There’s still a lot of “nigger” callin’
in the corporate offices…
—Nas
Reversed Affirmative Action
Working for Black-owned companies is interesting. I remember interviewing for one job thinking, “Oh, I’m black, I got this.” Wrong. Pull that “hook a brutha up” crap on black businesses and they’ll spit you out like bad sushi. In each case, they made it clear to me that I was hired because I was the best qualified for the job, period. They also let me know that most black execs and black-run companies are under so much extra pressure to produce they can’t afford to hire Ray-Ray’s brother and ‘nem. They have to hire the most qualified top-shelf Black candidates possible because if that black person screws up, out come the haters.
And in what I found to be a slightly odd twist, several black execs have admitted to me that they often feel pressure to hire white and non-black candidates just to prove they’re not too “pro-black” for their mainstream colleagues. It’s sad to say, but when you’re black in business, at some point, most of your decisions become political whether you like it or not.
On the flipside, over the years whenever my white friends or coworkers got laid off or were considering switching jobs, I’d tell them about black companies or black execs who I knew were hiring. They’d always give me the same responses: “Yeah, right. They won’t hire me,” or “Don’t you have to be black to work there?” It was like listening to a guy who cheats on his wife assuming that just because he’s cheating she must be cheating too. They just assumed they’d get screwed by blacks in power simply because they knew blacks usually get screwed in similar situations.
Even after I’d tell ‘em “No, they’ll hire whoever’s good and if anything, being white works in your favor,” they still resisted. My offering to vouch for them didn’t help either. Eventually they’d tell me it came down to one of three concerns: (1) For some reason many white professionals view working for a black company as a “step-down” career-wise. (2) Many fear being discriminated against in minority run companies because they’re white. (3) Many just aren’t “comfortable enough” to work around a lot of black people.
And why did so many folks tell me this stuff? Because a few of them admitted that they saw me as one of the “good” black people. (After all, I am an Oreo, you know.)
Crazy, huh?
On the flipside, over the years whenever my white friends or coworkers got laid off or were considering switching jobs, I’d tell them about black companies or black execs who I knew were hiring. They’d always give me the same responses: “Yeah, right. They won’t hire me,” or “Don’t you have to be black to work there?” It was like listening to a guy who cheats on his wife assuming that just because he’s cheating she must be cheating too. They just assumed they’d get screwed by blacks in power simply because they knew blacks usually get screwed in similar situations.
Even after I’d tell ‘em “No, they’ll hire whoever’s good and if anything, being white works in your favor,” they still resisted. My offering to vouch for them didn’t help either. Eventually they’d tell me it came down to one of three concerns: (1) For some reason many white professionals view working for a black company as a “step-down” career-wise. (2) Many fear being discriminated against in minority run companies because they’re white. (3) Many just aren’t “comfortable enough” to work around a lot of black people.
And why did so many folks tell me this stuff? Because a few of them admitted that they saw me as one of the “good” black people. (After all, I am an Oreo, you know.)
Crazy, huh?
