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I was working on a project recently, and it got me thinking about race in the workplace. More specifically, it got me thinking about why the subject of race is considered taboo in the workplace.
No one ever comes out and says employees can't talk about race at work. It isn't in any handbooks. During orientation, the HR lady sure doesn't say, "Hey, by the way, make sure you never discuss race while on the premises." It's an unspoken rule. Somehow, it is ingrained in all of us, that it's unprofessional to discuss race at work.
As it relates to Black suffering due to racial injustice, not speaking about race at work is a curious phenomenon.
When mass murders occur, white co-workers freely commiserate with BIPOC co-workers regarding the horror of it. When natural disasters occur, co-workers openly discuss the sadness of it all; companies may even launch a fundraiser to help those affected. When Prince died (God rest his soul), my homegirl, Lisa — the biggest Prince fan there is — made a shrine to him in her office. A huge literal shrine! Her white co-workers pitched in too. Purple everywhere, pictures of his life, album covers, music playing, the works.
Can you imagine making a shrine at work for any of the Black victims who were murdered at the hands of white supremacy? Lawd!
In America, it's generally acceptable to empathize with the suffering of humanity. But let that suffering relate to the trauma that Black people endure after watching yet another one of our brothers or sisters being brutally murdered by the police or police wannabes — crickets. Empathizing with that form of humanity is unprofessional.
If you think in terms of how the labor of Black people was introduced to this country, if you think in terms of labor being forcefully extracted from our enslaved ancestors, the preclusion of discussions of race in our current arenas of labor makes sense.
I read an article once where the author described slavery as America's shame.
Rather than address its shame, American workplaces have chosen to hide it under the rug. The thing is, even though it's hidden, it's still there, festering, just beneath the surface of professional ritualism.
When George Floyd died, many of us were hurt by our white co-workers' apparent indifference. We'd been hurt by the indifference many times before. This wasn't the first killing where we watched as they continued to post silly memes on their timeliness, or worse, inspirational quotes about peace. But this was different. We'd never witnessed such raw and depraved cruelty before. It was there, plain as daylight for everyone to see.
Yet, the same white co-workers who openly mourned with us when we lost Kobe in January were suddenly silent when we lost George in May.
It was the epitome of "you love our culture but you don't love us."
I don't know about y'all — maybe it's the Scorpio in me — but I took note of every last one of those co-workers. My relationship with them has cooled. Professionalism dictates that I be courteous. I'll tell you this though, we definitely ain't going out for no after work drinks ever again.
During the peak of the protests, there were a fair amount of news stories that centered around just how hurt Black people were by the silence of their employers and co-workers. Imagine what that does to employee morale? Imagine what that does to the Black employee's sense of belonging in the workplace? The project I was working on aims to change how race, especially as it relates to Black people, is handled in the workplace.
All these years, companies shied away from discussing race because discussion was seen as divisive. What studies now show though, is that discussing race actually leads to greater employee harmony!
I'm all for harmony, if nothing more than because I'm gonna miss those happy hours.
