorate degree. So when I was doing my research about barriers that educated black women go through, I did a lot of interviews with black women in the corporate world or black women in jobs who had been in jobs for a while. And what I'm what I wanted to do was find a set of questions to ask them to see if there was a commonality, you know, in different industries and with multiple black women to see if their experiences were the same. So what I found was not all black women don't do problems at work. I did find I thought it was all of them. So I did find out that there out of 10, there was one that didn't experience that. But that one came from privilege. So she came from a mom and dad system where she had both parents, they were well off. She could go to a good school, she didn't have to work out of high school, and she was happy, we're lucky to be able to go to college and not have to work and then go straight into the workforce, and then she learned how to keep her head down and just work, and she didn't push back or nothing. That's why she didn't have no problems, she's not resilient. But um, everybody who has any sense of resilience, I noticed that they get pushed back and they all have problems. We have problems like the adding more work, the expectation problem. Where as a black woman, you're seen as aggressive if you speak up, or if you voice your opinion, or if you don't agree with something, you angry, you aggressive. If you decide I'm just gonna go in here and work, and I'm not trying to make friends, I'm just gonna work. I'm not being mean, I'm not being negative, but because I'm not friendly like you want me to be, I'm a problem. I'm an angry. Um I'm an angry black woman, yeah. Um, I'm aggressive, if I say anything, so it's a lot of that. Um, I noticed it's also a lot of overwork. So you could be in a position, and if you notice when you fill out a job application, it has aligned the additional duties as required, they're not named. That's for us, in my true heart of feelings, from what I'm seeing. Because what they do is they add on, companies add on. So you could be, I'm gonna give myself as an example. I was a receptionist, right? Right, then it started being okay. Well, we got this going on, we need you to start doing bill ladies. We're gonna teach you how to do bill latent. I was like, okay. Then it turned into okay, we need you to train these two people because you do so good at it, the BS. Let me smooth you, make you feel like you're special. We ain't gonna give you no money though. And then you taking on all these extra duties and tasks, and before you know it, you're doing two or three jobs, and you only get paid four. And then by the time you sit there and be like, Hey, okay, can I get paid? Um taking on X, Y, and Z. Then they're looking at you rude, like, how dare you? You should be glad to have a job. So that's a thing that happens a lot too.

SPEAKER_07 13:09

What surprised you the most out of all of that? Anything surprised you the most?

SPEAKER_03 13:16

No, because I was going through it myself, right? I was not surprised at all. I was surprised when the young lady told me she wasn't going through nothing, and she loved her job, and she wasn't having no problems. And I was like, You had a job that you never been at since you were 20 some years old, and you ain't never had no problem. Who they add extra task, she don't have no problem with it. She said she already got to keep her head down and not give them any reason, and I said shrink it to the right shrinking cell, yeah, to the to the situation. Yeah, I think there was a lot of women like me that's not gonna do that.

SPEAKER_07 13:58

What what they call us alpha females, you know, the alpha females, you know, why does having the degree not always translate into having the respect? You know, why do we have to shrink ourselves like that? You know, I think it does not guarantee you fairness, exactly, you know that that is that is so what emotional toll is constantly proving yourself? What you know what does that take an emotional toll, and I'm sure you you have like you said, you was what 20 plus years in a non-profit? Did you find yourself having to prove yourself all the time?

SPEAKER_03 14:51

Yes, and you know, for me, I'm strong willed. So if I I know what I know, you know what I'm saying? I I would consider myself being smart. So if you you're not just gonna tell me something and I'm just gonna ride with it, I'm gonna check it out. Right, I'm just like that. So they'll tell me stuff like, oh, you want to go into this new position? We need you to do it for six months, and then when the job comes available, then you can apply for it. So I'm gonna give you a free label doing this on top of my current job for six months, and hope that a position comes open for this, and then I gotta apply for it and see it from choke, and then we can talk about how much you're gonna pay me. That don't make sense, and it's some people that just be like, okay, but no, not me. I was the proud of child, and I was legal and suppressive.

