Her Story
About Rokita
What led me to the career path that I chose was my passion for advocacy and public service. Growing up in a very small local town, I noticed a lot of different things that were not equitable to specific neighborhoods. The neighborhood that I lived in was middle class, but I also saw my mom struggle a lot. That led me to want to understand what leads to those specific struggles within a specific neighborhood or local space. I would be a nerd and look up local politics and history at a very young age just to see what affects those specific people. I just love people, and I want to help people. I've been working in this field for 3 years across different spaces in local governments, including the city of Atlanta. My most notable professional achievement would probably be being blessed enough to get different opportunities and jobs in all three sectors - federal, state, and local - and being able to do it within a year. I was very grateful for that, especially as a Black woman. I'm very organized in my typical day - first thing is prayer, secondly calling my mom, then getting on my computer and going to work in person.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Rokita
01What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think the challenges I'm facing right now are learning when to speak and when not to speak. Discernment is very important, and being in leadership, I've learned that you have to have high discernment about who you are around and who you're letting put too many hands in the pot and too many opinions in the pot. Another thing is learning what people actually need, because sometimes the people you're serving don't know what they need - they know what they want, but they don't know what exactly they need. Sometimes you can have an administrative level where not everybody's gonna agree with the ideas or be open to change or new things, but you have to keep pushing. The things I think I'm gonna have to challenge and deal with later going higher into public service are the stereotypes thrown at Black women - that we're too loud, or we're too angry, or that we should be grateful for where we are and just sit back. But a lot of our Black women leaders are not sitting back. We're very outspoken, very in the field, very wanting to bring influence to today's politics. Right now, Black women are going to shape how politics is going to look for the next 10 years. We are going to be the ones shaping it and being in the rooms. The challenge I'm going to have to face is the challenge of not being put to the side. There's gonna be a lot of things trying to put us to the side and try to tell us to calm down and sit down, but I think that's the challenge - knowing that I can never be put to the side, that I should always keep pushing the narrative even if it gets hard.
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