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.
