Margari Aziza Hill blogs on white privilege in society:
Some individuals have striven so hard to be accepted and to succeed in majority white environments may find themselves transformed with little vestiges of their original self. Others, I know, feel disingenuous as they wear different masks for different people. It is interesting how this plays out in many different environments. Even in the Muslim community, whether on college campuses or in my local area, I find myself shape shifting make people comfortable with me as a Black woman. It is something I do almost instinctually, because this is how I’ve been able to survive in the broader society, in both the corporate world and academia. When I do fall into my normal speech patterns or topics of conversation, I am either very aware or made aware that what I say and how I say things has made my others uncomfortable. This reminds me of the backlash against PC (often by privileged white males).
To some extent this is universal. Even white people alter who they are at work or in other social settings.
“We must work hard to ensure that we are not perceived as threatening, angry, loud, uncooperative, and uneducated or unqualified in any way.”
That applies to all employees regardless of race. Also, knowing precisely how to kiss a particular executive’s ass is all part of the game. It’s not just wearing a bunch of different hats but having an extensive wardrobe to cover any situation.
Tom T. and jed, you may want to read the article again. Please especially take note of this part:
“Eventually my demeanor and to some degree- persona- is transformed once I step into the office. I tone down my Jamerican culture (as much as I can any way) and become someone else for 8 hours or more. You may say, all of us transform when we’re at work. All of us “play the game to some degree.” While that is certainly true, people of color who have not fully adopted mainstream White culture must go the extra mile. We must work hard to ensure that we are not perceived (by White co-workers or managers) as threatening, angry, loud, uncooperative, and (God forbid) uneducated or unqualified in any way. In a nutshell, we must work our asses off and at the same time make the White people around us feel comfortable.”
No need to read it again. The way she wrote it, avoiding the perception and making coworkers “comfortable” is “going the extra mile”, yet those are behaviors that any worker must perform.
Tom T, Jed,
White people don’t have to drop their normal regional/cultural accents, dance around racial stereotypes (e.g., being expected to be good at math if you’re Asian), and even avoid wearing their hair in the way it naturally grows, for example. White people may choose to alter their behavior and appearance to imitate that of other cultures in the office, but they don’t have to, even if they’re in the minority in that setting. I have yet to see a white person get fired for not chemically perming his hair to make it curly, for example. Yet the reverse happens to black people all the time.
Ruth, nojojojo,
Note that I said “to some extent.” Obviously the experiences of people of color are going to be much sharper. I’m just trying to suggest that we have some basis for common ground and mutual understanding on this issue.
Tom T,
It doesn’t sound like you’re trying to find the “common ground”. It sounds like you’re trying to diminish Hill’s complaint. The best way to understand something like this is to acknowledge that it’s differential treatment. White privilege tends to blind white people to the existence of unfairness and inequality; they dismiss differential treatment as something everybody has to deal with to some degree or another. It’s not. It’s different.
Thanks for spelling out that point so clearly nojojojo.
“I have yet to see a white person get fired for not chemically perming his hair to make it curly, for example.”
Really? I have certainly seen white people have hair that negatively affects them in a business setting. My own hair is thick and unruly, for example, and the only way that i can keep it professional looking is to keep it exceedingly short or gel it into a plasticky mass.
If you’re a guy in a business setting you usually end up having to have short hair. That is equally true irrespective of skin color or hair type and offers no particular discrimination. While the business setting frowns on alternative hair styles, that’s also applied to everyone: No, a black person may not be able to wear dreads to work at his law firm; no, I wouldn’t either. No, I am not able to dye my hair the color I might prefer (blue or ‘Lola red,’ if I had the choice) and no, neither could he.
The matter is clearly a huge issue for women, but for men not so much. Pretty much every man on the planet can get a haircut for under 20 bucks at a local barber shop which will satisfy almost any business.
The matter is also a larger issue for “semi professional” haircuts. While whites and blacks can all be accepted with, say, inch long hair, the difference in “acceptability” for three inch long hair can be pretty enormous. This is definitely a problem as well.
