Put Me in an Institution
I was working for the sales arm of a mid-sized consulting firm. The number 2 guy in the company decided to have a Question and Answer session with a small group of us. I got a bit nervous when the question came around to me. I said something like… “We’re a growing, ambitious company. When I look around our offices here, and in DC. Where are all the black people at?”
He sputtered a bit. As well, I think, he should have. I was one of the most junior guys in the company, and I had a reputation for niceness. This question was rude but (I think) utterly necessary. His answer was that they “didn’t know where to go” to recruit African American workers. I arched my eyebrow at that. “We’re one of the best consulting firms in the world, and specialize in Human Resources. Why on Earth can we not answer questions about workforce diversity?” He explained about the workforce pipeline, and how they went looking for certain kinds of well-educated workers. Since the American Educational system fails African American students so badly, there were less of them available for our company.
He wasn’t wrong.
He wasn’t right, either. I’m telling this story to illustrate an oft-mentioned, under discussed problem of institutionalized racism. Or sexism. Or any kind of institutionalized set of programs that reinforces the white male heretonormative etc power structure. It starts in the schools. Well, it starts as a legacy of segregation (both racial and gender) that sets up separate roles for different kinds of parents. Rich parents do different things than poor parents, and their children tend to have better results in schools.
“Naturally” from there richer (usually white, often male) students will gravitate towards special programs for “gifted” students. And that leads to better colleges. Better colleges lead to better job opportunities, more money, and the cycle repeats with their own children.
The tricky part is at each stage of reinforcing the pattern, any given actor can claim (and believe!) with perfect plausibility that they are acting without racial or gender animus. It’s not me. It’s that previous institution that failed. We are, however, each responsible for making the world a better place. If you’re a high executive at a huge corporation yes, it is your job (as a human, if not as an executive) to go seeking out the best damned racially diverse group you can find. Here’s a secret: our standards weren’t so high that kids fresh out of Howard wouldn’t have done well by the company. No one went looking for them. No one went looking for them because no one thought to. Because lurking under all the institutional racism is a whole lot of privileged looking around and seeing people just like me…
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