How do the questions we ask reveal our biases and create, often unintentionally, disharmony and distance? I explored this topic with Rocki Howard, Chief People and Equity Officer at The Mom Project, an organization that connects skilled professional women (and men) with companies looking for diverse talent to meet their goals.

With a background in recruitment/ talent acquisition leadership, her 20+ year career spans diverse industries including banking, manufacturing, retail, pharmaceutical, and insurance. In 2020, she was among the Top 100 profiled on the HERoes Women Role Model Executives List.

In her current executive role, Rocki balances her internal leadership responsibilities with speaking about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. She is the host of a podcast, The Voices of Diversity.

Paul Quinn: There’s a section in The Big Ask Book [publisher TBA] in which I write about questions that people ask that may be offensive to the listener, even if the person doesn’t intend to offend. Have you experienced questions like that?

Rocki Howard:  There was a time in my life when I wore dreadlocks. And people would ask me questions, like, did I wash my hair, was it clean, etcetera. And those were cross-cultural questions. Sometimes people ask questions out of an authentic need to understand and sometimes it’s like, Oh, you have locks, so your hair must be dirty. A lot of times your gut will tell you [their intent]. 

And the reason I bring that up is that I once worked for an organization that was on every “best list” for diversity that you can imagine, and the same organization refused me a promotion when I refused to change my hair. Because the perception at that time was that it was not a professional way to wear your hair.

There are questions that show the bias of the questioner, whether intentional or unintentional. Women get asked questions [in interviews] like, “What are your family plans?” “How do you plan on being a mother to your four children?” I was almost excluded from a promotion because an assumption was made that I wouldn’t want to relocate because I was a wife and mother of four. Because there was a true advocate in the room during that conversation, I was able to answer the question of whether or not I would be interested in relocating. I actually received the promotion. 

Paul Quinn: I recently interviewed Dr. Sonja Kelly from Women’s World Banking. She talked about the annoyance of being asked at conferences, “Who’s taking care of your kids while you’re here?” Her point is that few people would ask a man that question. She expressed a similar objection to “What, or who, are you wearing?”

Rocki Howard: To her point, the question, “Who are you wearing?” reduces a women’s presence to “fashion” instead of business. You very rarely ask a man that question. Or “You smell good, what kind of perfume is that?” While it might be meant as a complement, beside coming off as being a little creepy if you don’t know the person well, it might not be appropriate in a business setting; it is a personal comment in a business setting. Why not complement a woman based on her professional presence versus her physical presence?

Paul Quinn: It makes sense that the relationship would determine whether those questions are welcome or not. I suppose that between friends, questions like that could just be casual ways to connect. 

Rocki Howard: Yes, and I think there’s a caveat. I try to go through the world assuming positive intent. And so, I think when we’re asked a question that makes us feel uncomfortable, we have the right to ask questions back to ascertain the intent.

Paul Quinn: Can you give an example?

Rocki Howard: If I had a big afro and someone asked to touch my hair, I might say, without being snarky, “That’s an unusual request. I’m just curious—why would you want to do that?” There’s a question I’ve been asked as a Black woman that I feel most people wouldn’t have been asked, and I’ve been asked it more than once: “Do your children have the same father?” Because I have four children.

Paul Quinn: Wow. So, what might you ask in response to determine the intent of that question?

Rocki Howard: Well, that’s just an asshole question! (laughs) I’ve been asked that question by a complete stranger where I just looked at them and said, “You know what, I’m going to choose to not answer that question.” Because, exactly what are they trying to get to? What difference would my answer make? I want the person to question themselves a little bit, like “Why am I asking this?”

Paul Quinn: Right.

Rocki Howard: But that’s the place we are in society, being uncomfortable about speaking about uncomfortable situations. And if we’re uncomfortable challenging someone, sometimes we’ll just answer the question. It’s like, I want to get out of this as quickly as possible so I’m just going to answer the question. 

Paul Quinn: It seems like it would take a lot of energy to have to decide how to respond to questions like that. Should I be confrontational or light? Do I have to coddle and make them feel it’s ok to ask? Are they asking sincerely? Are they bigots? It must take a lot of energy to have to consider all that. 

Rocki Howard: There’s a term for it. It is called the emotional tax. And when you’re a non-majority person, and I say non-majority because there are multiple dimensions of diversity, where you can get these questions asked for you. So, when you are a non-majority person or when you’re underrepresented in a particular demographic, this is the emotional tax that non-majority people assume all the time.

Paul Quinn: Emotional tax—can you say more about that?