SPEAKER_07 15:54

Right,

Why Many Women Stay Quiet

SPEAKER_07 15:55

right. Well, look, we're gonna take a quick commercial break and we're gonna come back with Dr. Sharice Turnick right after this message, you guys. Here at the House of Humanity, we serve those families in need. Donate or get involved today by visiting www.thehouse of humanity.org. So join us because here at the House of Humanity, we are truly making a way. So welcome back after the commercial break. Love Dr. Turner. Um, this is amazing. But look, when we when we think about certain things, right, why do so many women remain silent about these experiences? Why aren't they more voice vocal about what's going on?

SPEAKER_03 16:37

From my research, I find that many women are quiet because a lot of us are single parents. Single parents run in the household where we got to take the load for everything. So if we unemployed, the children suffer, we suffer. We gotta have a hoof over their head, we gotta have transportation to get to work. If I voice, but I need the voice, and they get rid of me. Then back in the days, you probably can find a job easier. But now that we got what we got going on politically in this world, I mean, it's real hard to find a job. So people spread in real life what they say and what they do. Because it took me with five degrees, it took me almost two years to find a job. And the job is saying less than what I was making. I was going through depression because I was like, I just knew that it had to be a better opportunity for me without this education in my work. I had four three hundred and seventy-five applications. I got fourteen interviews. The last one was the one that hired me, and they they paid me ten thousand dollars less than I would make when they update you. So come on now. So it's like I've read it for a minute and it's a lot right give me there before you and I'm right about everything that that happened to me. So as I'm writing when I'm writing up everybody, you know, what's happening as I'm writing to me. Um take it out of work, yeah. I mean that taking me out of work, but I need to see if it's like that. I'm just sitting there like I gotta take it. What am I gonna do? So I think a lot of us are because of the structure of people in the breakdown of the household what we have to care. It makes us we we allow to support because we have so many responsibilities we don't feel like we have a way out, and we don't want to risk that having a way out. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_06 19:24

You know, I think we overlap with each other.

Corporate And Military Parallels

SPEAKER_06 19:33

Did you feel that there was a difference? That there was a difference in the field that the the women were in, that one field was more likely than another to um have issues.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

I thought that it would be more concentrated in the corporate sector, which it is heavily um trying to keep people at a certain level and not letting the progress and that kind of thing. That happens a lot in the corporate, but it happened. I had a manager that worked in family college, she was there for teen years. She was going through not being able to be promoted, overworking. She said she was working so much she didn't even have time. But she was making $14 an hour as a manager.

SPEAKER_07 20:29

That's crazy. That's not a model, as my daughter would say. One of the things that I see among veteran women and women in leadership is that even after earning our place, we often still still are expected to prove ourselves. You know, you can do all that you can do, and you, you know, in the military, you know, you can you can you know get that high PP score, you could get all the education that you need, and you still have to prove yourself that you're good enough to lead troops and soldiers, right? So do you see any similarities between corporate environments and leadership environments, such as the military? Do you see any similarities with that?

SPEAKER_03 21:23

Yeah, it's the same. Just like what you said, you can be top notch. You know, my argument was always how am I making less than the people I'm training? I'm more educated. The only person that has just as much education as me was a VP. So I'm with uh a little M M. And then you have this vice president, and me and him right here in education. I'm E D D E P H D. The only difference in those two is one is research focus. But as you see, I've been Do our research as well. So it's kind of like I'm I'm looking at him like, why am I not being paid? This is education. Why am I not being paid? And it's like, we're gonna put it in the budget for next year. Next year come, Keaton got fired. Now don't nobody know nothing about it. And they had to know about it because they took my PTO when I came back from COVID and made me start over as a new employee after 20 years. So when he went to them and said, Look, I'm an ally, I'm fighting for Dr. Turner to be paid properly because she's making less money than everybody else on the staff, which is crazy. But we'll give her her PTO back next thing you put in the budget. That had to be a corporate, that's a corporate decision to give you your PT. HR has to be involved in that to give you your PTO back. But then when I went to HR after he got fired and I didn't get my raise, they was looking at me like, give them two weeks to address it, and then in two weeks they were laying me off.

