When you are one of few Blacks in your office it can sometimes feel like you are on display. That is exactly how some young Black
“I was sick of being that person because of the way I looked,” said Olanipekun. “It felt like a gimmick they rolled out. Every time we had a brief about youth culture, the creative director would ask, ‘Is Ollie free?’ as if I was the only person in an agency of 160 people who had a view.”
The agency also used Olanipekun to make it appear that the agency was more diverse than it actually was.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 49: Jamilah Lemieux
Part 1: Jamarlin talks to digital media executive, activist and author Jamilah Lemieux. They discuss her article, “The Power And Fragility Of Working In Black Media” in the Columbia Journalism Review and Lamont Hill being fired by CNN for his comments on Palestine. They also discuss whether Michelle Obama’s words on Rev. Jeremiah Wright in her book “Becoming” were a false equivalence.
Unable to put up with the situation any longer Olanipekun stuck out on his own and launched Superimpose.
Unfortunately Olanipekun isn’t the only young Black and executive to feel used and stereotyped.
“For agency professionals like Olanipekun, racial microaggressions have become a staple of their working lives and in many instances have become a source of stress that’s pushed some to the periphery of the industry or out of it entirely. While overt examples may have declined, employees report it’s likelier to be issues like being the de facto ‘diversity voice’ in the room just because they’re minorities,” Digiday reported.
Advertising still has a lot of work to do to reach diversity.
“According to Digiday Research, 39 percent of agency professionals have experienced discrimination, and a fifth of them say it’s been racial,” Digiday reported.
