As a black man in America, to get ahead you must learn to adapt to working with so many different people. Some will think you are angry. Some will think you are emotional. Some will find you arrogant while others will question your confidence. Some will say you are too aggressive and others will tell you that you are too nice. You are either too masculine or not masculine enough. Black employees are judged negatively for self-promotion yet often left out of lists for promotions because they “are not visible enough”. And heaven forbid if you don’t fit into the sterotypical vision of a black man they expect: straight, religious, macho, “urban”.
Everyone will assume one thing or another about you without really taking the time to get to know you personally because ultimately they either fear you or simply do not find you relevant enough to take the time. As evolution works, those of us that advance are those who figure out the system enough to chart their path through an unequal, unfair, and incredibly biased system using skills that inevitably require them to be tougher, more resilient, and perhaps a bit less sympathetic to those who either have not had the same fight or have given up the fight. So when someone in that space leaves the system to which they have become accustomed and comes to a vastly different system, a supposedly more enlightened system, they find themselves out of the frying pan and into a roaster. And so ultimately they just leave all institutionalized systems and aim to create their own. But is this really possible?
Be well. Lead on.
Adam
Adam L. Stanley
Connections Blog
Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
@adamstanleyatx on social media
