According to Pew Research Center, 36% of Black women say that they’ve experienced workplace discrimination or mistreatment based on the color of their skin. For Pennsylvania native Aliyah Jones, this would soon become a shared experience for her. After getting fed up with the constant back and forth with job applications and dead end interviews, she became curious about whether or not her experience was similar to those of other cultures. More specifically, White men or women in corporate spaces. One day, she received a random message from someone on Linked In after being vocal about her experience on the platform saying that she wasn’t “marketable” enough and that she was being too vocal about things that were going on.
This experience fueled her curiosity even more, and led her to going undercover on Linked In. What started as an idea for a week turned into eight months posing as a White woman with her same skills and experience, just a different photo.
It was almost instantaneous that she began to see positive results.
“I had a lot of referrals trying to get me in due to my design background, and even they were confused as to why I wasn’t receiving a callback. I was trying to connect with this specific recruiter for the longest time on LinkedIn with my personal page, and honey… when I added Emily into the mix, she got added back immediately. I was in shambles. So, I was like, soooo they see me… but they don’t. If you know what I mean,” Aliyah revealed when speaking on a sneaker company that she had been pursuing employment throughout her journey of being unemployed.
For many African Americans, particularly women, the workplace politics and gaslighting make its way into existence far beyond accepting the offer. Some employers have the mindset of being more critical of minorities while in the hiring process to ensure something is “rightfully earned” while others seem to not take seriously the credentials of said person through their own implicit bias. Aliyah has documented her journey since its inception through video diaries across YouTube and Tik Tok through its ups, downs, tears, and confusion. Since going undercover, Aliyah has been pleasantly surprised with the outpour of support from individuals in the workforce and those still struggling to find a job. She was especially surprised to hear from some of the companies that had previously rejected her.
“I’ve been receiving a good amount of emails and messages, and it’s been interesting to see how they have reacted. I’ve received apologies, and others have threatened me—which I can’t go into full detail about right now, but rest assured I am taking action against those threats, and not lightly either,” Jones explained while discussing the mixed responses she received on her Linked In account after the reveal. Many even tried to defend their stances, and ensure that it “wasn’t” because she was Black, but couldn’t pinpoint other reasons as to why things may be happening.
Black women, and other minorities alike can relate to the discrimination that can come with trying to break out of other people’s perception of you. On a deeper level, they desire to be treated fairly, according to professional experience rather than ties to biases that may not accurately depict who they are. Many that have had this mistreatment have been vocal about it, and have sought out for responsibility to be taken. In many regards, the individuals involved or an HR department will use tactics that could stifle someone’s voice. In other ways, they could make them feel so uncomfortable that they decide to not pursue employment at the company or leave the job that they’re at. Aliyah has not only experienced this, but found that the lack of awareness and sensitivity to some biases that people hold allows for this to continue.
After corresponding with more people across Linked In, employees from the company itself even reached out to respond. “When they asked me what they could do to help, I suggested that their platform needs to regulate ghost jobs. It’s unfair for people to apply to jobs that have been reposted for weeks or months when those positions aren’t even being filled,”
Outside of the discriminatory behavior from executives and recruiters of a different race, some also have to be wary of those who are African American and make the experience frustrating. Many have shared the experience with seasoned corporate Black women giving attitudes, tougher interviews, or hostile work environments for those coming in— including Aliyah. Some attribute it to jealousy stemming from fear of competition while others believe that Black people intentionally make things difficult for others coming before them out of wanting them to have to work harder to achieve. During the sixth part of her Linked In experiment, Aliyah had a disheartening experience with a panel of interviewers after one of them began to target her during the discussion. After commuting over an hour to the interview, she was met with the receptionist notifying her of their tardiness. They soon filed in one by one on their own time and began the interview.
“While I was discussing my versatile background, the two other interviewers, who weren’t Black, were very intrigued for the most part. However, the Black woman was hounding me, questioning how I’m able to be so versatile with different skills. She basically told me I need to choose one skill. So, me and her were going back and forth as I respectfully stated that having multiple skills in a position is a good thing,” Aliyah explained to GU. To her surprise, the interviewer continued to badger her until one of the other White interviewers had to chime in and agree with Aliyah’s perspective before she backed off. This experience along with many others similar to it shines light on the concept that though some may be aware of the hardships for one person of color to gain acceptance into a space, it doesn’t always mean that they will want to bring along other people or color along with them to extend the opportunity.
Though Aliyah continues her journey of searching for an opportunity to build her professional experience, she still has a clothing business called Armino Wu. She has even been approached by industry professionals on how to expand the project beyond its digital series for potential adaptation into a larger film.
“When I revealed that I was a catfish for 8 months and documented it, I wasn’t expecting such an outpouring of support. It’s been an amazing feeling to have opened this Pandora’s box of people sharing their own stories. I’ve been receiving a lot of emails, hopping on many calls, and hey… all I can say is… my story might be coming to a screen near you very soon, and it’ll be worth the wait,”
This catfish experiment has been able to shed light on the realities of both workplace and hiring discrimination. If you or someone you know has experienced similar circumstances, Aliyah is allowing others to send her voice notes to not only help clear their concise, but help each other learn from such experiences.