SPEAKER_07 23:10

And then as I'm sitting here listening to your story, I'm I'm in my head, I'm going, is this legal? This can't be legal.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

I went to EEOC and filed a claim, 110 pages worth of proof. They didn't do no mediation. They told me to get a um that I had the right to, and that wasn't what I was trying to do because I love it's a good company. It's just people, you know what I'm saying? Right. And that's how I was thinking at the time. You know what I'm saying?

unknown 23:39

Right.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

And I was like, I don't want to hurt the company because the company helps people and it helps our community. But what I want is for the management to be held accountable for what they're doing to us.

SPEAKER_07 23:50

So what do you think it was a what was their reason? What was the man? What do you think their reasoning was? Do you think it was because you were a woman or a black woman? Were you more educated? Were you a threat to them? Like what would be that reason?

SPEAKER_03 24:05

Because I was a black woman and I was held in low regard. I was not respected because I was a black woman. And I think another part of that is I came in, you know what? I ain't gonna tell you who said it, but somebody high up on the corporate chain at the Daniel Top. When I went to him to talk to him about me not having the opportunities, applying for job at the job within the company, not being promoted, not given opportunities, he told me that sometimes when people see you a certain way, they don't see you as anything else. I was in the projects when I came to them in 2000. So you're telling me that I can't grow, I can't evolve. So I came in as a little hood girl. I've grown, I've evolved. I know how to carry myself in spaces when I need to, like that. And you telling me sometimes people see me a certain way and they just don't see me as anything else. That's a you problem, not a me problem. Hello.

SPEAKER_07 25:08

Hello. Exactly.

Document Everything And Know Policy

SPEAKER_07 25:12

What advice would what advice would you give women who have recently stepped into these these leadership roles or have been through something similar to what you have that you have gone through? What advice could you give another woman that's experiencing this same thing and this today? Because we know what that is during COVID. You see what's going on in office now. You know what I'm saying? Most of the black, not most, all I'm gonna go ahead and leave out of the land. They are taking all of the black people out of leadership in the military.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

And don't want to give you no job after they take you out of there. What what what can we tell them? I would say protect yourself. I created a journal because, like I said, what you you don't know, what you don't know. I created a journal where it asks particular questions like when events happen and things happen, if you feel some type of way, even if you don't, if it don't seem right. No, so I used to email everything to me when something happened to me, but it's so much when so if you do it over 20 years, it's massive. So I created a journal where you document the day it happened, who was a part of it, what happened, how it made you feel, what was the outcome of it, everything. You document it all. The slightest inconsistency, um, you applied for a job and you was qualified and they passed you over, document. Somebody made a comment to you, somebody's using microaggression, document it all. Protect yourself. Because at the end of the day, if you ever have to go to the EEOC and school, yours need to be concrete. Because it ain't easy. That's right. And we need our job, especially in the climate that we're in, and it's so easy to get fired. They took away diversity and inclusion. I'm just saying, so they're laying us off in the masses. So if you're out here without a job and you get fired for trying to protect yourself, you can protect yourself. You can say what you need to say, but document it. Right. If you want to be careful, just document it and keep a steady tab because it just ain't no tough laying field for us.

SPEAKER_07 27:37

You gotta keep them receipts. You have to keep all of those documentations, and that's what I tell young soldiers and people in the military. Look, going in, keep document everything. First of all, first and first and foremost, know your job. Know what you're doing. You gotta know what you're doing. And if you're gonna and yes, we have to work 10 times as hard, but you gotta go in there knowing the policy, knowing the rules, and can't nobody touch you, you know in the sense you don't go in there sounding crazy.

Graduates Entering A Tough Market

SPEAKER_07 28:10

So uh as you know, we have many, uh many, this is graduation season. I think we just about out of it now almost. But I'm seeing a lot of young black people graduating, and it's like I love it, but my thought happens to say everything that's going on right now today, I don't even know where your education is taking you, right? So, what should a young black woman graduating today be prepared for in today's climate?

