Black History Month Spotlight: Grace Charles

Black History Month

To center diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, we invited OSCPA members to share their experiences on culture and identity while navigating the personal and professional world. 

When I was invited to participate in the member spotlight series, I was excited and honored to share my perspective as a Black woman in public accounting.

Black identity is not a monolith, especially those who are of the African diaspora. Multiple intersections define my identity: I am Black. I am Asian. I grew up with a Haitian father and a Filipina mother, but I also had a cultural influence from living on Guam for most of my childhood. I lived in Waco and Houston, Texas, for my formative early adulthood, and that helped shape my cultural identity as a Black queer woman being a part of a larger Black community.

My identity plays a role in my career, especially knowing the demographics in the accounting/audit field. In my early audit experiences, I worked with clients in the for-profit corporate world. Most of the time, I was the only Black woman and had a heightened awareness of microaggressions I faced in the workplace. Ultimately, this negatively impacted my work performance, self esteem, and motivation. Once I started having mentors who looked like me, helped me feel supported, and validated my experiences, that was the turning point in my career.

Now that I'm working with non-profit organizations at McDonald Jacobs PC, I have the opportunity to work with clients that come from more diverse backgrounds. As a manager, I am in a position in my career to be a mentor to the staff I work with and to pay it forward. I feel more confident showing up to work being my most authentic self.  For example, I express my culture and identity by fully embracing natural hairstyles. It's empowering to do this in spaces where historically the expectation was to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards.

Black History Month is a great reminder to me about the achievements made by the Black community. A lot of our history is centered on the impacts of systemic racism and slavery, but we sometimes fail to recognize the accomplishments our ancestors were able to achieve despite facing these hurdles. Resilience is in our blood and is a driver for our successes, both individually and as a community as a whole, and that should be celebrated.

Organizations, especially predominantly white institutions, need to recognize that the accounting field continues to lack diversity. There are still inherent biases affecting hiring, retention, and compensation, but it's not the responsibility of people of color to find solutions or invest emotional labor into addressing these issues. As cliché as it sounds, representation matters, and mentorship from people who look like you or have similar experiences really makes a difference in feeling supported and valued.

Read more on DEI 

Organizations
NSBCPA - National Society of Black Certified Public Accountants
www.nsbcpa.org

NABA - National Association of Black Accountants 
www.nabainc.org

Alliance of Black Women Accountants
www.allianceofbwa.org

Articles
The cost of inequality: Why Accounting Firms must do more to support Black Women
www.forbes.com

Why aren’t there more Black accountants?
www.accounting.com