Noticing a person’s race doesn’t make you racist. What does make you racist is if you make assumptions about that person’s intellectual, physical, or emotional characteristics based on the race you think the person is.

Yes, even if those assumptions you make are positive. Ideas about “strong black women” or “smart Asians” are still racist because they reduce human beings to two-dimensional caricatures and assume that race predetermines intellectual, physical, and emotional traits.

She is right, It is time for our society to begin to get comfortable acknowledging differences rather than marginalizing those who are not members of the majority.

]]> http://thefonteneaufirm.com/the-color-blind-myth/feed/ 0 http://thefonteneaufirm.com/confessions-of-a-big-firm-dropout-why-women-of-color-are-dissatisfied-in-the-firm-environment-part-ii/ http://thefonteneaufirm.com/confessions-of-a-big-firm-dropout-why-women-of-color-are-dissatisfied-in-the-firm-environment-part-ii/#comments Mon, 24 Dec 2007 04:05:15 +0000 Kira Fonteneau http://thefonteneaufirm.com/brilliantcolor/?p=33 A few weeks ago I posted about some of the reasons female minority lawyers are dissatisfied with the law firm environment.  Well yesterday, I was watching Saturday Night Live’s annual commercial show and this sketch, while funny hit on some salient issues. 

One of the things that made me most proud of my grandmother was that she did not have believe that there were any limitations on what she was able to do with her life. Growing up in the early 20th Century, it would have been easy to accept that her life was somehow limited by her skin color. But she understood what all successful women should, your potential is only limited by your desire and willingness to work towards your dream. Billie was never afraid to dream or to work towards making dreams reality. It was that spirit that led her to leave home and pursue a career in dance and later to become an entrepreneur. Billy had an internal drive that pushed her to achieve, others need a little help from others.

I can remember when I was think about going to law school. I had gone to a career counselor because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. The first time I went to see the counselor she asked me what I wanted to do when I was a child. I told her that when I was a little girl I wanted to be a lawyer or a journalist. In college I focused on journalism, but discarded the idea when I realized the starting pay for a young journalist was very low. But somehow, I never got back around to the law. After graduation I took a job at a bank and began to work like many people do. After a couple of years, I realized that I was not going to be happy at the bank for the rest of my life but I could not visualize any other path. I found myself settling for the opportunities my superiors saw as good for me rather than pursuing the options that were interesting to me.

During my conversations with the career counselor, law school kept coming up. I had so many reasons why I could not do it, I would not do well on the LSAT, I could not afford to quit my job and the excuses went on and on. Finally, one day I went by the law school and I stood staring at a rack of LSAT registration booklets. As I stood there, paralyzed, a woman walked by and said, “Are you thinking of going to law school?, you should go.” I was stunned and I told her I did not think I could afford it, that I had waited too long since undergrad and that I would not be able to quit my job. She looked at me and told me that she was 36 years old she had a 12 year old daughter and she was a full time law student. She assured me that I was making excuses because if she could do it I could do it. I picked up the book, but in the back of my mind I still did not believe that I could do it.

Well the woman was right, I could do it and by the next August I was a law student. I did it by setting incremental goals. Each time I would achieve a goal I would set another one until there was nothing else to do but go to school. The key thing is that each time I achieve a goal, I get a little more confident. Billie never doubted that she could make her dreams come true, she just took incremental steps toward making the dream a reality. It just goes to show that once you begin to change your thought process there are no insurmountable obstacles, only challenges that need to be methodically attacked.

While the story did accurately depict a change in attitudes among younger workers, it was off-base with regard to the causes.  The piece pointed to baby-boomer parenting tactics that encouraged self worth over hard work and results driven praise as the cause of changes in the attitudes of younger workers .  What the piece did not address was what role changes in employer behavior played in the change.  Over the past two decades, younger workers have watched as their parents were laid off or had their salaries cut at the whim of their employers.  This corporate behavior sent a powerful message to the children of the workers that there is no such thing as job security in today’s workplace.

Simply put, the change in behavior is probably due at least in part to a recognition of the fact that the employer is going to make choices based on the bottom line.  If the employer can and will make decisions without regard to the impact on individual employees,isn’t it rational for the employee to demand all it can and vote with their feet if the company does not oblige?

We may indeed be at a tipping point in which values are more associated with class status than with traditional notions of race.  This is important because the NPR story that analyzed the survey indicated that white and black values are in fact, becoming more similar as the gulf between lower-class blacks and middle to upper-class blacks grows.  The gulf may be widening as people of higher socio-economic classes begin to try to shed the stereotypical images that seem to predominate the media’s airwaves. Or perhaps the Gulf is a result of the simple economic truth that education and access to money have a profound effect on an individual’s values.

For those of us interested in issues of diversity it means that perhaps it is time to re-examine the assumptions we make about race.  Instead, maybe t is time for us all to take a long hard look at the class issues that are at the heart of the problems we all face.   

Frankly, as a firm dropout, this study did not surprise me at all.  Earlier this year the ABA’s Commission on Women in the Profession published its own study that came to largely the same conclusions.  From my perspective, the problems stem from partners’ and coworkers’ inability to see people as the individuals they are, rather than  stereotype based on physical characteristics.  For a woman of color, this inability can result in a double set of stereotypes that are hard to live down.

