Blacks in the office

Last week there was an editorial in my paper that dealt with blacks in the office. Ya know: Do blacks have to act different act work? Do they have to tone down their blackness? Will acting naturally "black" hinder your advancement? etc, etc, etc.

The editorialist is a colleague of mine. The tone of his editorial was one of annoyed-confusion, like "Since when do blacks have "not act black" act work? I've never done anything remotely close to that and I'm a columnist at the largest paper in Florida."

I felt him. I felt that he was unapologetically him throughout his career. That's dope.

I've never met this man, though. Don't know how he gets down. He claimed he consistently discussed/debated social and racial issues with his white co-workers. He never changed his speech pattern. Once again, etc, etc, etc.

I know, for myself, there's a delicate balance. A fine line. I contend, with infallable certainty, that every black person -- especially those of us that grew up in the neighborhood, around friends and fam that grew up in the neighborhood -- we gotta do, at the very least, some small sort of assimilating. It's inevitable and, sadly, expected. Our culture is a sub-culture. The work culture is based on euro-western-white culture.

For instance, if you worked in a predominantly black office, where the execs were mostly black and the office-culture and atmosphere was set by these individuals and these individuals never spent time in the typical american office and hadn't been trained that "that office culture" was the only appropriate culture, I doubt that a manager saying "wuddup man" to a senior manager at the staff meeting would be viewed as inappropriate. Neither would a man with his har in locks. Neither would a million other things. It's interesting to look at the way your whte co-workers interact, especially same-sex co-workers when the standard for what is or isnt appropriate is relaxed a bit. They get away with...well, being themselves basically.

I mean, everyone is going to tone things down in the office. No one can get away with acting, at work, the way the do at a bar or at home with close freinds/fam. The point is, minorities -- besides, maybe, Asians who tend to be very conservative (stereotype?) -- have much more assimilating.

Some blacks take it too far, the assimilating. They go to whitewashing extremes and lose their individuality. They end up acting like a drone, a robot or some azz-kissing cartoon. Their antics make my penis hurt. These are always the soft niggas that wanna impose their weakness on you too. Start asking you questions about the way you act or appear. Or start making sly, veiled suggestions. Later for them.

Other blacks take it too far in the other way. They disregard what is reality -- that whites run the atmosphere and set the behavioral standards for appropriateness. Sometimes they do so on an agenda. Sometimes theyre just oblivious. Sometimes they're not capable of adaprting. But they end up looking like bufoons and getting branded then boxed.

You gotta find that balance, that medium, walk the line. I don't always succeed.

My Pops was always a study of the extremes. He had to survive an office full of racist white-ethnics. Sometimes, I'd hear him on the phone with a co-worker, maybe switching a shift, and the tone of his voice changed, his posture changed, the pitch changed. It was kinda embarrassing. Then other times he was purposely goading these dumb hicks into black-white conversations and trying to make them feel stupid and frustated...it was kinda mean-spirited. Somehow he's lasted over 30 years without 1.) killing himself; 2.) burning one too many bridges; 3.) growing tired of the charade.

What he always impressed upon me was two very important things.

1.) Don't let no jive white dudes come between you and that ducket.
What this meant was: never let assimilation come between you getting that check. You might have to change your steez a lil bit, but if thats what you gotta do to get that money, then do it and go get that money. He'd usually end this exhortation with a tip like, "And when you grab that check, just smile at the jive-white-lame and keep on steppin. Let em know, 'Naa, your lil foolhearted, bird-brain attempts to get in between me and these duckets ain't even workin. Get back, white-dude."

And, 2.) Don't let no jive white dudes run no games on you.
What this meant was, be you. But be you in an appropriate way. Sometimes powersthatbe try to use the status quo to really enslave the minority worker. Sometimes its in an abstract way, sometimes its in a very real way. But, pick your battles and stand your ground. If you're right, then you're right.

The professional circles I've ran in these past 7 years are very diferrent than the work environment my pops was subjected to. But the assimilation push-pull has been there in its own unique way.

I'm a media member now. We've always been asked to assimilate. Back in the early 1900s, mainstream newspapers would hire star-reporters away from the various black-press newspapers. You'd hope they were doing this to get a "black voice" or someone to provide another perspective to their all-white press corps. Instead, as research and history has shown, these newly hired black reporters were forced to assimilate into the already present culture, often numbing the unique voice/experience/perspective they were initially bringing over.

I don't really know how to characterize how I've behaved. Do I consciously assimilate? Yeah, to a certain extent. Do I do so to a degree that compromises me, Vince? I hope not. But its something that we always need to think about.

Be you, but be smart.