Black people and Professionalism…
Today I was confronted with something I had been thinking for some time but never wanted to admit. The lack of professionalism amongst my black colleagues both young and old. I am still young and have not worked in many places but I have noticed something in many of the places in which I have worked and that is; black people are rarely in positions of authority. I have also noticed that many of these black people lack professionalism. Whether it be inappropriate behaviour, garish behaviour, gossiping, lack of dedication to the job and various other issues.
Today I tried to save a fellow black woman from embarrassing herself only to find that my help was not wanted. Let me explain…
An entire staff meeting was held with approximately 100 people in one room. We were seated at tables of around 8 people per table and the tables were quite close together due to a lack of space. A senior member of staff held the meeting and started mentioning things that create a positive working environment. One of the things she mentioned was people greeting one another with a simple ‘good morning’ every day. Myself and some colleagues have experienced this not happening on many occasions and gave each other a look and bit of a giggle before returning to listening to what was being said. Once the senior member of staff had stopped speaking and advised us to discuss things within our tables a colleague of mine did something I found very embarrassing. This colleague is old enough to be my mother and someone whom I thought had a bit more sense then to do this. She started speaking to our table (where our manager was present) but loudly enough for colleagues at the other tables to hear and said, ‘Yea, cos some of the people in here ain’t got no bloodclart manners and don’t know how to say good morning’. I calmly mentioned her name and gave her the eye as if to say ‘we are not amongst friends this is a work meeting and you aren’t exactly speaking quietly’. Well that was clearly the wrong thing to do because that seemed to annoy her even more, she went on to say, ‘oh people in here just want to silence you so I will just shut my mouth’. I calmly said to her that she shouldn’t let other peoples negative vibes get to her and she again mentioned shutting her mouth.
All of 30 seconds later she began talking about me to a colleague (remember they are sitting at the same table as me and we are still in a meeting) who was only too willing to join in. The other colleague even had the cheek to say that I have been working there 5 minutes and just because I have been promoted I think I can speak over people. I was so angry but mainly with myself for even trying to alert this colleague to her abhorrent behaviour.
Maybe this happened because yes I have only been working at my workplace for 5 months and yes I have been promoted already but I doubt this was the reason. I say this because this is not the first time I have seen a black colleague act in a stereotypical manner and by stereotypical I mean ‘aggressive’.
As black people we need to start thinking about the real reasons why we are not excelling into the highest positions within our field as often, why we are overlooked for managerial roles and not just sit around and claim racism is the cause. Yes racism is most certainly still alive and some may say growing but so is the ignorance and lack of professionalism amongst black people. Cause and effect maybe? It is a possibility but I refuse to be the stereotypical ‘angry black woman’.
