Were these people serious about a job offer? If so, what did they expect from me? I had no desire to be the corporate black in a glass office, but I did not wish to be abrasive or ungracious if the company was sincere about its desire to have an integrated organization. In the fragment of time between the question and my response, the tension within me grew. After all, if a person is unbiased, why does he make such a point of trying to prove it? It was merely a rephrasing of the familiar patronizing comment, “One of my best friends is a negro.” Most blacks recognize this type of statement as a thinly veiled attempt to hide bias. The question was demeaning and an insult to my intelligence. Here was the beginning of the games that I expected but dreaded playing. I knew that this man was trying to be pleasant yet I felt nothing but disgust at what seemed a ridiculous deterioration in the level of conversation. After a strained silence, one of the executives at our table looked at me, smiled, and said, “Why is it that everyone likes Roy Campanella, but so many people dislike Jackie Robinson?” During a lunch discussion concerning the contemplated job and its requirements, I experienced my first reminder that I was black. Still skeptical, I accepted, feeling that I had nothing to lose. I did well in a subsequent interview procedure, and received an invitation for a company tour. I responded, “Are you kidding me-you don’t have any black managers, do you?” He replied, “No, but that’s why I’m here.” On gathering that I was a college senior, the recruiter asked whether I had considered his company as an employer. My story begins when I happened to bump into a recruiter who was talking to a friend of mine. Gaining acceptance in the organization, which the embryonic white manager takes for granted, can be a serious problem for his black counterpart. business has failed to recognize the embryonic black manager’s increased chances of failure due to the potentially negative impact of racially based prejudgments. I say this because the manner in which many companies are approaching the problem indicates to me that a number of well-intentioned efforts are doomed to failure.įailure is likely because most companies merely substitute blacks in positions formerly filled by whites and then, acting as if the corporate environment is not color-sensitive, consider their obligation over. I think that my experiences should prove helpful to companies that are wrestling with the problem of how to move black employees from the entry level into positions of greater responsibility. Somehow I always managed to answer positively, if not resolutely. At times I would look at myself in a mirror and wonder whether I had lost my mental balance. I found myself enveloped in almost unbearable emotional stress and internal conflict, trying to hold the job as a constant and evaluate my personal shortcomings with respect to it. I found myself trying desperately to separate fact from mental fiction. During those years, I found myself examining my actions, strategies, and emotional stability. For I was about to begin the most trying experience of my life-the rise to middle management in a white corporation. In a tone of bravado I said, “I promise you that I won’t quit, you’ll have to fire me.”Īt the time, I did not know how important that promise would become. On reporting for work, I received a motivational speech from the personnel officer and acknowledged that I agreed with his opinion: the job was going to be challenging in its own right however, the added burden of prejudice could make it unbearable. When I was graduated from a predominantly black college, I was offered a job in one of the largest corporations in America.
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