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Let me tell you something, and I experienced this firsthand. I got a daughter that's 18 and just graduated. For a whole year, we've been planning her future, you know, college application, scholarships, all kind of stuff. Thinking, we're gonna be prepared. She graduated two weeks ago. I enrolled her in college. Nobody told I I started enrolling her in January. They couldn't get her officially enrolled till they had the transcript showing that she had graduated. But everything else, financial aid, everything else was done. Do you know? The week I she wanted to be an ultrasound text. I applied to the school, they accepted her, we got her in. They told me a week ago she can't go straight into ultrasound tech because they don't have it. They have um diagnostic imaging, advanced imagery. Okay, well, let's we'll do that then. Nope, she can't go straight into that. She got to take radiology tech first and get certified before she can even apply to go into that program. Okay, so I'm gonna look at other schools and see what I can find. The first thing I could find was a pony fall line, which is about an hour and a half away. She's a new driver, she can't drive that far. I'm making less money. I can't afford to put her in an apartment. They don't have a campus. So they had ultra sign. I was like, we might have to try to figure this out so my baby can have a future. I applied, they called me and told me that she had to take all her core classes first, and then apply to be in the program and had to be accepted. So now we got to jump through all kinds of hoops to even go to school, and then X amount of the um programs aren't funded anymore. Graduate degrees, we can't get graduate loans anymore. So now we can't get the education we need, and then they're keeping us out of the jobs. So she can't even get a job at Family Dollars. She's been looking for a job for months. She can't even find a job. I can't find a better job. I've been applying still, can't find a better job. I'm not even getting interviews. My husband been looking for another job. Neither one of us, out of three people looking for a job in the same household, we're not even getting interviews. I know a lot of other black brothers and sisters who are looking for work, trying to do something, who've been a victim of this layout, this mass layout. We can't get no jobs. So the system is set up to drive us back.

SPEAKER_07 31:29

Say it again. You how many degrees did you say you have? Five. Five degrees.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

I have an associate's, a bachelor's, a master's, a specialist, and a doctorate. And I can't even get an interview. And check this out. I applied at a college that was an hour away from here. They did give me, this is before I got hired at the drive on down when I was looking for those two years. They offered me a job to be like a student manager or something. Okay. I would have had to commute an hour to get to work, commute an hour to get home. With all my education, what do you think they offered me for a salary? The job only required a master's degree.

SPEAKER_07 32:29

I don't want to be too far out there.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

43. A master's degree? It required a master's degree, and I had two more degree on top of that. They offered me 43. They said they had to come in entry level. So now what we're dealing with is they know we're desperate to work. They dropping the wages. And they're making you jump through way more hoops to get a job.

SPEAKER_06 33:05

They're gonna check out the entry.

SPEAKER_07 33:08

They fear that and this we they fear the the power within ourselves. They know that we can come in with the education that we have and dominate. I'm just gonna keep it 100. I'm just gonna keep it real. They know their own minds as well. See, some of our young people don't realize the power that they do possess with that, you know, and put their minds to get educated like that. So we come in, it's it's so much that we have.

SPEAKER_06 33:40

Yeah, I think it goes a little bit deeper than that, too. I think that's a there, even though we get the education by trying to control our income and what we can make, that's a way to kind of keep us in in some type of bondage, in my opinion.

unknown 33:54

Right.

SPEAKER_06 33:55

Because the black woman is the most highly educated demographic that there is, right? So the only way to make uh keep us in our place, so to speak, which is below everybody else, and the only way to control us, because you you can't keep us uneducated because we've already been done you in that, outdone you in that. You can't tell us we can't start businesses because we're doing that too. So when we go into the corporate world, the only way to keep us in our place is to try to undercut us on our pay and overwork us.

SPEAKER_03 34:25

They're gonna do it every time. Most of them, they're gonna do it every time. And you know, something else that I thought about is being done.

SPEAKER_05 34:36

If so much going through my head at one time. Oh my god. I'm gonna cut, I'm gonna circle back. Good Lord.

