What's black on the outside, white on the inside?

Oreos!

One day I was in a creative briefing with my two bosses, “Harvey” and “Jack”...

Both were VP/creative directors and a good 10-15 years older than me. At some point our conversation strayed from our client assignment to shooting the breeze. And I don’t remember exactly what all started this… Maybe it was Harvey, who was black, trying to get me to go golfing with him. Then for some reason, out of nowhere, Jack, who was white, jumps in and says, “You are the two ‘whitest’ black guys I know.”

Those words completely crushed the whole mood of the room. You are the two whitest black guys I know. Me and Harvey just stood frozen in our boots. It was like we were alone onstage naked in front of a packed theater. We never saw that one coming. On the other hand, Jack was as relaxed and nonchalant as could be. Then apparently just to break the awkwardness, he adds, “What? Don’t act surprised. You know I’m right."

Jack, like many of my colleagues over the years lived in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods. And besides Harvey, his friends were all white. His judgment was based on the facts that both Harvey and I were college educated, lacked criminal backgrounds, and spoke proper English. And given our jobs as marketers we consistently displayed high levels of intelligence and professionalism. Plus we knew enough about golf to discuss it. So of course, this combination made us “white.”

I felt completely insulted—again. Growing up some black kids called me an “oreo” because on the outside I was black, but because I was chasing college degrees and swimming thru the mainstream, my mind and soul were “white.” I was also hurt because I never knew that Jack saw Harvey or me in that light. It never crossed my mind that he looked at us as “black” or that he saw “black” and “white” like that.

But as much as Jack’s words hurt me, I remember feeling worse for Harvey. Not only were Harvey and Jack the same age but also as vice-presidents, they were on the same professional level. It’s one thing to belittle an employee, but it’s a whole other thing to belittle a coworker; especially once you reach the executive ranks.

NOTE: It’s important to remember that the idea that whites as the standard-bearers for intelligence and education goes all the way back to the Black and Native American Holocausts: The Blacks and Native Americans who weren’t killed off or shoved on reservations were put in schools and taught that only whiteness was good. They were forced to speak English and accept Anglo history and values as truth while having their native tongues and cultures classified as inferior before beaten out of them, literally and figuratively.

These days some have mistakenly thrown the baby out with the bathwater with sentiments of, “If being educated means being ‘white’ and forsaking my culture, then I’d rather stay dumb.” Even some Native Americans have struggled with being called “apples”—red skin on the outside, white on the inside while blacks were (and still are) often labeled Oreos or Sellouts.