June 16, 2026 | Virtual | 6:00 pm EST

Success Without Submission: Navigating Work, Resistance, and Liberation in the Face of Anti-Blackness

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This Juneteenth, join Caged Bird HR for a direct conversation about work, power, and the cost of trying to succeed inside anti-Black systems. Featuring Minda Harts and Janice Z. Gassam Asare, Ph.D., this session will unpack how silence, overperformance, and self-erasure get rewarded at work, and what it means to pursue success without submitting to those terms. Expect a conversation grounded in strategy, self-definition, and the realities of navigating institutions that demand too much and give too little back.

What to expect

What you’ll learn

Expect a candid, grounded conversation about the realities of navigating work in anti-Black environments. This session will examine the pressure to stay quiet, constantly prove yourself, manage perception, and adapt to systems that often reward self-erasure.

You’ll hear a mix of structural analysis and practical insight from two speakers whose work sits at the intersection of workplace culture, equity, leadership, and career strategy. The conversation will focus on how to stay clear about who you are, what success means to you, and what it looks like to make career decisions without defaulting to survival mode.

  • How anti-Blackness shows up in workplace expectations, culture, and definitions of professionalism

  • Why overperformance, silence, and self-erasure are often rewarded, and what that costs

  • How to recognize when survival strategies are no longer serving you

  • What it looks like to define success on your own terms inside difficult institutions

  • How to make more strategic career decisions with greater clarity, self-trust, and intention

Meet the Panelist

  • Minda Harts, Workplace Strategist

    Minda Harts is a bestselling author, workplace consultant, award-winning filmmaker, and sought-after keynote speaker who helps organizations turn trust into their greatest competitive advantage. Through her Seven Trust Languages® framework, she equips leaders and teams with actionable strategies to build high-trust, high-performance workplaces.

  • Janice Z. Gassam Asare, Ph.D. Organizational psychologist

    Janice Z. Gassam Asare, Ph.D. is a Ph.D.-trained organizational psychologist and the founder of BWG Business Solutions, an award-winning consultancy designed to help organizations create cultures built on equity. Dr. Janice provides consultations, facilitates workshops, provides guidance, delivers keynote speeches and “Awareness Talks” to spark important dialogue about equity in the workplace. Dr. Janice has had the opportunity to collaborate with Google, Amazon, Yale University, Nordstrom, H&M, and Paypal/Venmo among many others. Dr. Janice is the author of three best-selling books, Dirty Diversity: A Practical Guide to Foster an Equitable and Inclusive Workplace for All, The Pink Elephant: A Practical Guide to Creating an Anti-racist Organization and Decentering Whiteness in the Workplace, with a new book Rise and Resist: How to Reclaim Workplace Equity and Justice. She is a senior contributing writer for Forbes, having authored over 500 articles, a Harvard Business Review contributor, a Webby-honored LinkedIn Learning instructor, a Udemy Business instructor, and an EBSCO Learning facilitator. In 2022, Dr. Janice was recognized as a LinkedIn #1 Top Voice in Racial Equity. In 2023 she was recognized by Gusto as one of the 25 Top Workplace Experts to Follow. She is a 2-time TEDx speaker, the host of the Dirty Diversity podcast and an adjunct professor at Columbia University. In her free time, Dr. Janice volunteers as a job coach for the Coalition for the Homeless.

  • Cierra Gross, CEO, Worklution Inc

    Cierra is the founder and CEO OF Worklution Inc and its brands, Caged Bird HR and Wrk Receipts

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