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with our eyes wide open
�We were born with our eyes wide open, David Gray, �Silver Lining� Two weeks ago, our Executive Director (who I�ll call ED) called my former office-mate (who I�ll call M) into her office. Her purpose was to give him a verbal reprimand stemming from numerous and long-standing complaints from clients and co-workers that M is difficult, uncompassionate, and sometimes just plain rude. More serious and complex allegations of racial bias have also floated aroundin connection with M�s name. A bit of background. M basically hired me. I�ve known him for years, and we have many friends in common. When I started here, I was his assistant and shared an office with him. You may recall, Dear Reader, the various trials and tribulations entailed in that arrangement. I have recently been promoted past M and moved into another department, but our short history means two things: a) I like M a great deal, for though he can be difficult at times, he has a good heart, and he works like a machine, and b) I have had the chance to closely observe M�s interactions with clients. So then, all ED wanted to do was give M a verbal warning, which despite its name, involves a piece of paper that the employee signs. It�s the first, slightest, least little step in our disciplinary process. And of course, M would have none of it. He refused to sign the warning, and immediately stormed off to write a four page letter (that�s right, Dear Reader, four pages) to ED documenting the various ways in which the parties who complained against him were insane, dangerous liars, etc., etc., and how offended he was with the whole affair. Alas, the gentleman doeth protest too much. Anyone who knows ED knows that she is not to be trifled with. To call her �strong-willed� would be almost ridiculously inadequate. If one is wise, one doesn�t challenge her unless the stakes are life and death, since the fight is likely to be to the death. She likes to get her way, and she likes her employees to do what they�re told�quickly and without a lot of sass. One could say a lot about the few merits and many weaknesses of this style of management. My purpose here is only to note how she is, right here, today. And also, ED is basically right. M�s �anger issues� are legendary. Everyone here knows that if he�s mad about something, he�s mad about everything, and anyone who crosses his path that day will pay for it. Then too, having shared an office with M, I have heard enough racist jokes and comments from him to make me truly concerned. I also know that his interactions with white clients are markedly different from his interactions with Black clients. His interactions with men are different from his interactions with women. He is far more compassionate with a presumably gay client than with a presumably straight one. Even though he�s Hispanic, he�s the most white-identified little gay man I�ve ever known. I suspect that when he brought me on, I hoped on some level that I�d be �on his side� with all his rantings about how our agency is run by some cabalistic conspiracy of Blacks, simply because I�m white. Of course, if you know anything about my racial politics, you know that he had the wrong white boy. All of which is to say, it�s not like any of this was a secret. He wears his preferences on his sleeve. Along the three most politically-charged axes of human identity (race, gender, sexuality), his favorite flavor of human is a gay white man. Everyone else gets a little less. Or a lot less. So last Wednesday, ED comes tearing into my office first thing in the morning. She had read his four-page bucket of righteous indignation, and decided on a course of action. A truly, hilariously hideous course of action. She wants each of the managers (There are four of us: the Finance Manager, the Case Management Coordinator, the Outreach/Substance Abuse Coordinator, and yours truly, the Information Systems Manager) to write a memo detailing our observations of M�s problematic behaviors. She�s going to staple these all together with her letter and give them to M. That�s right. She�s going to give them to him. Oh, and she wants the memo in fifteen minutes. Because hey, this isn�t the kind of thing you�d like to put a little thought into or anything. So I really quickly, and then started writing. Here is what I wrote: �As per your request, the purpose of this memo is to document my observations regarding [M]�s interactions with clients and staff. �[M] is a dedicated, focused, intelligent and hardworking member of the BEAT AIDS team. I enjoyed collaborating with him during my work on the housing programs. However, I have observed that many individuals, both staff members and clients, have had difficult relationships with [M]. While no one will get along well with everyone, my observations suggest two areas where [M] might want to examine his own conduct for the sake of more amenable relationships with staff and clients. �The first issue might be globally termed �anger management�. In my experience, when [M] becomes angry about a specific issue, it colors his interactions with everyone and everything. While I as a coworker simply adjusted to this idiosyncrasy, a client walking in the door cannot be expected to know why [M] is angry, or to bear the brunt of anger that he or she has nothing to do with. �The second issue is more complex, and painful for me to even make note of. It is my opinion that [M] has some unexamined �baggage� around issues of race, ethnicity, and gender. I have heard jokes and comments from [M] that seemed plainly racist to me, and I know that some clients and staff have perceived [M] to be prejudiced in various ways. Some have perceived racism, others sexism, and I have personally observed that [M]�s interactions with presumably heterosexual clients are markedly different from his interactions with presumably GLBT clients. �While no one is free of prejudice, a workplace and target population as diverse as ours calls for a strong commitment � not just to �not being racist�, but to actively being antiracist; not just to �not being sexist�, but to actively working to empower women and other marginalized groups. It may well be that [M] would benefit from some sensitivity training and/or anger management training, in order that he might more clearly understand both his own presuppositions and the racial/sexual politics that are an inevitable aspect of work with marginalized and/or oppressed populations. �[M] is an invaluable member of the BEAT team (a fact I cannot reiterate enough), and I hope that these matters may be quickly and compassionately resolved without losing sight of the enormous difference he makes in both this agency and the lives of our clients. William Baker, Information Systems Manager� And now M doesn�t talk to me. At all. Ever. God only knows what he�s said about me to our mutual friends. It would be trite to say that my memo was �nothing personal�. Trite, but true. One of the worst failures of contemporary American culture is our total �work stoppage� on issues of race. We have decided that to be a racist is to be an intrinsically evil person, so no one will own up to being a racist. And so the whole conversation has ground to a halt. America is a deeply racist place, and we all know it, but no one wants to say anything because if you bring up all that racism, you�ll eventually end up talking about where it comes from. And so you�re going to end up calling someone a racist, and we�ve already decided that�s the worst thing you can be. My view is that we are born into a racist culture, so there is no middle ground. Most of us (especially those of us who are not Black) absorb at least some of the white supremacy that�s woven into our cultural surround. Most of us, in short, are racists to one degree or another. The remedy is not to say �I�m color-blind� and pretend that race doesn�t matter when it is in fact one of the most salient features of twentieth century American civilization. A better way would be to become antiracists, and that would entail owning up to our own racial baggage. And understanding that the very process of owning up is an act on the side of justice. That admitting you may be a racist is admitting nothing more than that you grew up in America. Far from making you a bad person, that admission places you on the side of change for the better. But these are things not easily dealt with through memos and administrative actions, because although they touch on our work with our clients, they also cut to the heart of our personal self-understanding. The pay-off, of course, is that we might live again with our eyes wide open.
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