Rocki Howard: It’s called an emotional tax for a few reasons. One is, if you don’t answer with the right tone, then you can perpetuate a stereotype. So, as a Black woman, if I answer a question and I’m a little too angry, then people negate it because I’m being an “angry Black woman,” which feeds a stereotype. Number two, you have to decide in the moment who you want to be, because you can also have the opportunity to change someone’s perspective on something they just don’t know. So, you have to choose: Do I want to be the person who takes on this emotional tax or one who engages in a conversation that really could help change the world, one story, one conversation at a time?

Or am I just too worn out today? Or is the person even worth [discussing] it? I ask myself, “Is this a value-based activity?” And so, in the moment, you’re a non-majority having to ask these questions and respond on a moment’s notice. And it’s tough.

Paul Quinn: Our biases are mostly unconscious. How do you help people recognize their biased questions or thinking? 

Rocki Howard: The most dramatic “aha” I’ve seen is when I was working with a company and using Jennifer Brown’s book How to Be an Inclusive Leader as the foundation for training. We were talking about bias, and I used a photo of my son in an exercise. He’s now 20 years old. He wears dreadlocks and he loves a good hoodie. And this is a yuppie kid. But the way people perceive him is not yuppie. When he goes into the world people probably look at him and think he’s a thug until he opens his mouth and speaks and changes that perception.

The participants didn’t know the picture was of my son. I asked them this question: It’s Friday night, and you’re at your ATM, and this young man walks up behind you. What do you feel like?  

The majority of people in the session were upper middle class and white. And about 80 or 90 percent of them said they wouldn’t think anything about it. And I was like, That is a crock of crap, and let me tell you why. Because I’m a Black woman—and then I told them it was my son in the photo—and I’d tell them that my daughter was working, at the time, at a mall that wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods and I would be sitting in my car waiting for her, and when people who looked like my son walked a little bit too close to my car, I had a reaction … so you can’t tell me that all of you are saying you wouldn’t have that reaction. 

Paul Quinn: How did they respond?

Rocki Howard: It was this “aha” moment of them saying, Oh, so you’re not telling me it’s wrong to have the thought. And that’s the point. You might have the thought, but you can choose to acknowledge that the thought may be wrong and then purposefully interrupt the bias. We all have biases. We create them based on all the information we get all the time. Media shows young men who look like this portrayed in a certain way, so it is natural for you to have a reaction. And until we can get to the place where we actually own the reaction and can be honest about it, only then can we interrupt the bias. So, let’s take a deep breath and understand why we’re having that reaction.

Paul Quinn: The example you gave of your son reminds me of a book I just read by read Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, which is a letter to his son. He’s afraid for his son being a young Black man in America. He doesn’t want his son to absorb his fears, but he doesn’t want him to ignore them either. 

Rocki Howard: It’s a hard balance for my husband and I. We had conversations with our daughters about being part of non-majority communities, but it’s a different level of fear for our son. We’ve had some knockout-drag-outs. I remember a conversation we had with our son  about when he gets pulled over by the police, not if, and here’s how you need to be prepared and answer. And he just said to us, I’m not going to do that. I’ve not done anything wrong, I’m not a criminal, I’m not a thug, I’m not, you know, going to make myself smaller. You haven’t raised me to. 

And my comment to him was, I can deal with your pride when you get home, but if you don’t get home, if you wind up in a casket, I can’t deal with that. It’s hard to ask my son to make himself smaller, to be safe in a world that may not see him the way I do.

Paul Quinn: That’s devastating, Rocki. Isn’t “make myself smaller” also what women and many underrepresented people learn to do? To shrink, be invisible, not rock the boat?  

Rocki Howard: Absolutely.

Paul Quinn: And shrinking often means not asking, not speaking up. I’d like to get back to what you mentioned earlier, the job interview when you were asked about your family plans. Isn’t that kind of question illegal?

Rocki Howard: There are laws that prevent that question but not everyone who interviews understands the laws or chooses to abide by the laws. And, again, if you’re a non-majority person you have to decide: Am I going to be the person who sues this company because they asked this question, and then how does that impact how I’m seen, my career? If I challenge this person and I really need a job, am I going to do that or am I just going to answer the question?

I also think it’s about perspective. For me, I look at this as an opportunity to be very clear about how I show up in the world, and if a company is not interested in me because I don’t answer the question the way they want, it’s not a place I want to work in the first place.

Paul Quinn: Do the women finding work through The Mom Project report biased interview questions to you?

Rocki Howard: I‘m chief people and equity officer so I handle all internal conversations, not the conversations the women are having with our clients. But some of that feedback does come to me and we work very closely with our clients to get that feedback to them.

And if there were a client that continued to ask things that were inappropriate, we would sever our relationship. That’s how strongly we feel about that. So, there’s a robust set of asks we make upfront to make sure the company is aligned with the work that we’re doing. 

Follow Rocki Howard on LinkedIn.

Paul Quinn is author of a book-in-progress about the power and skill of asking, which features segments of this content.