This is a guest post that is part of a series featuring women leaders for Black Women’s Equal Pay Day, which falls on August 7, 2018.

Aliya Allen, Treasurer & Co-Chair, Fundraising Committee, Women of Color for Progress

Its 2018 and I still have friends and family that make comments like “Does it always have to be about race or a women vs. men thing.” As if the system that affects my life on a daily basis is some unnamed, unidentified, illusive thing. In 2018, men of color still say things like “Black women are “agents” of white men.” They resentfully scoff at the record numbers of black women that are collegiate graduates and entrepreneurs, as if that’s proof we’re winning some hypothetical “struggle contest.” It’s so painful to listen to them talk; the same people that laud my personal successes. An individual, by myself not threatening to their masculinity. Our communities expect us to continue to accept the invisibility and its traumatic affects.

In 2018 black women are still quantified as less human, valued at $.61 on the dollar. These statistics are eerily reminiscent of time that hasn’t seem to have passed, which categorized black people as a third of a human.Equal Pay Day reminds me of our WHY. See we are graduating in record numbers because we do not have the luxury of being under qualified AND over paid. Even with these personal and collective achievements we are still being paid $.38 less than white men and $.21 less than white women. Our resumes are being discarded before they are even read. We have to fight to keep the $.61 on the dollar we are receiving, while combating inaccessible health care and lack of affordable housing. We’re opening our own businesses because the truth is, if we won’t receive equity, we’ll make it.