In one of my earlier blogs, I wrote about how my choice, your choice can and should be an individual decision (See Obama Or Clinton: My Choice Doesn't Have To Be Yours).  I did see a post on another site that got me to thinking.  I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

I was in corporate for many years, before I decided to pursue my passion for writing.   I learned a lot about people and behavior during that period.  So let me tell you about one of my bosses.  Had him for all of three months, but what an education.  He was an extremely handsome man, impeccably dressed, right down to the suspenders he wore over crisp, white shirts.  He had the perfect looking wife in the well-placed photo on his desk.  But something about him was, well I couldn’t figure it out, but there was …something.  I had been there a week, and one of the other managers in the group, very tall African American guy, nice, personable.  I had just come from meeting with my new boss and that little…something was beginning to bug me.  So I asked the other manager what he thought of our boss.  He turned to me and said, “Let me tell you about the conversation he had with me, two days after I got here.  He called me into his office and closed the door.  He then said: You and I are not brothers.  We will not be going to lunch with each other and we will not become friends.  I do not associate with you people, as I have a specific plan to get myself to a certain place in this company.  Do you understand me?”   I can’t stand him.   You need to watch your back.”   You see, my new boss was African American.  And, upon reflection, he was so caught up in racial invisibility that he was willing to dismember his own team in order to maintain the strategy he thought was key to his success.   Racial invisibility is a part of the many effects of corporate culture.  It has in fact, bled over into our societal structure.  We got that new job based upon our qualifications and the usual need to work twice as hard.  But it soon dawns upon us that we are the “only raisin in the rice.”    And as we sit in those conference room meetings, as we sit in the office or cubicle, we hear those jokes told, the comment slip, then as though they suddenly remember you are within earshot , “Oh, man, I didn’t mean anything by that, you know what I mean, that didn’t offend you did it? My bad…”    And as an upwardly mobile person of color, that dreaded day comes when you will have to interview that potential candidate for your team, or that consultant who the company wanted you to interview before they make the final decision.  S/he reminds you of you.  Great ideas, thinks outside of the box, has something to offer.  So you do exactly what your company expects, which is why they had you do the interview: you make sure they don’t get hired.  You tell yourself that they didn’t fit the need, but in reality you believe that one more black person would make your peers realize that you are black too.  One more competent black person would probably cause your boss to start comparing you with each other, versus comparing you with your existing peers.  Then there is the historically-based myth that two or more people of color in an organization represents the potential for collusion, especially if you begin to socialize with each other, even if it’s just on a professional basis.  (Believe me, this still happens in the twenty-first century)

So what has this got to do with the upcoming election, with the primaries, with Senator Barack Obama?   Just as the OJ murder trial created a very negative hypersensitivity to race in every part of this country, from the board room to the bedroom, even movie attendance -- one of Denzel Washington’s movies was poorly attended because it came out exactly when the trial was either ending or was in process.   Senator Obama has, just because he is who he is and happens to be a person of color, created a new consciousness of race, but in a different way.   Senator Obama has inadvertently caused the country to look itself in the mirror.  And some don’t like what they see, so they are still trying to shoot the messenger.   Since it has been impossible to find any really tangible evidence that Senator Obama is the same as any other politician, the next step was/is the usual guilt by real or perceived association, which somehow only works if you are a person of color.  Because for us one size fits all, right?  We are all painted with the same broad brush of stereotypical behavior, reasoning, likes, dislikes, etc. as it suits those who are doing the painting.   And those whose careers have been built on their ability to be invisible?  Your boss, your peers, your neighbors, even the security guard at the front desk  are reawakened to the fact that you too are a person of color.  You too, are intelligent and talented.  Wonder what aspirations you have; do you want to be president, CEO?  Are you a closet Democrat?  Where do your loyalties lie?  Are you one of those “emotional Negroes” supporting this Barack Obama?”   You make the decision to back Senator Cinton or John McCain, believing that you are justified in your choice as an individual and that their message and policies resonate with you as an informed voter.  And to be perfectly honest, it takes you out of the spotlight, allowing you reaffirm and assume your position.  So what happens to black men everywhere in this country, should Senator Obama become president?  If people continue to paint us with the same broad brush – and they will – will there be some new, covert strategy to use his presidency as new standard to measure, compare, eliminate people of color and African descent?  To assume that if Senator Obama can make it to the White House, with a background similar to yours, mine, ours, then there is no reason/excuse for you not to succeed?  Or is this just the way we feel, what we think may happen, specifically our men of color?   You see, those I hear from the most, those who are wary of a presidency held by a man of color and African descent, are men.    The election of Senator Obama will be, for each of us, what we choose to make it.  For some it will be an inspiration, for others it will be an opportunity to look in the mirror and see how we are reflected as a person biased against others because of the color of their skin or biased against ourselves because of the color of our skin.  His presidency will not eliminate racism, it may, however, set a different tone for how we treat each other; how each of us – if we are ever to evolve into a better nation of people – learns how to see each person as an individual, not as a cookie cut from the paradigm we have permanently affixed to our truth, nor as an someone we have made invisible under the premise of our own personal comfort level of dismissiveness.   For people of color and African descent, perhaps Senator Obama’s ability to withstand the storm -- in order that we may set sail on the winds of change in a way that will benefit us all -- will be a catalyst for a change our own paradigms from that of sameness and invisibility,  to claiming our unique contributions to business and society as individuals.   Race and gender is always going to matter.  Leveling is inherent to human behavior.  (Don’t know what that is?  See below.)  How we allow those human conditions to affect or infect us, well, who’s in control of that?

RAMBLINGS THROUGH THE ATTIC OF THOUGHT

Leveling.

a term describing

my excuse for diss - missal

of what defines you.

giving me power to

denigrate

obliviate

obliterate

manipulate

and generally make you invisible to the naked eye.

I pretend to see through you...

but I'm not lookin', really.

I'm not tryin' to reach

back for you.

you don't see things

the way I do.

and without sameness

I am weak

I cannot speak

and I was told my voice won't be heard anyway.

I was not informed:

perfection is not required

because it does not exist

in this human realm.

it becomes an oxymoron just by definition.

Much easier to

minimize

criticize

won't realize

that we just might be wrong this time?

no one showed me:

how to stop labeling

that one mixed

this one white

that one wrong

being black as night.

How did we become

defined by what houses us all the same?

since none can choose his race, her color

exactly who is it we should blame?

and in the bliss of my ignore - ance

I never asked if

a sun-baked tan changes who I am.

do dreads,

and nose rings

and my talk

of "bling"

make me an undercover brother or an unoriginal imitation of life?

when I call you " my sista"

is it because we connect

when I call you "my brotha"

am I showing respect?

or part of my hypocritical scam based on need or want?

© 2007 From “Ramblings Through the Attic of Thought”