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Corporate Tribalism
White Men/White Women and Cultural Diversity at Work
By THOMAS KOCHMAN JEAN MAVRELIS
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
Copyright © 2009 The University of Chicago
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-44957-9
Chapter One
CWM and Corporate Diversity Initiatives
CWM in the United States often feel that corporate diversity initiatives do not include them—that "diversity is about everyone else but them" or that "they are the ones who now have to understand others, but others don't have to understand them." At face value, neither of these statements is true. CWM are key players in any organization, and the success of diversity initiatives needs their creative involvement just as it does the creative involvement of others. Moreover, members of other groups have spent decades leaving their different culture at the doorstep of the U.S. mainstream workplace to try to adopt or adapt to a cultural style that mainly fits and serves CWM. CWM miss the extent to which others have had to change their ways to accommodate them, so it seems now that the onus of having to change falls only on them. CWM, looking for others to ante up, fail to notice that the money of others is already in the pot.
But to argue the truth of what is being said, in many ways, is beside the point. The real issue is the distress that CWM feel over the idea that the world is changing, and to keep pace, CWM have to change in ways that they haven't had to before, when the "name of the game" was, in most respects, doing it their way. CWM don't see things as having been their way because, as with anyone, they are not aware of what they didn't have to change about themselves in order to fit into the U.S. corporate culture. They have been aware of things that they did have to change about themselves as individuals, however, and feel that this is on a par with everyone else. They may, down the road, ultimately find out that this is not the case—that others have had to struggle much more than they to achieve a sense of comfort/fit within the U.S. workplace. But right now CWM are where they are, and where they are is to see themselves as having to bear the principal brunt of change. The following statement of anguish essentially captures this view. It is titled "The White Male Tale of Woe." Hardy Freeman suggested that "woe" also works as an acronym for "Was Once Entitled." "Owe" (Once Was Entitled) probably works at some level, too.
The White Male Tale of Woe
Ok. What used to be the way it was is no longer the way it is. And it looks like it's not going to go back to the way it was for us. Not ever. Ouch!
Not that the "way it was" was ever that great. It was just easier to accept when it wasn't, because that's the way it was (or wasn't) for everyone—you know, like the Great Depression.
But now it looks like it's not going to be there for us when that's not the same for everyone else. And that's what really hurts.
Not only are others getting stuff that used to be ours, they're getting it when we aren't.
And it's basically other white guys that are the ones doing it to us. You know— senior-level guys who are there to make sure that everyone is getting part of the action. Except that it's not their action that they're giving away. It's ours. They've already got theirs.
And another thing, Try getting some sympathy for how you feel. When you happen to get to talk about this stuff—which you generally don't—all those other folks say, "Hey, you don't like it! Tough! Welcome to the club! What do you think it's been like for us all these years while you were hogging it all for yourselves. The problem is that you white guys think that you deserve all that you used to get then, and don't deserve what you're getting now, even though you're still getting more than anyone else. I mean, get real!"
You see. Not only isn't there any sympathy for what you're going through, you can't even get consideration. Also, I don't know who they're talking about when they talk about "You white guys." I know they're not talking about me and what I'm getting. I'm not living high on the hog and no one ever handed me anything on a silver platter. Also, what I got, I earned!
And what they're complaining about in the past—I wasn't the one that did that to them. I wasn't even born then. And what about the "sins of the fathers not being visited on the sons."
I mean, give me a break.
But all they can think about now is themselves, what they had and still have to go through and how it's now their turn.
Ok. I've said my piece. This is the new reality. This is what I have to take and live with. Just don't tell me I need to take it easy.
So the worm is turning, and white men are squirming. Where do we go from here? CWM do have a point about being misunderstood and misrepresented. Other groups do not understand them well or as well as they need to. And CWM hardly know or understand members of other groups at all. So maybe we can start there: everyone needing to know more about each other than they presently do to try to find better ways to create comfort/ fit working together.
