BIPOC in a White World: The Workplace Double-Bind
BIPOC folks—I hear y/our pain, again and again. You give 110 percent at work because you pride yourself on your artistry or work ethic. You feel fortunate to be working at a place that has a product or mission you believe in. You enjoy the tasks. Maybe the pay could be better. But then it happens--the microaggression(s). If Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels, BIPOC people do everything white people do at work, but with the constant double-bind of oppression dynamics and inequitable terms. And we’re exhausted by it.
If you’re BIPOC, you know what I’m talking about because it’s happened to you multiple times, especially in predominantly white, self-proclaimed liberal or progressive areas. There’s a Black Lives Matter banner at work or on the social media page in the background, while your colleague “forgets” you’re mixed, so he liberally makes fun of someone’s accent or culture. But if you say something, you’re the one who’s got a chip on your shoulder, because “how dare you tell me I’m racist! I’m liberal. I voted for Obama twice. I’ve got Black friends.” So, you let it roll off your back, because: you still need that paycheck, you still have work demands, and it’s better than the last place where some guy defended his use of the confederate flag. You search for another BIPOC person to know you’re not alone, but you’re the only person of color around, or maybe the only one who knows how to read the oppression dynamics going on. You search for the ally--the one white person who gets it--but they don’t say anything until all the other white people leave, and then they let you know that what was said was messed up (translation: I’ll let you know I’m a good white person, so long as I don’t have to put my butt on the line). So, maybe you won’t be inviting anyone from work over for a cookout any time soon.
You’re disappointed, but unfortunately, not surprised. Now you have to prepare yourself for the onslaught of microaggressions to come. No one else sees that you’re now alone and isolated. Your coworkers actually think you’re isolating yourself and that they have no part in the equation (translation: it’s your attitude; not our behavior). You know you have to get your mind right so you can breathe through the daily little paper cuts to your soul and dignity. You adjust your tone, you use your “code-switched” voice to appear less threatening. But, eventually that takes a toll and one day you just want to be a human at work, to let the facade down or to have a bad day like anyone else. But Becky gets offended and starts going to Karen for validation about how moody or unprofessional she thinks you’re being. The two unconsciously validate each other’s internalized white dominance and begin to make their advantages your deficits. They start the confusing mixed message barrage that always winds up with you being wrong.
For example, false conclusions drawn from mixed messages given can look like:
It’s Your Fault We Made Microaggressions. You should have known that we would mess this [marginalized identity issue] up and taught us the right way so we didn’t look bad.
Expectation: save me face/teach me at your expense
You’re Ungrateful. You should have understood that if we were magnanimous enough to have trained you or given you a position, that you would use that opportunity to benefit the company. You should read our minds with what we want you to do with that opportunity because we’re not going to spell it out. And you definitely should not waste our generosity or act out in any way (e.g. bending a knee).
Expectation: know your place
You’re Aggressive. You see your boss wearing workout clothes, not the company uniform, and infer that she’s getting a company service like she did last time, so you smile and earnestly say, “Enjoy your service!” She sends you an email before she leaves to let you know that she thinks you were being passive aggressive. Then, even though you’ve worked the same shifts for three years, she creates a no-win situation and tells you something like, “we need all staff to work X days and hours per week, so I need you to pick up [the one day she knows you’ve always been off for another commitment] or we need to let you go.”
Expectation: be docile, don’t challenge me, take the beating
You’re Unprofessional. It’s always been protocol to tell your manager the days you need off on your schedule. One day, the company holds a meeting and you’re the only one not invited. They change the rule to needing to request days off via a form they just created. You get fired for not using it, even though you didn’t know it was a thing. No questions asked or leeway given for adjusting to a new policy.
Expectation: play by rules not meant for you
You’re Divisive. The white owner at your work refuses to display a BLM sign to show support to the handful of BIPOC folks who work at the company, because “I don’t want to get political.” She doesn’t want to appear racist, so she hires someone to do a training on “diversity,” but it centers white comfort. No one learns anything useful, but all the white people feel like they’ve done something important while all the BIPOC folks feel like they’ve wasted their time. Your boss asks you how you liked the training, and you’re honest but respectful and say “it was disappointing.” She is displeased with you because “nothing is ever enough for you."
Expectation: the white way is the right way
You’re Causing White/Privileged People Discomfort. You’re squinting because you can’t afford the glasses you need. Your straight, white boss decides that you’re looking at him funny, so he lays his hand on you, calls you “boy” and curses you out in front of your white colleagues.
Expectation: go away, don’t exist as your fabulous self
You’ve Got a Chip on Your Shoulder. The hetero white women you work with decide that they relate to you by telling you their one sexual experience with a Black guy by BBC’ing you (Big Black Cock--telling you their story of the one time they had a Black lover and how big his cock was and that’s the only thing they tell you). They expect you to giggle along knowingly. You don’t find it funny or appropriate at all. Or a white guy tells a racist joke that you don’t laugh at.
Expectation: entertain us, don’t critique us
You Make Everything/You’re So Touchy About Race. You can’t breathe with dignity without telling a white man with dreads that this is cultural appropriation, or a white woman that just because she felt loved by her Black nanny doesn’t mean she’s Black in her soul because s/he/they don’t get to cherry pick loving Black Culture without the price of enduring or fighting against the racism that goes with it.
Expectation: let me in while I keep you out
You’re the Bad Guy. You hold your white colleague accountable for several microaggressions and a company violation. Before you do, you recruit your white boss to look over your plan of action so things don’t somehow get misread. She tells you how articulate and wonderful you are. You confront your colleague. Your colleague has a white fragility meltdown, tears and all. Your white boss tells you that you should have done [fill in the blank] differently, even though 12 hours earlier she was singing your praises for the very same thing. Somehow, you wind up having to talk to HR and you’ve become the bad guy for making this white woman feel bad about her actually bad behavior.
Expectation: you’re always wrong when you disagree with a white person
These are just a few real examples of how BIPOC folks get, mostly unintentionally, betrayed by white folks on the daily. When we rightfully feel blind-sided and confused by this, and have a natural human reaction to protect ourselves from being wrongly accused or inhumanely treated, our protectiveness gets read as unwarranted defensiveness or combativeness—“she needs therapy,” or “he needs anger management.” We get shunned. Then there’s a crafty double-bind we get put in that makes it so unbearable or impossible to stay at work that we are forced to either leave or suffer because we don’t have the money or non-racist job waiting in the wings. This allows the well-meaning white folk running the place to continue to not see their racism/internalized dominance because it’s about your “unprofessional” behavior. It’s almost as if these white people project their unconscious internalized dominance on us and then blame us for the very thing they are doing to us, and then we pay for their bad behavior. No, wait. Yeah, that is what’s happening. It may not be intentional, but it has a profoundly negative impact.
So, therapy for BIPOC folks needs to understand this stuff. I’m all for empowering anyone to take personal responsibility for their own thoughts, emotions and actions. But if therapy doesn’t understand the sociocultural dynamics of how gaslighting oppression is—if therapy perpetuates this gaslighting—it’s a disservice. If it seems like a good idea to talk to someone who gets these dynamics, you’re not alone.
*I offer a free 15-minute consultation if you want to see if I can help you with what you’re going through.
*If you recognize your own company’s flub-ups with unconscious internalized white dominance, and are committed to doing better, I offer executive coaching sessions to explore how to do things differently.
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