{"id":1317,"date":"2009-12-11T13:37:50","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T19:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/crawler\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2009-12-11T13:37:50","modified_gmt":"2009-12-11T19:37:50","slug":"calming-down-ones-blackness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2009\/12\/11\/calming-down-ones-blackness\/","title":{"rendered":"“calming down one’s blackness”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PowerA recent New York Times<\/a> article highlighted the phenomenon of African Americans\u00a0downplaying racial markers in\u00a0their resumes in order to compete in the job market:<\/p>\n

Tahani Tompkins was struggling to get callbacks for job interviews in the Chicago area this year when a friend made a suggestion: Change your name. Instead of Tahani, a distinctively African-American-sounding name, she began going by T.\u00a0S. Tompkins in applications.<\/p>\n

Yvonne Orr, also searching for work in Chicago, removed her bachelor\u2019s degree from Hampton University, a historically black college, leaving just her master\u2019s degree from Spertus Institute, a Jewish school. She also deleted a position she once held at an African-American nonprofit organization and rearranged her references so the first people listed were not black.<\/p>\n

Black job seekers said the purpose of hiding racial markers extended beyond simply getting in the door for an interview. It was also part of making sure they appeared palatable to hiring managers once race was seen. Activism in black organizations, even majoring in African-American studies can be signals to employers. Removing such details is all part of what Ms. Orr described as \u201ccalming down on the blackness.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article provides some sociological data on how African Americans are faring in the labor market:<\/p>\n

[The] Popular perception that affirmative action still confers significant advantages to black job candidates…is not borne out in studies. Moreover, statistics show even college-educated blacks suffering disproportionately in this jobless environment compared with whites.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average organization either doesn\u2019t have diversity programs, or has the type that is not effective and can even lead to backlash,\u201d said Alexandra Kalev, a University of Arizona sociologist who has studied such efforts. \u201cSo in the average organization, being black doesn\u2019t help.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Playing down one’s black identity\u00a0may carry a psychic toll for those who do so:<\/p>\n

In \u201cCovering: the Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights,\u201d Kenji Yoshino, a law professor at New York University, wrote about this phenomenon not just among blacks but also other minority groups. \u201cMy notion of covering is really about the idea that people can have stigmatized identities that either they can\u2019t or won\u2019t hide but nevertheless experience a huge amount of pressure to downplay those identities,\u201d he said. Mr. Yoshino says that progress in hiring has meant that \u201cthe line originally was between whites and nonwhites, favoring whites; now it\u2019s whites and nonwhites who are willing to act white.\u201d<\/p>\n

John L. Jackson Jr., a professor of anthropology and communications at the University of Pennsylvania and author of \u201cRacial Paranoia,\u201d said he wondered about the \u201cexistential cost\u201d of this kind of behavior, even if the adjustments were temporary and seem harmless.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways, they are denying who and what they are,\u201d he said. \u201cThey almost have to pretend themselves away.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent New York Times article highlighted the phenomenon of African Americans\u00a0downplaying racial markers in\u00a0their resumes in order to compete in the job market: Tahani Tompkins was struggling to get callbacks for job interviews in the Chicago area this year when a friend made a suggestion: Change your name. Instead of Tahani, a distinctively African-American-sounding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39074],"tags":[131,39110,143,673,39111],"class_list":["post-1317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sightings","tag-economy","tag-inequality","tag-labor","tag-organizations","tag-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1325,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/1325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}