Chad Sandersâs novel, Black Magic, exposes the assimilation to white male-dominated corporate culture that people of color feel is necessary to embody in order to be recognized as a professional.
Recognizing that that narrative was false and oppressing, Sanders broke away from this charade. When he realized that connecting with his Black identity gave him the power of Black Magic, namely resilience, creativity, and confidence, he forged in his experience navigating America as a Black man. In his essays, he interviews other Black leaders across industries to get their take on their own Black Magic.
Tech entrepreneur, author, and Hollywood creative Chad Sanders is a thought leader on creating equity in our workplaces, values-driven leadership, and creativity. Chad is the author of the critically acclaimed Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph and a staff writer on HBO Maxâs Rap Sh!t.
Sandersâ work has been featured in The New York Times, SLAM, TIME, Teen Vogue, Fortune, and more, and he has collaborated with Spike Lee on a TV series based on his life, Archer, and is the co-creator and Executive Producer of Peacockâs highly anticipated How To Survive Inglewood. He is also co-writing Universalâs sports drama One and Done, and recently launched the Quitters Podcast, which he co-hosts.
Sanders delivers an honest exploration of Black experiences when moving towards success in white environments. In moving essays and in his speeches, CHAD SANDERS dives into his formative experiences to see if they might offer the possibility of discovering or honing what he identifies as Black Magic, namely resilience, creativity, and confidence forged in his experience navigating America as a Black man.
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He tests his theory by interviewing Black leaders across industries to get their take on Black Magic. The result is a revelatory and very necessary book and talk. Black Magic explores Black experiences in predominantly white environments and demonstrates the risks of self-betrayal and the value of being yourself.
Chad Sanders, in his book âBlack Magic: What Black Leaders Learned From Trauma and Triumph,â provides an unintentional sequel to Holtâs work. Sanders takes the story into the post-civil-rights era, delving into the psychological costs - and the lessons - that the early movement bequeathed to those born after the struggles of the 1960s.
Together, the two books create a vivid portrait of the tough fight for freedom and the challenges that integration has created for Black Americans.
Sanders is a writer for television who previously worked at Google and YouTube and as a tech entrepreneur.
From an early age, Sanders lived in a mostly White neighborhood and attended school with mostly White children. And so, like many Black children in post-civil-rights-era America, Sanders encountered the harsh side of integration, its lessons seeping in despite the best efforts of fiercely protective parents.
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Sanders recalls being told in kindergarten by his blond best friend, âBlack people kind of look like poop.â As a member of his high schoolâs winning basketball team, Sanders was invited to parties, discovering that his classmatesâ parents would allow no more than two Black kids at a time in their homes.
âIn my loneliest moments, I wore my badge as the token Black with pride,â he writes. âI was never lost enough to think I was white. I didnât even want to be. But at my worst, I let myself slide into competing with other clever, charismatic Black kids who came into âmyâ space.â
Sanders attended historically Black Morehouse College, where he âalmost forgot white people existedâ and felt a freedom he had never known; in this environment, even when friends teased him, he âfelt lovedâ rather than âattacked or bullied or othered.â
After graduating he worked for Google, finding himself, once more, struggling to fit in among Whites. Consciously changing the way he spoke and dressed, he adapted to his environment - but felt miserable.
Eventually he began to act more like himself, talking the way he normally would and speaking his mind, with the surprising result that he received stellar performance reviews and promotions. The lesson he learned was that success lay in embracing his Blackness and all it had taught him. His book is an attempt to share that lesson.
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âIf you can survive your Black experience, you have learned so much that is useful that cannot be taught or bought. I call this Black Magic,â Sanders writes. âBut Iâm young and unwise. My perspective is limited. I look to others who have seen more, done more, and overcome more, to test this theory.â
Each chapter of âBlack Magicâ covers a phase or aspect of life; chapter titles include âGrade School,â âCollegeâ and âWork.â Sanders begins each with an autobiographical reflection, followed by the texts of his interviews with successful African Americans in fields including business, technology, science, activism and sports. (He interviewed more than 200 people for the book.)
Sanders asks his interviewees to describe their early lives and careers and the challenges they have faced. To read their stories is to see that the psychological toll of integration and âcode-switchingâ - to say nothing of old-fashioned racism - is widespread and very real. Asked about the cost of displaying âvarious personalitiesâ to fit into different environments, one subject responded, âThree years on the couch with my therapist twice a week.â
Sanders asks his subjects about the advice they would offer others - what their forms of âBlack Magicâ are. Occasionally the advice is frustratingly general (âYou gotta use the thing that others might use against you to benefit in other areasâ), but often it is thought-provoking and useful: âYou have to recognize that you have something in common with everyone.
After changing everything that connected him with his identity as a Black man, he was accepted in the business world, but did not feel like himself. When that weight became too heavy to bear, he changed back his clothes, behavior, speech, and more. Once he did, everything began to turn around for him.
In a compelling interview for NPRâs Wisdom from the Top with Guy Raz, Sanders shares his experience navigating white culture throughout his life, his journey back to his authentic self, and how he leveraged these experiences to establish himself as a thought leader across industries.
The response to his debut book is resounding, and Sanders has been sought-after for appearances on CBS News, NPR, Dare to Lead with BrenĂ© Brown, Harvard Business Reviewâs IdeaCast, Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, among others.
An in-demand speaker, Sanders offers insights from his personal experience as well as the wealth of knowledge cultivated through interviews for Black Magic, practical takeaways for corporations looking to shift their culture, and shares how and why his career took off when he embraced, instead of trying to hide, his identity as a Black man and a creative.
We celebrated Chad's Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph... and now we are back with a pre order opportunity for the Chad's upcoming book - How to Sell Out !!!
n How to Sell Out, Sanders draws on his personal experiences to offer a wry, darkly comic look at the invisible realities of making a living as a Black writer who writes about race. He relays stories of his time in the tech business, his experiences in TV writersâ rooms, his childhood participation in Jack and Jill, his family and relationships, and the struggles of sharing his racial trauma in exchange for cash.
Chad Sanders is the author of Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph. He is the host of the Yearbook podcast on the Armchair Expert network and the Audible Originals podcast, Direct Deposit.
Authenticity, Identity, and Being Yourself at Work: HBR Work Smart Series
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