Executive producer Tanya Jones shares her experiences as a Black woman in a predominately white, male-dominated industry.
Welcome to Shutterstoop, a video series in which Shutterstock’s senior director of content marketing, Jennifer Braunschweiger, has a casual conversation with a colleague from her stoop in Brooklyn, New York.
In this installment, she sits down with executive producer Tanya Jones to discuss what it’s been like for Jones, a Black woman, to work in a white, male-dominated industry.
Earlier this year, executive producer Tanya Jones wrote an essay for Shutterstock’s PremiumBeat blog titled “A Black Woman and a White Man Walk on Set.” In it, she talks about how complicated her relationship with white men in production has been over the course of her two-decade (and counting) career.
On the one hand, she said, “I’ve witnessed privilege play out to their benefit and suffered from biased decisions that disrupted my ability to make more money and expand professionally as a producer.” On the other hand, she added, “Some of my best relationships in this industry are with white men.”
“I wanted people to understand that there are really beautiful relationships that come when Black people, white people, people of color come together,” she tells Shutterstock’s Jennifer Braunschweiger. “I think, in the past year, we’ve been hearing so much that really can pull us apart, and I think for those relationships that have been problematic, but also have been beautiful and amazing and inspiring, it’s important to tell both sides.”
For more from Jones, watch the video below.
Jones in Her Own Words:
On being the only Black woman on set: “My dad would always say, ‘Oh, you’re the fly in the milk in this picture.’ Because I went to a predominantly white private school and there weren’t many women of color, there weren’t many Black women . . . So, for me, it’s kind of like I’m used to it. But, I’ve also been brought up to always be aware and pay attention to it.”
On having to work twice as hard: “In my family, at least, we were always told, ‘Strive for excellence’ and ‘You have to work harder than white people, you have to do better.’ Because you’re always going to be looked at because you’re Black. You’re always going to be criticized. And, quite frankly, people are going to be racist toward you.”
On how to move forward: “I think, overall, everyone should show up [to a set] being ready to say the names of races. I’ve watched people struggle to say ‘Black,’ because they don’t know whether to say ‘Black’ or ‘African American.’ It’s like, be okay and show up willing to learn and understand, and do the work ahead of time.”
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