Understanding CWM
The sentiments expressed in the "White Male Tale of Woe" reflect the pressures that CWM feel trying to reconcile individual and family self-interest with company-wide diversity initiatives. As one senior executive said, "You want to do what's right for the company. But you also don't want it to be you personally that has to take the hit." This statement and the tension that develops from it is at the heart of the matter at work and in the larger society. There are other issues as well. CWM, accustomed to competition from other CWM, are now also being challenged by CWW and people of color for positions that previously fell within their domain. At the interpersonal level, CWM have to cope with the general view of them from other groups, as "racist, sexist, till they prove they're not" or as privileged members of the "good old boy network." There are also pressures to become more attuned and effective dealing with people issues. At the personal level, they may have to come to grips with the discomfort that comes with the realization that there is a social advantage to being a CWM relative to other groups that undermines the image they have of themselves as "sharing" and "wanting to be fair" and as being basically "decent, good guys." CWM are also accustomed to being praised and admired and have a strong wish to be liked that often gets in the way of having to make decisions on hiring and promotion where the person who didn't get what they wanted or expected hates them. The unhappy choice for CWM today is whom they would rather have hating them, CWW and people of color or other CWM.
Historically, they have endured, and in many cases, become inured to, the hatred and anger of white women and people of color. Actively pushing and promoting diversity, however, in effect, now asks CWM to also endure the anger and hatred of other CWM. For CWM, this is a much harder pill to swallow, especially if it puts their social standing with other CWM at risk. As one CWM said, "It's not much of a group, but it's the only group I have." Apart from matters relating to their own individual self-interest, the personal willingness or reluctance of CWM to endure the anger and hatred of others of their own group is key to the ultimate success or failure of diversity initiatives. Our colleague Ken Addison said, "There is one set of issues when you're falling from a height and another set of issues when you're crawling out of a hole." With regard to the latter situation, Paulette Brown, a member of the American Bar Association said, on women of color leaving law firms, "We're not even talking about trying to get up through a glass ceiling; we're trying to stay above ground." The social/cultural story here is about CWM on a height peering over a precipice. It is also about trying to weigh and balance their issues and interests against diverse others in an increasingly competitive world and workplace.
African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans typically see CWM at work as members of a group much the same way they see themselves: as having a strong communal identity and personal ties to other members of their group. None of that is true of CWM. A place of gathering of CWM at work is not so much an oasis, as it is for members of other groups, as it is a parking place—organized more around separation and individuation than reciprocal loyalty and connection. Social etiquette manifests itself there as "I do for me and you do for you," not "I do for you and you do for me" or the more tribal and familial "one for all and all for one." Consideration of other CWM in that context is reflected by showing courtesy, to be sure, but more pointedly, not intruding on each other's time and space. By way of contrast, the standard cultural protocol for CWW shows consideration of others through caretaking: active involvement and concern with the emotional state and well-being of others. The view that others have of CWM misses that the group that CWM might individually identify with—to the extent that they do—is outside of work: typically one or another immigrant ethnic group (residues from the U.S. "melting pot"—Jewish, German, Irish, Italian, Polish, etc.) or regional group (e.g., southerners). At work, CWM relate to each other as a collection of individuals, not as members of a white male group.
The general litmus test for determining whether you have a member of group identity is whether you, as an individual, feel implicated by what other members of your group do. In that regard, each CWM feels, by and large, responsible only for what he does or has done as an individual, not for what other white men have done. This is in stark contrast to the more ethnic/tribal view of members of other groups who do feel implicated by what other members of their group do. Compare the different group responses to Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (white) and the Washington DC sniper shooters, John Allen Muhammad (African American) and Lee Boyd Malvo (Jamaican). No U.S. white man thought that he was personally implicated by what Dahmer had done. Likewise, no white man in the United States felt personally implicated by the actions of Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City. To white men in the United States, the fact that Dahmer and McVeigh also happened to be white men was irrelevant. White men said, "That was Dahmer and McVeigh. That wasn't me!" However, in the African American and Jamaican communities, the talk was filled with consternation and astonishment on the discovery that the snipers were, respectively, African American and Jamaican. African Americans and Jamaicans said, "Why did it have to be one of us." African Americans added, "We never do serial killing. That's a white thing!" Likewise the Korean community response to the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, was "When Yung Yang, a South Korean-born secretary in Annandale, heard the first rumors that the man who had slaughtered 32 people at Virginia Tech University was Asian, she said a fervent prayer: 'Please don't let him turn out to be Korean.'" Other Koreans responded in similar fashion, most notably, South Korea's ambassador to Washington, Lee Tae Shik, who said, "The Korean American community needed to 'repent' ... to prove that Koreans were a 'worthwhile ethnic minority in America.'"
