Thursday, July 20, 2006

The Slave Mentality in the Workplace

People have more in common than we like to admit. We can find arrogance, machismo, kindness, passion, rage, envy, and other emotions in any group of people—regardless of racial identity.

Unfortunately, in the workplace, there’s a tendency to label and stereotype people in ways that intrude upon their right to be fairly evaluated and to be treated respectfully. It seems to be easier for many people to place labels on others, particularly minorities, based—not so much on that person’s behavior—but, more on what perspectives the labeler is bringing to the table. So, often, what comes to the table is never seen through the prism of American slavery and racism, even though the history of enslavement and emancipation in America has lead to many of the stereotypes being used and perpetuated today.

During slavery, Whites controlled every aspect of the life of the African slave. We worked at the crack of the whip and by threat of a rifle. We were subjected to daily rapes. We had our captors’ religion imposed upon us (even to the point where slaves believed the Bible justified their enslavement and that they should only expect freedom in the afterlife). And, we endured other tortures of the mind, body, and soul—too numerous to list here. All of these premeditated tortures were aimed at maintaining control over the slave population in order to continue the free labor trade on whose blood, sweat, and tears this country was built.

Even after emancipation, there was still an expectation, a code of behavior, that African Americans were expected to show to Whites. Free or not, this is simply the behavior that many Whites preferred and demanded of the country’s former slaves. Whites had, after all, had their way with African Americans throughout slavery and didn’t easily forget their ownership role. Free or not, a nigger was not going to be a White man’s equal. A
ni-ger was going to know his place.

History has shown that many African American men, women, and children found themselves at the end of a hanging rope for disobeying—not necessarily Federal, State or local laws—but, for not abiding by undocumented standards of conduct. Some of these unwritten expectations and preferences included that African Americans:

· had to defer to the wishes of a White person (no matter how unfair or illegal those wishes might be);

· couldn’t behave in a “prideful” manner because Whites couldn’t stand the sight and sound of an “uppity” nigger;

· were supposed to act and be treated as subservient to White;

· had no actual rights when dealing with Whites (written law amounted to a paper tiger for African Americans);

· couldn’t “talk back” to a White person;

· had to avert their eyes when passing by or speaking to a White person;

· had to step out of the way of a White person who was passing by; and

· could not look upon/stare at White women.

Many African Americans obviously saw this unwritten code as unfair, immoral, and illegal, but the code was also a route to safety. Dealing with Whites was still a fear-invoking proposition, but following the rules meant you were a little less likely to be the priority Negro in town who had to be dealt with. Not breaking these unofficial rules was a way to avoid the hanging rope of lynch mobs, although the lynch mob never required much provocation when it decided to pick a Black person for “punishment.”

I believe that many African Americans still walk through life guided by these unwritten rules and expectations. We have done to ourselves exactly what Massa would have hoped—many of us passed on a slave mentality to our children.

I’ve worked with far too many African Americans who absolutely will not question a White person regarding any matter, small or large. Why? Because many Blacks would rather lay down in a bed full of rats then to tell a White person they are being unclear, that an approach may be against guidelines or completely unethical, or that there is a better way to get something done.

As African Americans, we’ve learned, throughout our careers, exactly what “our place” is on project teams at work. And, we know damn well what we can say that will offend a White person and possibly lead to problems on the job.

The fact of the matter is that some of us work on jobs where we are still relegated to working in the fields. We are the administrative force, we are junior staff or we are the low to mid-level managers. Many of us have been completely neutered. We are not involved in the early stages of planning projects, we are not asked for our ideas or to make contributions on project designs, we are normally not asked what we would like to do or what we would like to learn, we are not asked our opinion on how things are going on projects, etc. In short, we are perceived and have often accepted a role as labor only. Our voice is irrelevant. Yes, some of us are still forced to work in the field. And, some of us revel in that status.

Some African Americans know their place and will serve as an invisible society that can be utilized or ignored as seen fit—just as the invisible society in the lower 9th ward suffered silently before Hurricane Katrina hit.

