Alumni Spotlight: Desireé Wilkins Finch, LT, 20 Rise LWP LLC

I am Desireé Wilkins Finch, the descendant of a slave who became a sharecropper. Prior to joining Leadership Tomorrow, I struggled, a great deal, being comfortable in white spaces, specifically in “professional” settings. I found myself trying to fit in and was performative, demonstrating behaviors that I had been taught and believed were acceptable and would grant me access to opportunity.

As a 6-foot-tall Black woman from the southside of Chicago, I can remember my mother and my father reminding me to be mindful of my body language, to be mindful of my facial expressions, to look people in the eye when they were talking, and to always look with interest when other people were talking. I can remember my mother telling me to hold myself when I walked, to minimize the way my body jiggled and shook, movement that just comes with the culture, so that I wasn’t oversexualized or assumed to be a physical threat! I can remember getting my hair permed and straightened. My father even had my sister and I memorize and recite Hamlet’s soliloquy so we could practice different inflections in the tone of our voice so we could sound educated and articulate.

“I didn’t know how to be myself AND comfortable in my skin. I did not know the value of being Black and being myself because I was being raised in a society that completely devalued being Black so far as I had to be taught behaviors to simply keep me alive and safe.”

Also, prior to Leadership Tomorrow, I was on the precipice of a divorce. Once again, I found myself being performative! This time it was in my marriage. I was taught to be domestic, to cook, keep a clean comfortable home, and to be a ‘helpmate’ to my husband. I wanted to be married because that is what I was supposed to want. So, again I was performative, so that I could be accepted, cared for and loved. I cooked every day. I made sure we had a clean home. I made sure we had access to fun experiences. Then I realized all the activities my husband and I did were things that fulfilled his interests and made him comfortable and safe. Again, I abandoned my own interests, dreams, goals, and happiness so I could be accepted. I sacrificed my own peace.

I made myself small because I knew that what was inside of me could devour the mediocracy that I was surrounded by. I made myself feel small because that is what I was socialized and raised to do to make other people comfortable and safe. Then one day, I decided to choose me. I began to do what I saw so many mediocre white men do, whether they are qualified or not. I began to say yes! The first thing I said yes to was Leadership Tomorrow!

I walked into my interview fresh from a complete emotional break down in my car from arguing with my husband. My face and eyes were twitching because that is one of my body’s responses to stress. I didn’t have anything to wear so I wore a dress I bought for Easter service a few years prior, heels that had a broken strap around the ankle, and I had hair weaved in that was being held together by bobby pins. I was uncomfortable, and I knew that I wasn’t “good enough” to be accepted into LT.

When I walked into the room, I was greeted by three Black faces. I had a mixed bag of feelings. On one hand, I felt “Wakanda Forever,” and on the other hand I felt, “you better get your shit together and give them your A game.” I was nervous and stumbled over my words and rambled. Then the final question was about what lived experience in this last year had shaped me. In the words of Aretha Franklin, “I drowned in my own tears.” I could not stop the tears from flooding my eyes. I was so embarrassed!  In my interview, I talked about my path to choosing me and what that meant not just for me but for the communities that I serve and serve alongside.  

Finally, time was up, abruptly. I sucked up my tears and thanked them for their time. As I left, one of the interviewers, a brother, walked me out and said to me, ‘Sis Philippians 4:13 you can do all things through Christ that strengthens you. I smiled and said in my most professional voice, “absolutely and thank you”. When I finally made it to my car, I had another emotional breakdown.

My interviewers’ faces represented who I wanted to be. It wasn’t Claire Huxtable (The Cosby Show), Duwayne Wayne (Different World), Khadijah James (Living Single), or Joan Clayton (Girlfriends). These where three Black faces that where real, that I could touch, hear, and feel.

“I wanted to be that professional and that comfortable and that ambitious and that significant and that Black in my skin as a descendant of a slave. ”

From that day on, my fellow LT’20 classmates, Darryl Perry, Robert Harmon, Dion Cook, Javon Thurman, Leslie Wright, Marcus Glasper, Nancy Sanabria, Nate Simpson, Nicole Herron, NiiAmah Stephens, Jennifer Ward, Nykeesha Griffin, Rokea Jones, and Trey Chenier, have created a community of Black professionals that have unknowingly encouraged me, affirmed me, helped me heal, and held me accountable to living my truth as a descendant of kings, queens, doctors, economists, farmers, mothers and more who were enslaved just because of the color of their skin.

I am not the descendant of a slave; I am the descendant of the enslaved. That narrative is so important because it reminds me that my blood is filled with strength, resiliency, power, authority, and great significance. Those values may have been stolen from my great grandfather, my great grandmother, my grandmother, my grandfather, my mother, and my father, but I now reclaim those once stolen values as my own.

I do not have to adapt to white culture. I do not have to adapt to the white male dominated patriarchy. I have to adapt to a new narrative of greatness. And, as a community, we get to navigate through this shift of the narrative (because whoever tells the story holds the power, and our story has been told incorrectly for centuries). Now WE get to set the narrative and transform so that we can be better together for everyone; but especially for Black folks and even more so for Black women.