By Williamena Kwapo | OBSERVER Staff Writer
Lanaya Lewis was excited about her new career path. After suffering a miscarriage, she had just landed a new role in communications, a pivot from being a multimedia journalist. She wanted a career that would still let her use her skills as a journalist while giving her time to focus on herself and family. She stepped into the new role ready to bring all her knowledge and experience to the table.
And for the first six months, she did exactly that. Her supervisors welcomed her ideas and expertise — until they didn’t.
“I learned that me adding value and trying to contribute more than what was expected put me on the back burner and isolated,” Lewis says.
The shift was jarring. She had entered the role with enthusiasm, believing her journalism background would be an asset. Instead, her expertise seemed to make colleagues uncomfortable. When she offered strategic insights or tried to leverage her media experience, she was told there was “a certain protocol to how things work,” and that management would involve her “when they really needed her.”
The isolation deepened. She was excluded from meetings directly tied to her expertise. In one telling incident, she learned she was leading a project only when it was announced in front of her teammates. Everyone else had been informed beforehand. She was the only one left in the dark.
“I ended up going to HR and telling them what I was experiencing. I told them that I’m not sure how to put a title on it, but I need to call this to your attention because I don’t want someone else to go through the same thing I’m going through,” Lewis recalls.
The toll was so severe she developed daily migraines, gastritis, and ulcers. She found herself crying regularly, walking on eggshells each day wondering what new issue awaited her.
Then one day, scrolling on X (formerly Twitter), she came across an article about “pet to threat” theory.
After reading the article, something clicked for her. She was the only Black administrative staff member at the time.
“This was what I was going through,” she said to herself. Finally, she had language for her experience.
“Pet to threat” was coined in 2013 by Drs. Kecia Thomas, Juanita Johnson Bailey, Rosemary E. Phelps, and Ny Mia Tran. It explains how Black women in professional settings often begin as valued “pets,” brought in for their expertise and as symbols of diversity, only to become perceived “threats” once they show competence and self-advocacy. Research shows this shift leads to isolation, microaggressions, and systematic undermining of their contributions.
Though more than a decade old, the phenomenon appears to be resurfacing. Recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data reveals that nearly 300,000 Black women left the labor force from the beginning of April to the end of June, the highest of any demographic.
“That data makes sense,” says Myisha Robertson, president of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Black MBA Association. “During the George Floyd incident, when everybody was doing diversity check boxes, there was a lot of hiring of Black and brown women in different titles.”
“A lot of the Black and brown candidates hired in DEI and belonging roles are being let go or transitioning into other positions but even when they held those roles, they weren’t empowered,” she explained.
Across the workforce, regardless of position, Black women’s contributions remain undervalued. A 2024 Harvard Kennedy School study found that Black women are the only race-gender group whose promotion and turnover rates are negatively affected in predominantly white organizations.
Despite being the nation’s most educated demographic, Black women are more likely to have their judgment questioned and their competence dismissed even when the role once seemed a perfect fit.
Like Lewis, many didn’t know how to name what they were experiencing until they found “pet to threat.”
“I literally walked into a situation where I thought I was going to be able to share my expertise, to add value to the workspace I was in. But instead, my knowledge and my skills were seen more as a threat than anything,” she says. “So then I started to experience isolation, microaggressions and I’m like, how exactly am I supposed to function in a workspace like this?”
One day, with no other job prospects and no energy left, Lewis resigned immediately after a meeting in which she was accused of yelling at her supervisor.
“I feel like my confidence level has gone down since experiencing these instances,” she admitted.
But she is rebuilding. She has leaned on local organizations and programs to restore her confidence in the workforce. Recently, she completed the Nehemiah Emerging Leaders Program, which reminded her that there is still a place for her in corporate America and that her skills are still of value.
“For Black women who are experiencing this, I would say to find somebody to talk to about it because you are not imagining it,” Robertson says. “I would also encourage you to join a local organization and find an association, a network, a community. Being able to talk about these things in groups and one-on-one makes all the difference.”