How to Succeed in Business

For the past few months I've been working at a jobs program for people with disabilities. I'm a "Job Coach." Basically, we spend all day with the clients - we drive them to their job sites, we supervise their work, and then in the afternoon go to the park or the library etc. It's still fun for me, although many of my co-workers seem burned out. I can understand why - the job is incredibly easy and boring for 95% of the time and absolutely terrifying for the other 5%, when you're restraining someone or a client has bolted, that sort of thing. Anyway, there's a very obvious management-enforced staff hierarchy at this nonprofit. At the bottom are the black immigrants, who repeatedly get paired with the most difficult clients and the most labor-intensive job sites, and at the top are the white kids, who always get the easiest assignments. In the middle are the American-born people of color. This arrangement was clear to me very early on, and although I've never seen it discussed with or among management, I've talked about it with many staff members (not many of the white kids).

A few weeks ago I had the misfortune of spending a work day with a particularly unlikeable coach, Stephen. Stephen is black and one of the few staff members of color who deny that the hierarchy exists. But what we really got me was his misogyny - nothing unusual, really - whistles and hoots (to me, not the women) and riffs on past sexploits. It made me realize, though, that I had been hearing similar things from other coaches, mostly men of color with whom I have discussed the hierarchy in detail (the staff is mostly male and black). These discussions have spiraled off into RACE more generally, and through them I think I've earned a special regard from the nonwhite staff, both for my insight and for my mistrust of the white staff, some of whom are thought to be actively participating in the hierarchy, the rest ignorant of its workings.

So how could I have missed the misogyny for so long? To be honest, I didn't really "miss" it. I know I heard it - I can remember a few specific instances, but they didn't hit me with the same force as the racially discriminatory stuff has. A few hypotheses about why this is:

- Perhaps it's plain old homosociality - it's easier for me to relate to nonwhite males than women.

- I had become friends with many of the black staff, and felt as though I had "joined the club." I know this feeling is common among whites who grew up among whites. Was I worried that by calling out misogyny I would jeopardize these new and valued friendships? Or did my enthusiasm for the "Friends of Black People" club I had joined truly obscure their flaws? Both? Did Stephen's refusal to acknowledge the staff hierarchy create a distance between us from which I was able to appreciate his misogyny?

- Maybe I willed myself to focus on the racism because I judged it to be a viable social strategy. If the staff had been majority female, would I have instead detected institutional misogyny in order to sympathize with my co-workers? I should note that in the past few weeks I have heard a few more specifics - a young mother coworker told me of another woman who had been fired due to her pregnancy, and that there's no paid maternity leave. Are these issues somehow inherently less visible, or did I miss them because it wasn't really in my interest to notice?

- In this instance, the racism has economic repercussions (black staff get smaller bonuses than equally competent white staff) and is directly enforced by the institution, attributes which definitely fit neatly with my hippy-dippy-anarcho-commie world view. This actually brings up an aching tension, a tense ache, in my thinking - how do we grapple with issues that can't be solved by changing institutions? Even if, as is my hope, high energy prices force Americans to remunicipalize economies and governance, how will we deal with deep-seated misogyny, racism, and heteronormativity? This is particularly troublesome when you consider that recent improvements for many women were part and parcel of globalization. How do we retain and expand women's freedom in a post-globalized world of closing economies? Resolving this tension is in some ways the primary project of this blog, so there won't be a satisfying answer any time soon (sorry sportsfans).

Speaking of heteronormativity, I haven't mentioned homophobia at work. While I've certainly heard some, it's not nearly as common as the misogyny.

It's very possible that pointing out misogyny among my coworkers would make my job a lot harder. Due to the clientele it's very easy to get fired so a back-watching culture has developed among the staff, and there's a good chance I'd lose most of that. Moreover, I find the racial dialogue we've developed to be really eye-opening. Should I risk all that just to make myself feel better? Or is there a chance that speaking up could help begin a new discussion?

My gut says no, but maybe it's just another case of my judgement serving my interests.