Black Women and Irish Women
“Irish are the Blacks of Europe, and Dubliners are the Blacks of Ireland”…goes an opening line from The Commitments, a movie about a rag-tag group of Irish rockers bent on playing Wilson Pickett music in Dublin.
As Xerox CEO Ann Mulcahy, an Irish woman, prepares to pass the baton to Ursula Burns, an African American woman, I’ve been reflecting on the things these two women of different cultures have in common. The two have worked side by side for years, guiding Xerox through some of its darkest hours.
Betsy Morris of Fortune magazine reported: “ they have developed the kind of parnership that can only emerge from a trial by fire. They read each other’s minds, finish each other’s sentences, debate R& D spending, and then consult each other about the wisdom of buying one of their kids a cellphone. They can resolve disagreements no matter how heated – and they can get pretty heated.” Read more »