A quiet and unashamedly well-assimilated African American will not ask for what he has earned, will not require equitable workplace conditions, will not demand equal pay, will often not ask for or fight for a promotion, and will sufficiently kiss the ass of the White staff they work with.

Stop for a minute and visualize the early images of African Americans in film, movies, and as described in books. We had characters in black face, Mammy, Sambo and the images of the so-called pickininny. African Americans were always shown providing eye-bulging smiles to our unseen Massa.

These images didn’t just reinforce and serve as a learning experience on racism for Whites. These images reinforced racism for many African Americans as well. These images reinforced African American status in society—images of stupidity, ugliness, laziness, servitude, and living a second or third class existence to those in White or “mainstream” society.

So, what does this all mean? Haven’t figured it out yet? Stay tuned for part two of this post…

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello, First let me disclose, reluctanly, with no racial identity, my skin is fair, I am "white". I have never lived with dark skin, or been set upon with the many disadvantages that it still brings to the table, but I hope to give you some insight on the workplace slave mentality.

The reason that Africans were enslaved was because the dark skin was an obvious marker of the slave status. With paper and pencil Information Systems, it would be difficult to track who had rights and who didnt.

Today, with modern information systems and even clothing and cars that identify social status, the elite are happy to enslave anybody.

I have seen the "fear of the white person" you speak of in "whites" as well. Its actually "fear of the boss". I have seen white people that would never challenge anyone ahead of them. This mentality is pervasive. The current medical insurance model gives the boss control of your life. If you get fired, you lose your insurance and could die. Todays bosses are able to threaten your life unless you are a good corporate employee.

I am sure all this is amplified when your of African descent, and worse in many ways I cannot fathom, but my point is this.

Workplace salvery is here, not just for "Blacks", but for ALL people that are not born into the wealth of the "ruling" class. Every aspect of society pushes us in this direction, the FDA allows food that cause diabetes and heart disease, so you need insulin and drugs to live, the only way to get them is the have insurance, which has spiraled out of control to be so expensive that you have to bow down to the corporate man to get it, and dont backtalk or cause trouble or you will lose it and your family may die.
This is a timeless battle between labor and those that make money off of others labor. Its bigger than black/white. In the middle ages the serfs worked the land for the masters, in a way the despicable cotton industry titans tried to emulate...the dark skin made it easy to tell master from servant so it was a great system for the evil ones that lived large off of others sweat.

So they tried to make this a nation of slaves with African slavery, and when that blew up in their face, they have re-tooled their methods and we now face what I call neo-feudalism, with the illusion of total and some slight freedom, with 1000 social patterns that hold us in line, so the top can live large off of other peoples sweat , ANY other persons sweat.

I feel when you mix race into an already complex and subtle control scheme, it muddies the water and makes it even more confusing.

However, your blog IS about "The Black Factor", and I have no clue whats its like, so I could be wrong. Everything could be 1000 times worse for you. Please consider this, it may be bad for EVERYBODY and 10 times worse for you, which is still not acceptable, but its good to know that many "white" people have this slave mentality right now, its not unique to "blacks", it is not a holdover master plan by the "whites" its just the NEXT plan by the elite (whom are probably "white", and the enslavement of Africans was not the first plan, but just the NEXT plan to some other older plan that ran its coarse.


I guess I just want to say, please dont complain about "whites". Instead, complain about the "Elite Whites", and you will be right on target.

1:15 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Black slevary mentality will never end as long as we as blacks continue communicating with the white man's language we a going no were let's tell the truth English is not our tongue I live in Africa when black person meets a white person the black person will automatically talk to them in English u find two black Africans having a conversation with each other in English but u will never find two whites having a conversation in an African language the funny thing about us Blacks is that if one can speak English fluently it's like u have class or better educated blacks can complain all they want about white supremacy it never go away as long as we keep on using their language as a source off communication

2:27 AM  

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