SPEAKER_07 34:44

That's okay. So look, right? Um, at least for you, we talk about the big take back, right? Reclaiming what we've lost, surrendered, or allowed others to define for us, right? So we have acknowledged, look, we we've acknowledged every all the the horrible things that can happen, but I like to talk about how we can take it back because this is the season. This is what I want to give guidance to how we can empower our young people, our educated black men and women who are out here now with degrees. What is the solution? Because everybody has something that they've been through, but what is the solution? I want to lay the blueprint for other people they don't have to go through what they are uh the same thing that we've been through or going through. It has to be a master plan, it has to be a way out. So, what do we need as black men and women? What do we need to do to take back our power in the workplace?

Trades, Business, And Community Wealth

SPEAKER_03 35:49

I think one of the things we need to do is focus on trades. Our children, they need to have skills so they can work for themselves and hire their own community. So, like with my children, my son, I'm a car girl. Y'all don't know this about me. I've been customizing cars since I was a child. I had a small business customizing cars. I wanted my son to learn how to build a car from scrap. He went to school, he took a trade, he took auto, mechanics, paint body, all that stuff. That boy can build a car from the ground up, transmission and motor. That's a skill. Everybody can't do that. Our children need skills. That's money. You know what I'm saying? So once you put yourself, once you learn a trade that can make you money, you can build a business off of that. And then you can hire people in your community to work for you. That's uplifting your community. We need to do that. We need to teach ourselves that, teach us. Everybody's not an entrepreneur. Everybody don't have the gusto to get out there and start a business. Everybody don't have the know-how, the inspiration, the gum to do it. So they need to work. So if they need to work for somebody, let it be for you. Get out there and for those of us that are encouraged. If you can make a business where you can make money, do it. Right. And then hire your own people. If we I heard a lot of things about boycotting and you know, don't buy this from this person, don't do this to that person.

SPEAKER_07 37:36

Oh, yeah. I think we're boycotting the agents now, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:40

It's some things that we don't have, right? So if we like this Yankee, Yankee cankeron, whatever this is, we don't make it. We don't know how to make it, it gotta be outsourced. So if you boycotting the people that you get it from, and that's how you wear your hair every day, and you ain't willing to go natural, what you gonna do about it? You're gonna be sneaking. You're still gonna be patronized. So anything that it is that you need within our community, we have to be able to know how to create it, manufacture it, build it, cook it, whatever, so we can help each other.

SPEAKER_05 38:22

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

Because if you know this with other races, they bind the key, they can hate each other goods, they bind together. They can hate each other guts, they will give each other jobs, they could come straight out of prison with nothing. All they need, one of their fellow, don't even know them. We'll give them a job. Us, I talked about this in one of my books, Crabs in the Barrel.

Escaping Crabs In A Barrel

SPEAKER_03 38:46

Yes, they got us in the Crabs in the Barrel choke hole. I, as an entrepreneur, have experienced this. I come out with all, I'm talking about, I do everything. I do textes, I fix computers, I fix phones, I cook for my coffee. You think I have plenty of money? I've seen people who're supposed to be my friends go over across the street to so-and-so and them instead of patronizing me. If I need a bit, if I need something and I go to them, they will, I'm gonna call it put your foot around, won't respond to me. Um, they ain't got time, they don't provide that service anymore. They don't want to, they don't even want to help me. Because I'm driven and it looks like I got more than you got. You feel some type of way about it.

SPEAKER_07 39:40

You know, this is this is the mind, you know. I I had a uh interview with my father a while back, and he was born in the 50s, the 40s, the 40s, 50s, growing up in, you know, in that time frame. And it's like they have created for us the mindset of that crab in the barrel.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

But at the top, and give them the privileges and make keep the rest of them down.

