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
Be good to people.
Adam L. Stanley
Connections Blog Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
Several of my white colleagues that know me well, along with some friends, have asked me for a short list (ha!) of things I feel they should know if they do not take anything else out of the conversations about race in corporate America that have begun in earnest. So I figured I would also share them here for those who have not asked. Of course, race goes so much deeper than this, but if you don’t change anything else, change these three things.
Please do not act as if you “have the answers” – you do not. We know you are in charge, but need you to listen and engage in developing a plan. If you had the answers, and are in power, why haven’t you implemented anything?
Please do not tell us that you come from a diverse background or a poor upbringing and that qualifies you to discuss the black experience. We really do respect your difference. But we do not care right now. You still have privilege in that you walk into restaurants, stores, and corporate offices you look like a white man, regardless of your background.
Please never refer to a black person as “articulate” – perhaps the greatest insult to many professional black people, this statement implies your surprise at the “relative” ability of said person to form a sentence
Be well. Lead on.
Adam
Covid is still an issue. Please stay safe and wear a mask.
Adam L. Stanley
Connections Blog Technology. Leadership. Food. Life.
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“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” is the title now given to a speech by Frederick Douglass delivered on July 5, 1852, in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York, addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.