Within the workplace, each CWM is primarily out for himself. In the broader social context, white men can be out for themselves without shame or guilt (or without being labeled "selfish" by other CWM). By way of contrast, when our colleague Ilya Adler asked his class of Mexican college students whom they thought Anglos referred to when they spoke of "looking out for number one," their responses ranged from "family" to "boss," to "mother" and were shocked when told that each U.S. CWM meant himself when "looking out for number one."
Despite their representation in high-level positions, CWM do not attribute their success to having been members of a white male group, but, rather, to individual qualities and forms of preparation that enabled them to take advantage of opportunities at different times in their life. Given the disproportionate representation of CWM in high-level positions as compared with other groups, a question might be why they don't see their own race and gender as having been more instrumental in enabling them to reach those positions. Part of the answer stems from the social contexts in which CWM customarily operate.
Self/Group Awareness
Self/group awareness for CWM, as for others, is context sensitive. It is within the United States that CWM imagine themselves to be a collection of individuals and not members of group. When traveling outside the United States or when finding themselves to be in the minority in a social context within the United States, this self/group awareness changes. Abroad, the group that CWM identify themselves as a member of is "American," and in that context CWM do feel implicated by what other "Americans" do. As one CWM said who spent time abroad, "I was in a café when a very loud and boisterous couple came into the café in stereotypically 'Ugly American' fashion." I said to my wife, 'I hope they don't sit down next to us.'" Inside the United States, CWM primarily become aware of their own race/gender when those features distinguish themselves from surrounding others—especially if they feel targeted or at risk, as when making the proverbial "wrong turn" on the freeway and ending up in a black neighborhood. We refer to this event in our training as "driving while white." They may also be aware of their gender when they are the only man among a group of women. The CWM race/gender aspect of self/group awareness is ephemeral, however. It ends when CWM leave the nonmainstream group or neighborhood and return to customary and familiar mainstream social surrounds.
Sometimes race/gender self/awareness is more permanently etched on the CWM psyche. In training sessions when I ask CWM if they see themselves as a tribe or ethnic group or as a collection of individuals, their typical response is to see themselves as a collection of individuals. In one session, however, one CWM saw himself as a "member of a [white male] group." Since his response was atypical, I asked him where he grew up. He said South Africa. Within the South African context, notwithstanding the dominant social position of whites, he was very much aware of himself as a targeted "other." Like CWM in the United States, he had a subjective sense of self, but he also had internalized an objective sense of himself as a member of a group—as others saw him—not just how he saw himself. In another session, a Dutchman gave an example of having been in Mozambique during the South African elections when the white candidate opposing Nelson Mandela was ahead in the voting. He said a young white man came into the room, all excited, and said, "The white tribe is winning!" CWM in the United States don't typically think of themselves that way, operating as they do within dominant social contexts where CWM race/ gender—add also culture—is normative. When those contexts change, so does CWM awareness of their own race, gender and culture—accentuated when CWM feel targeted or at risk.
Luke Visconti, one of the founders of the Diversity Inc online newsletter, represents himself objectively as a member of a white male group in the title of his special features column: "Ask the White Guy." But his choice of that title, as he put it, "is meant to be ironic," which suggests an element of choice and detachment not available to those whose socially programmed objective sense of self is often a matter of survival. I was again reminded of the different social risk that I experience compared to my African American friend when I told him that I would leave an envelope that he wanted in my mailbox for him to pick up. He balked at the suggestion, saying, "How is it going to look: a black man going through someone else's mailbox in a predominantly white neighborhood? I don't think so."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Corporate Tribalism by THOMAS KOCHMAN JEAN MAVRELIS Copyright © 2009 by The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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