It is normal to notice the differences among us as long as we are sure we are noticing real differences and not presumptions based on misinformation and outmoded prejudices.  If firms want to increase the feeling of inclusion among their associates, they have to understand that diversity is about nuance and balance and actions speak louder than words.  It is simply not enough to publish policy statements about valuing diversity and recruit at minority job fairs.  Firms have to think about what they will do with the candidates once they become employees.  That means changing the firm’s culture if necessary and confronting partners who refuse to get with the program.  If your firm is having a hard time retaining double minority employees, perhaps the firm needs to take a look at whether there are institutional barriers to success that linger rather than writing it off as just another bad hire.

The case came to my attention when I was an intern in the Georgia Governor’s office as the Executive Counsel’s intern.  I worked for Georgia Supreme Court Justice Harold Melton who at the time was the Executive Counsel to the Governor.  At the time, the case was just beginning to get publicity because video of the incident between Wilson, his friends and the underage girl had leaked to the media. The case was beginning to snowball and I had to give a report to the Executive Counsel explaining how Wilson’s case differed from Dixon’s. Wilson, like Dixon, was charged with aggravated child molestation and faced a mandatory sentence.  What made the Wilson case legally interesting was that although the Supreme Court ruled in Dixon’s case that the legislature’s intent was not to subject those convicted of consensual sex with a younger person to felony molestation charges, the precedent did not extend to cases where the conduct involved non-procreative sex.

Both cases drew national attention because of the perceived injustice facing two young males who had done nothing more than have sex with arguably consenting young women.  There was a lot of talk about their promising futures lost to the harsh realities of being a convicted felon sex offender. However what seems to be missing is the discourse on why society allows young male athletes a pass when they take part in denigrating young women.  In Wilson’s case particularly his behavior was deplorable.  He not only took part in encouraging a young girl to perform a sexual act on him and his friends, they also videotaped the episode.  Despite this, many people rushed to his defense and demanded his release.  Maybe the punishment was harsh, but what about the damage he did to the young girl he took advantage of?  What about her future?

As we traveled to his races throughout the summer, I always knew there were not many, if any, other blacks competing but we never really took time to think about why until we were on the plane ride home and we started talking to the person sitting next to us.  He was traveling with a friend who was also an Xterra competitor and we sort of struck up a conversation. When he told us that it struck him as odd that there were no other African-Americans out there competing, we all began to wonder out loud.

So why is it?

One issue could be access to financial resources. Both mountain biking and swimming are expensive sports. Omar has been swimming since he was a child, in fact he swam in the same club team as Michael Phelps.  He tells me that this type of training requires a significant time and financial investment.  Mountain biking and road cycling are also very expensive sports where bikes cost in the thousands and shoes and other equipment are also very expensive, so perhaps money is an inhibitor.

Another, closely linked consideration could be return on investment.  Few, if any, triathletes can make a living at the sport that they love. Even if you can get sponsors, the money that can be earned pales in comparison to what can be earned in revenue generating sports like basketball or football.  So perhaps there is little incentive for parents to get their children involved in these kinds of sports.

We never came to any definitive conclusions, but you are welcome to share your thoughts about why there are very few blacks in the sport by commenting on this post.  You can also keep track of Omar’s progress as he trains for next season at his website. 

"all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.”

Watson went on to say that: "His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. He writes that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically."

This is not the first time that Watson has made insensitive remarks. In the past, he has been raised the ire of women’s groups for his comments about female scientists. It seems that Watson would counter that many of his comments have a basis in science in scientific research. One has to wonder if these statements were made in an effort to help sell his new book. If it isn’t, this may just be an example of how seemingly intelligent people can be shockingly ignorant.

]]> http://thefonteneaufirm.com/dr-watson-presumes-too-much-nobel-prize-winner-quoted-making-an-insensitive-statement/feed/ 0 http://thefonteneaufirm.com/everything-i-need-to-know-about-success-i-learned-from-my-grandma-billie-part-vi/ http://thefonteneaufirm.com/everything-i-need-to-know-about-success-i-learned-from-my-grandma-billie-part-vi/#comments Tue, 09 Oct 2007 00:37:35 +0000 Kira Fonteneau http://thefonteneaufirm.com/brilliantcolor/?p=23 Successful Women are not afraid to take their seat at the table, or enjoy the meal.

Successful Women are not afraid to take their seat at the table, or enjoy the meal. When my grandmother died, she left me a treasure trove of memorobilia and pictures. Among the items she left me I found some of her writings. Throughout her life she wrote. I found opinion pieces she sent to news papers, poems she wrote to pass the time, and letters to friends and famous people. Soon after she died, I sat down and got to know her in a way that I never did before. I came away with sure of one thing. Billie was determined to leave a mark on the world. Among her writings I found a journal entry Download Barrymore.pdf she wrote concerning a chance encounter with John Barrymore, the early 20th century actor and Drew Barrymore’s grandfather. When Billie met Barrymore, she knew that dancing in front of him could be a life changing event. She decided to make the most out of the opportunity. She didn’t spend any time thinking about whether she was good enough to dance for him or whether he would appreciate her talents. She was confident enough to know that she was good. So when the spotlight came up on her, she danced like there was no tomorrow and she never regretted a thing.