Trying to edit and it won’t let me. When I say
“That is equally true irrespective of skin color or hair type and offers no particular discrimination”
I mean
“That is equally true irrespective of skin color or hair type and offers no particular discrimination in situations where short hair is what is mandated”
Are you equating forced curling iron treatments started at a young age, to mitigate that Black woman ugliness, with white dudes with stoner hair? Or are you just making hay?
nojojojo,
Sorry; what I meant to express is that this is absolutely something that whites should NOT diminish or refuse to acknowledge, because a bit of it affects them. Certainly, we don’t experience it in anything like minorities do. But the fact that we get a small taste of it makes it that much more illegitimate for whites to try to dodge the issue. Apologies for expressing myself badly.
No, you just didn’t process my post. I say this both because I didn’t talk about “stoner hair,” and because I addressed the exact question you ask. As i said, it’s “clearly a huge issue for women,” largely because of the stuff you describe. It’s much less of an issue for men, because of, well, what i said in my post.
Sailorman,
Do you think only women of color get the message that their natural hair is considered ugly and unacceptable in the workplace? Many black men feel compelled to “texturize” their hair — a lesser version of the same chemical straightening process many WoC undergo. In the men’s case it’s meant to turn natural naps into more acceptable “waves” and looser curls — i.e., what the hair of mixed-race people tends to look like. This is accomplished by wearing a tight stocking cap nearly night and day, and taking it off only when you want your hair to be seen.
This is better than it used to be, granted. Before the Civil Rights Era, black men were expected to cover their hair or shave it off altogether, unless it was “good hair”. If you didn’t happen to have been born with good hair, you could get it artificially. Malcolm X, in his autobiography, talks about “conking” — a straightening process that literally melted the curls (and the scalp) out of his hair. I suspect some older black men, like Al Sharpton, still do this, though hopefully they’ve switched over to the marginally-safer “relaxer” technique used today (which still damages the scalp and effectively melts the hair, but isn’t quite as carcinogenic or corrosive).
Many Latinos/as are also born with naturally kinky or curly hair; they too chemically straighten their hair. When I moved to New York a couple of years ago, I was told that the best place to get my hair done (the people speaking assumed I wanted it straightened, since my hair is currently natural) was a Dominican salon, not a black one. They’re apparently known for being able to get hair “so straight white people can’t tell”.
And the Japanese straightening technique that’s so popular now? Ask yourself why Japanese people would need a straightening technique. I’m told this process is even more intensive (and expensive) than what’s done to black hair, because ostensibly Asian hair that is naturally curly or kinky is more resistant to chemical straightening. And again, both men and women submit themselves to this.
Your stylistic choice to trim your hair or use gel has absolutely nothing to do with these self-mutilations or the social pressures that enforce them, and you really shouldn’t try to compare.
Sailorman, first of all, your caveat was unclear in that it didn’t even mention race, only gender, while my point was specifically about race and gender. So no, you didn’t address that. But even if you had, that isn’t my main gripe.
I don’t know how it is with you lawyers, but ’round these parts among us folks, when you take the trouble to say something or inject yourself into a conversation, you have a main reason for doing so. Caveats are just that; they don’t override the main point. An essay may acknowledge opposing arguments, but it still has a thesis.
Without speculating too much into your own intent, the effect of your interjection was to dispute what OP was trying to say. That was your main point. Those who want to take this as a hardline “you’re with us or against us” will find ways to do so; however, this is pervasive, constant, cut-paste-predictable behaviour on the part of many White liberals. Recall the recent discussion on the Spanish basketball team, where a blogger whose views I agree with on most issues insisted on setting himself up as a contrarian over a meaningless quibble. That I suspect our basic philosophies weren’t really at odds over the issue only made it more infuriating. Why else would you bother? To set up a front, however unspoken, of “I agree with you, but… yada yada yada… I’m trying to reasonable here”.
And if contrarians like you are the reasonable ones, what does that make people like Ms. Hill, whose own personal experiences on this issue has been far greater and far more wounding? It is not being respectful at all toward WOC or their experiences.
I will now save a copy of this comment to re-post, albeit tweaked a bit, for the next time a racially charged topic is brought up. In other words, the next topic to be dominated by the meaningless caveats of “otherwise sympathetic” White folks.
Pingback: Shae’s Place » Blog Archive » Yes, Let’s Do Talk About Privilege.