Comments

1. tj wrote:

   What do you do when your white supervisor’s child asks you why your skin is brown?

   ********
   I used to work in retail and a (white) customer came in with her daughter. And the little girl asked her mother why I am brown/why I look like chocolate. I didn’t actually hear it, but I saw her taking a peak at me from behind the clothes rack and her mother looked embarrassed and flustered. My manager was walking around, she heard the question and brought them over and said;

   “She wants to know why you are brown/why you look like chocolate.”

   I stood there in shock. I lived in a small town with very few black people, but I assumed through the wonder of TV everyone must have encountered black people.

   To be honest, I couldn’t really answer her question. If it was someone older I would have said something sarcastic, but with a kid I drew a blank.

   I stood there wondering how she could never have seen a black person before, despite the fact that UK kids’ Tv has a decent ethnic mix.

   I was snapped back to present by my boss who answered the question by saying something along the lines of ” . . .its because she is a black person.”

   I knew it wasn’t the most helpful answer to the little girl, but it was better than anything I could come up with. I came away from the situation wondering what the girl’s home life must be like.

   I wish I could say that was the last time something like that happened, but till I left that job I had kids stealing glances at me and embarrassed parents gently pulling them away.

   Posted 05 Jul 2009 at 3:35 pm ¶

2. julia clare wrote:

   Dear Carmen, Latoya, and Tami,

   In past weeks I feel like you’d been dealing some technical issues, not to mention coming back after a kind of mini-hiatus, and dealing with introducing live callers into the show as a new feature.

   I just wanted to say after the sound issues making the podcast a little hard to listen to, and feeling like I never knew when/if the podcast would come out etc., I am really glad I stuck with it. This week’s episode was great and the live callers were a wonderful addition. I also think it’s a lot more dynamic to have the three of you participating in the broadcast, whenever possible. Thanks so much and keep up the good work!

   Julia

   Posted 06 Jul 2009 at 8:10 am ¶

3. mT wrote:

   Little kids say the darnest things don’t they. Though I can say that I have experienced worse than just a presumably innocent question as to why my skin was a certain color or my physical features different. Often what a little kid says or doesn’t say and their general behavior is a reflection of a lot more than just their own, innocent, childlike curiosity.

   On the topic of leadership and promotion in the corporate world, someone on the podcast mentioned a lot of bitter minorities coming out of the corporate world. Yeah, I would say I am one of those people, and I am still relatively very young. A lot of the so called leadership in Corporate America from the very top all the way down through the Corporate ladder is based on entrenched, institutionalized structures of power and privilege and of course good old fashion racism that breeds the current accepted norms of leadership based on fearful, unquestioned obedience. Just because a person holds a management position in a company does not mean that they are or are going to be a great leader. And just because someone leads others in a corporation or government doesn’t mean that they are leaders nor does it even mean that they are somehow even competent and knowledgeable. It’s easy to give orders when you are given a title, but it doesn’t mean you can truly inspire, motivate, and gain the respect of those you supposedly lead. True leadership begins with truly caring about those you “lead”. As Eric Shinseki has said, “…without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance.”

   So it’s great that more and more minorities are obtaining more and more Corporate positions at higher levels in which they have historically been underrepresented if represented at all. However, minorities in new leadership positions and especially as they climb higher up, cannot just simply follow the same model and perpetuate the same mechanisms of the same system that had kept them and still continues to keep them down and limit their opportunities. We cannot simply replace one exclusive, elitist, affected good old boys club with another one that values status, wealth accumulation, and self promotion over everything else. So when we think and talk about leadership, we should not give credence to the existing environment, mechanisms, and institutions that have produced much of the “leadership” we have today and throughout history. I posted something not too long ago on Racialicious regarding the concept of minority agents and its affect on the glass ceiling and I think it relates to what I am trying to convey here. That post can be found here: http://www.racialicious.com/2009/06/05/silicon-valleys-bamboo-ceiling/#comment-1687888.

   Posted 08 Jul 2009 at 1:38 am ¶

4. mT wrote:

   Correct link:
   http://www.racialicious.com/2009/06/05/silicon-valleys-bamboo-ceiling/#comment-1687888

   Posted 08 Jul 2009 at 1:44 am ¶