I wrote this piece years back for Farai Chideya and the good folks at Pop+Politics.com. I miss that joint… Yo, Farai, NPR’s nice, but get P+P.com on the comeback trail! The crown can be had once again!
Anyway, given all this post-racial Obamaland stuff, I thought there was still a lot of resonance in this piece about Ken Chenault, former CEO of American Express. Enjoy...
To Be (or happens to be) Black
“If someone said he was the best African-American CEO, he would be miserable.
He wants to be the best CEO.”
—Geoffrey Canada, on college friend
and American Express CEO Ken Chenault USA Today, April 25, 2005
He wants to be the best CEO.”
—Geoffrey Canada, on college friend
and American Express CEO Ken Chenault USA Today, April 25, 2005
When I first read that quote I was happy for Mr. Chenault, proud even. I’ve been a big fan of execs like Ken Chenault, Stanley O’Neal (CEO Merrell Lynch) Dick Parsons (CEO AOL), etc. It’s still important for young blacks to see people of color to climbing the corporate ladder and setting their sights as high as possible. But the more I thought about it, something bothered me about that quote; I had to reread it and the article a few times before I figured out exactly what it was.
There’s something kinda creepy about the idea that simply pointing out or highlighting a person’s ethnicity is somehow an insult. I mean, ‘What’s wrong with being the best “African-American CEO”? What’s wrong with being the best Black CEO’? What’s wrong with being the best ‘black athlete’ or ‘black’ [insert occupation/achievement]? It’s as if being an African-American is somehow less American and being an African American CEO is somehow less than a CEO. Why do we have to strive to be greater than what we are, unless of course, what we are somehow makes us inherently inferior?
To be fair, I don’t know Ken Chenault or anyone who’s ever met him. But I’m pretty sure that no matter how hard Chenault tries to be the “best CEO” there will be people—plenty of people—who will only see him as a black CEO or a Black man. And some of those people will equate that (being black) with being ‘less than,’ while others will see Chenault’s ethnicity as a source of pride and achievement and progress, and others still won’t care to judge him on his skin color or assign a value to it one way or the other. Either way, I’d be surprised if anyone is truly “blind” to it.
Personally, I’ve always found the basic idea of “colorblindness” to be amusing. The notion that you simply “can’t see” or “don’t notice” something as obvious as someone’s skin color or race or ethnicity is a little ridiculous. Last I checked, only dogs were colorblind and I’d like to think we’re smarter than dogs. Aren’t we?
Then again, I was one of the few blacks at my college and for a good portion of my adult life has been spent in the corporate world. In both instances, people swore they didn’t care what I was, yet somehow the slurs, ignorance assumptions, stereotypes, etc. persisted at the expense of anyone darker than a suntan. And whenever I or others challenged folks to act and behave as enlightened and as inclusive as they said they were, we were usually told to shut up, stop being so sensitive or “get over it.”
As a corporate cat, I’ve spent years trying not to be “the black copywriter” or “the African-American copywriter.” Yet despite my accomplishments, I’ve always been “the black copywriter” in the eyes of most of my white colleagues. I know this because way too many of them have used jokes, slurs, stupid questions or smartass comments to periodically remind me of this fact. But now, at my advancing age, I’m actually starting to enjoy it.
I’m a black copywriter, a black author and a black man. And I like that. My skin color and ethnicity doesn’t make me better than anyone else or inferior or more entitled to anything. It’s just one of the many traits that makes me human.
And in no way shape or form do I “happen to be” anything; I just am.
There’s something kinda creepy about the idea that simply pointing out or highlighting a person’s ethnicity is somehow an insult. I mean, ‘What’s wrong with being the best “African-American CEO”? What’s wrong with being the best Black CEO’? What’s wrong with being the best ‘black athlete’ or ‘black’ [insert occupation/achievement]? It’s as if being an African-American is somehow less American and being an African American CEO is somehow less than a CEO. Why do we have to strive to be greater than what we are, unless of course, what we are somehow makes us inherently inferior?
To be fair, I don’t know Ken Chenault or anyone who’s ever met him. But I’m pretty sure that no matter how hard Chenault tries to be the “best CEO” there will be people—plenty of people—who will only see him as a black CEO or a Black man. And some of those people will equate that (being black) with being ‘less than,’ while others will see Chenault’s ethnicity as a source of pride and achievement and progress, and others still won’t care to judge him on his skin color or assign a value to it one way or the other. Either way, I’d be surprised if anyone is truly “blind” to it.
Personally, I’ve always found the basic idea of “colorblindness” to be amusing. The notion that you simply “can’t see” or “don’t notice” something as obvious as someone’s skin color or race or ethnicity is a little ridiculous. Last I checked, only dogs were colorblind and I’d like to think we’re smarter than dogs. Aren’t we?
Then again, I was one of the few blacks at my college and for a good portion of my adult life has been spent in the corporate world. In both instances, people swore they didn’t care what I was, yet somehow the slurs, ignorance assumptions, stereotypes, etc. persisted at the expense of anyone darker than a suntan. And whenever I or others challenged folks to act and behave as enlightened and as inclusive as they said they were, we were usually told to shut up, stop being so sensitive or “get over it.”
As a corporate cat, I’ve spent years trying not to be “the black copywriter” or “the African-American copywriter.” Yet despite my accomplishments, I’ve always been “the black copywriter” in the eyes of most of my white colleagues. I know this because way too many of them have used jokes, slurs, stupid questions or smartass comments to periodically remind me of this fact. But now, at my advancing age, I’m actually starting to enjoy it.
I’m a black copywriter, a black author and a black man. And I like that. My skin color and ethnicity doesn’t make me better than anyone else or inferior or more entitled to anything. It’s just one of the many traits that makes me human.
And in no way shape or form do I “happen to be” anything; I just am.
