“Bradley is teaching eighth graders this year, and part of the curriculum is job shadowing. One of his students, a little girl named Tomeka, is really great at math—nearly genius level, according to Bradley—and she wants to be a software engineer when she grows up.”

“Yes,” Samiah said.

“I haven’t asked you yet.”

“You’re going to ask if she can shadow me at work, and the answer is absolutely yes.”

Samiah could practically hear her sister’s relieved smile through the phone.

“Thank you so much, honey. I just know it would be so powerful for her to see someone who looks like her working in technology. Not just working in it, but killing it.”

The pride blossoming in her heart was so overwhelming Samiah feared it might burst. To hear her big sister, the woman she’d looked up to her entire life, describe her in that way had a greater impact on her than any praise from the powers that be at Trendsetters could ever have.

“However, there is a slight issue,” Denise tacked on, the hesitancy in her voice causing Samiah’s oh, shit antennae to perk up.

“Job Shadow Day is tomorrow, and Tomeka’s parents share a car, and her dad works all the way in Kyle. So she needs someone to pick her up and bring her back to school. I would do it, but you know what the doctor said about me driving.”

“No,” Samiah said. “You’re not driving.”

The million and one things cluttering her desk demanded that she make an excuse for why she couldn’t do this, but she ignored it. She would get it done, even if she had to stay at the office until midnight. This was too important.

“I’ll handle it,” Samiah said.

“Awesome. Bradley will make sure you’re placed on the authorized pick-up list,” Denise said. “Tomeka will be so excited. Do you have any idea how much this will mean to that little girl?”

As a matter of fact, she did. She’d been that little girl. She’d been an eighth grader who’d excelled at math and science and loved learning how things worked. But instead of encouragement, many of her teachers had sought to impede her dreams of entering the tech field. How often had she been berated for thinking too highly of herself, of not being realistic in her aspirations? What a difference it would have made if she’d had a peek into what life could be like for her as a young black woman working with computers day in and day out.

No one should have their dreams discouraged the way hers had been. If not for her stubbornness, and an overpowering desire to prove wrong anyone who’d tried to discount her abilities, she likely would have allowed them to sway her. How many other young women of color saw their dreams succumb to a similar fate?