SPEAKER_07 40:09

Exactly. But it's people alive, and and you know, I might, you know, if people may give me some pretty uh some uh some negativity about this, but the way I like we were just talking about how we're boycotting with the Asians. This is here's my thing. I say to my, I say, well, why am I going there everybody is not like we say, everybody is not the bad apple, right? Right, right. Why am I gonna boycott all the Asian people? So I I I am big now and uh in for humanity. That that is my field, that's my profession, the human race. Right, you know, why is it that okay, just because this one black man has treated you bad, now all black men is garbage? You know, it's some out there. Now that's one Asian dude gets on the internet and says something crazy. Now you damn all the we gonna boycott him up. Well, I like Kevin. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin Key East. Now, you know, I mean, it may be the majority, like I I live in a all-white name, we are the only black family in this in this neighborhood. There's nobody coming over here harassing us, have to go out there, whatever. Whether they we disagree or whatever, we with whatever it is, one thing we keep is respect. And that's what we need to learn in our community. And I want to uh caveat on another thing that you said, which was so so on point. I was just talking to my daughter and mom. I don't know how you do it because I'm not an entrepreneur, I just can't do it. But I say, hey, baby girl, you don't need to be the entrepreneur, but I'm creating this these spaces for you to work in them. Maybe you could manage them. If you don't want to manage them, then hey, you can go over there, you could be the secretary. You know, you could be the behind the scenes, you could, you know, be doing things like that, but we need to create these things. I hate when people say uh we boycott a Walmart. Well, where are the people in the shop that only have a Walmart? Then somebody needs to get in here and be creative before y'all start saying we're gonna boycott something. Where's the black person in the creative mind to create another school?

SPEAKER_03 42:42

That's a whole lot of that. People, individuals, people, individuals.

SPEAKER_07 42:48

Now if the company is up wrong. We have to stop being that way. And I really want our communities out here, black and brown people, we have to stop going against each other and coming to get in where you fit in. I'm not gonna ride with every girl, uh woman out there and go on girls' trips. I'm gonna ride with the tribe who's for me. You know, it's just so much that I can say about a lot of the things. We have a lot of uh transform transforming the mentalities that we have. We have to start strengthening ourselves and start start showing up fully for ourselves, and just because one person does something bad, stop that because we can all learn from each other. You know what I mean? Now I don't say we can learn from you know, learn and grow in our own race because there the other races outside of the black race, like you just said, uh, there's uh I living with the Indians or Hindus or the Indian people, that there'd be 50 of them in the house. And they're the next person to go to college. Keeping in mind.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, we had to change our mindset about a lot of things. We don't know what we don't know. We need to learn it and teach each other because teach each other.

SPEAKER_06 44:11

I feel like in the in in we're we're all taught to like get 18, go out there, get a job, get your own house, get your own car, get your own thing. We're not taught with the mindset of like the Asian Pacific people or the Japanese or any of them, where they value the elderly, they stay in the home. They don't have a lot of those countries, they don't have nursing homes. They don't put their elderly people in nursing homes. They live generationally inside of a large home. So if three generations inside of a large home, you know, then everybody still gets to save money and gets to put money away for college and gets to put money away and savings, gets to invest in different things. And I think that's the kind of stuff we need to think of in the military, in the in black people, because everybody, if you have a family of five kids, every all five kids, and everybody's going out to get in a house and car, and then COVID hits, and three of the five lose a job, you know, and now they done lost their house. You see what I'm saying? And everybody's like, well, where am I gonna live? Well, you should be able to look over to your brother and sister, and y'all should be able to consolidate families, if at all possible, and helping generationally instead of letting sit there and letting your sister and your brother and your cousin and your friend fall and not help if you have the ability to, because in those cultures, those Asian cultures, they don't do that, they pick everybody up and they stay generationally, and that's how they keep the wealth within themselves.

Boundaries, Mental Health, And Support

SPEAKER_06 45:33

But it's also about the mental health.

SPEAKER_07 45:36

A lot of us black people have mental health issues. We have mental health issues, but it takes them and I say, Hey, you gotta get some help. You know, and then the other thing is boundaries. We need to establish some boundaries to in order to establish and protect our teeth and our power. Because you know, I got some boundaries. I got boundaries set that hey, if you don't do X, Y, and Z, then you're gonna have to seek over there. So look, Dr. Turner, uh, for the women listening right now, the women with the degrees, the experience, and the qualifications, but who still still is questioning her worth because of what she experienced. What do we want her to remember from this story?

