This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

by J. Brown

I recently had an interesting conversation with a colleague at work. My coworker, a Black woman, lives in a Black neighborhood. Because of who she is and where she lives, she feels the need to stay in the neighborhood when she runs her errands or goes out to eat. As she put it, she doesn't want to just live around Black folks, but she wants to be an active part of the community. The problem is that when she goes to the post office or the local restaurant, she often notices a lack of professionalism that makes her wonder if her efforts are worth it. 

Now, just typing that sentence made me wince a bit, because I know how that's going to be read by some: Black people aren't professional, they're lazy. My colleague was also bothered, for similar reasons, as she expressed her concern. There's a natural internalization that happens to Black people when we're around other Black folks that aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. For some reason, we feel that whenever one of us isn't being professional or tactful in public, it's a reflection - and really, an indictment - on the entire race as a whole. 

This isn't fair, and might not even be a worthwhile concern all of the time, but as minorities, we're always worried about our public perception. If a white waiter has poor customer service, he's just lousy at his job. If a Black waiter has poor customer service, some might see that as proof that the restaurant shouldn't be hiring Black waiters. No one would ever say that about the white guy, mostly because you can't just stop hiring white people; there's too many of them. Being Black (or being a member of any other minority group) means constantly being self-conscious, not only about how the rest of the world sees you, but also how they see people who look like you. Black people know that we're not only judged by our actions, but also by the actions of other Black people.


My roommate attends Howard University College of Medicine. He explained to me how a HUCM graduate got placement at a reputable hospital in Baltimore many years ago. For one reason or another, the guy couldn't hold his weight and he didn't last at the hospital very long. Since then, the hospital hasn't accepted another HUCM graduate. Obviously, there are some racial undertones there, considering that Howard is an HBCU. But the real message that I got from that story was that one bad seed can ruin how an entire group is perceived, regardless of how unfair it is. There will be a ton of great doctors who will graduate from Howard and never get a shot at that hospital. Being Black is stressful.

Now, how the white world views us is one thing, and that alone can have a ton of negative repercussions. But what about how we view ourselves? I think the real bothersome part about my colleague's story is that there weren't any white people around in these instances. She talked about going to the post office and having to wait in a line that almost went out the door because the person behind the desk was taking her sweet time and having nice little chats with each person that walked towards the front. She talked about going to a restaurant and having to deal with a talkative waitress who was more concerned with sharing personal details of her life story than with getting the table's orders correct. Despite her own desires and recognizing that the eventual guilt would leave her feeling like a sellout, both instances left her wondering if she should keep giving her neighborhood a chance or just start going into the more "culturally diverse" parts of town. ("Culturally diverse" is DC lingo for "gentrified".) 

To me, this raises two questions. First, what makes these people feel like their poor customer service habits are acceptable? Second, and perhaps most important, would they have behaved in the same fashion if they had white customers? It's a really sad thought, but it's possible that some Black people don't feel as pressured to impress each other as they do to impress white people. The obvious reason is because most of the people who hire and fire in this country are white. In the most Garveyite, Malcolm X-inspired utopia, Black people would live in self-sufficient communities that were run by and depended solely on their own people. I wonder if that's even possible if some Black people aren't necessarily concerned with providing superior service to people who look like them.

How many Black readers have heard this one? "I'm not going to [Black-owned business], it's terrible in there. You know Black folks don't know how to act." Pretty sure most of you have heard someone say this; maybe you've even said it yourself. The question then becomes, what can we do to eliminate this self-destructive line of thinking? To me, the change has to come from within. It's going to be very difficult for white people (or any people) to believe in Black business or Black employees when we don't even believe in ourselves. Instead of just going somewhere else, maybe you can talk to the lady behind the desk at the post office and give her some helpful advice on how to improve. Maybe the reason she's perpetuated her poor habits is because everyone else has always accepted them. Maybe instead of just leaving a bad tip for the lousy waiter, you can scribble an encouraging note on the check for them.

At the end of the day, we have to change our perception of ourselves before we can expect anyone else's perceptions to change. That includes not only expecting positive results, but providing our best efforts to each other, regardless of the situation. The way I see it, the only way we can counteract the rest of the world treating us like second-class citizens is by treating each other like VIPs. Until we start doing that, we'll never have nice things.