SPEAKER_03 46:30

We want her to remember that there are such things as isolated incidences, but the stuff that you're going through, it's not just you. There's a lot of other people going through it too, and you can't let it break you, and you can't let the world stop moving. You just gotta find another way out. Always have faith in yourself and your ability, because you are strong as you feel. So, in my for me, with myself thought, it was like I can't give up, I can't stop trying. Um, my children depend on me. Yes, and I depend on me. If I'm the only thing in this bubble, I gotta make this thing work. So, however, if I got to take a job paying less, and I got to take two jobs, which many of us, many of us are working two jobs. You gotta do what you gotta do, but try to figure out a way out of it while you're doing what you gotta do. If you can figure out a business or a skill you can acquire to make money on the side and see if you can build you up that sometime someday be a full-time job, let's do it. Yes, sir. Don't don't be afraid to take a risk on your own for you. You know what I'm saying? If you're gonna work hard for somebody else, you might as well work hard for yourself. Oh no.

SPEAKER_07 47:55

I just want to take people sometime and say, Did you just hear what she said? Did you just hear that? Oh my goodness, look, the voices behind the

Books, Journals, And Finding Allies

SPEAKER_07 48:04

degrees. Uh, what other what else did you just what else do you have coming out and where can we find it?

SPEAKER_03 48:10

All of my books on Amazon. All you gotta do is go in and type in Dr. Sharice Turner. I have um, I did a poetry book where it's like a whole section. When I work that work stuff I was going through, it inspired me to write. So I wrote a book about the incidents that was happening, but it was a poetry form, some of that stuff. Um, of course, you know, about the voices behind the degrees. Yes. This one is I took the research questions that I used for my dissertation, and I broke it out into sections. And I, you know, I did protect the participants as usual. You won't have their real names or places, but you get to see their answers to what they gave me. So you can see the commonalities and what's going on between different sectors and different types of black women and what they went through and how they answered those questions. And then I have breaking barriers. This one is about the lived experiences of black women in the workplace. So this one goes a little bit deeper. The voice behind the degree. This is their actual feelings and comments and discussions that I had with some of these interviews that was telling me about the stuff that was going on with them in the workplace. So that gave me like, well, you know, that kind of happened to me. And then tell me your story. So I put that in a book form so we can see what's been going on with other people, and we can look at what we go through and be like, hmm, okay, this is how they handle. Let me see what I can do for them. Um, I created some workplace journals. Like I told you, document everything. You email it, make you a separate email, and nothing goes there but whatever you need for the workplace document. That way, everything will be in one place, and you write it down.

SPEAKER_05 50:12

You got one for us. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

I got one for multicultural women, and men need it too. That's right. Come on. My father is a black man and he was going through um discrimination in the workplace and all kinds of stuff. So I was like, he needed to. And then um I also have one, I don't know if I can show you. So it's called Working While Being an Educated Black Woman. Um, it's the lived experience of black women in the workplace, of course. And then I got another one coming called The Rays That Never Came. Let me see if I can show you the um.

SPEAKER_07 50:58

I was just about to ask, what what can what can we expect in the near future? Uh uh or in the future. Because I know you're gonna do more. Yeah, the work is.

SPEAKER_05 51:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 51:24

All right. This one came out last week.

SPEAKER_07 51:33

Can you see it?

SPEAKER_05 51:44

Is it is it wrong? That's not what I'm seeing. I don't know what you see. It ain't working.

SPEAKER_03 51:56

Yeah, because I'd have closed that out. I don't know what. But um, yeah, just type in Dr. Sharice Turner on Amazon and you'll see all the books. But yeah, the um working while being a black educated woman, that's more of the insight, plus the background and the foundation, you know, of what we go through and what we can possibly do to to um help us like create allies in these businesses, people that want to help us grow. Because all people ain't bad. You know, that's right. Sometimes when you want to grow and pivot incorporate, you need to have connections. You need to have somebody who's up, who's of a different persuasion that could put in a good word for you and say, hey, this is hard work. They need to, yeah, they would be good for this. I would recommend them. You need allies. So it's a lot of who you know. Um, I also working on um The Rays That Never Came, based on a true story. It's called the Ariane Burnett story. I'm I'm not disclosing the name, but um, it's the story of what she went through um working for an organization for over 30 years. You know, I had to try to change it in and out to protect the people. But over her 30-year joining journey, what she went through in that establishment and how it ended with her leaving that establishment and what happened to her after that. So I'm in the making and getting that one out next. That'll be my last one for now. Then I gotta get back to focusing on that for now. Yeah, I gotta get back to focusing on finding a better job because they're making it impossible for us to live. Can I say something? I I remember what I was gonna say earlier.

Moving Goalposts And Taking It Back

SPEAKER_03 53:52

Okay, the system, if you notice, the goalposts is always moving books. But way back in the days, it used to be okay, if we got caught reading the book, get your head chopped off, get killed, all kind of stuff, because you ain't supposed to read. So then when you start reading in free, then is okay. Well, you just gonna do a factory job. That's what we want you to do, a factory job. You're gonna go to school. Oh, okay, you're gonna go to school, you got to have at least a high school diploma. Knock that out of the water. Oh, no, you gotta have a degree. Knock that out of the water. We're gonna get more than a degree, we're gonna get a couple. So now, oh well, let's change it where those degrees don't matter. Personal degree don't matter. This type of degree don't matter. So now it's like, okay, now they don't matter no more. So if you can't get the education to get this degree, now we're gonna kick in diversity and inclusion, but we ain't got to make sure that we got an equal, equal playing field where it's x amount of you and x amount of us. We can have all us if we want to, and we ain't gotta hire you. So now it's just making it harder and harder. At one point in time, it was like, okay, well, let's attack the black men, keep them out of jobs, that'll break the foundation for the black family. So then they're gonna suffer. But then we came in and said, Oh no, we ain't gonna suffer, but we're gonna work, we're gonna make sure it's all right. So what he lacked, we're gonna bring it to the table. And that's why it's so many masculine women, because we didn't have no choice. So now they know that we'll stick together and we'll told it. They gotta take it away from us. So if you take it away from us and you done took it away from them, what's left? Nothing but going back. So now it's a pivotal time in our lives where we have to figure out how we're gonna fight it. We gotta try to create businesses, we gotta try to level up, create opportunities for each other. We gotta support each other. If you know that somebody who looks like you got the same thing, you can go to Sally and Sam again, why wouldn't you buy it from them? You should support your community. That's where you live, that's where you thrive. You need each other. We need each other. So I think a problem is they gotta get out. Some people gotta get out of that crap in the barrow mentality and understand that this is bigger than all of us. This is a big thing, all of us. If we don't stick together and find some kind of way to grow within our community and help ourselves and each other, we're gonna end up.

SPEAKER_07 56:41

We will perish as a people, as a as a unit. But Dr.

Closing Message And Next Steps

SPEAKER_07 56:47

Yeah, and but not on my watch. Right here, B U where we burn, break, and become unstoppable. So today wasn't just a conversation about degrees. It was a conversation about identity, a conversation about value, a conversation about your voice. And most importantly, it was a conversation about taking back the power that no title or position or organization can give us, and no one can take away from us. Thank you, Dr. Torrent Turner, for joining us here today. And we thank everyone for watching. This is the big take back, where we are taking back everything that is ours and requirement, our voices and our power. Until next time, keep breaking those cycles, building the legacies, and we are gonna become unstoppable. I'm your girl, Dick Bree Charles, with uh Pat Smith and my wonderful guest, the Dr. Sharice Turner, who you will definitely see again. Thank you guys. See y'all another second.

SPEAKER_05 57:53

Daddy, there's water dripping on my face. I knew this was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_07 58:24

Don't let it get here. Subscribe to this channel, share this episode with someone who needs it. Pick up your copy of the big take back, what I left behind, by going to my website, www.b3unstoppable.net. And if you're looking for a transformational speaker for your organization, you can visit that same website, www.b3unstoppable.net. Until next time, this is Dr. Bree Charles reminding you it's time to take it back. And we're doing that by breaking cycles and building everlasting legacy.

SPEAKER_01 59:06

Some fires destroy you.