African-American women often feel the need to switch personas, presenting a workplace facade from 9-to-5 and revealing their true selves only at home. Why do they live in two worlds—public and private? From the book Shifting, some startling answers.




The workplace is where black women feel they must shift most often, engaging in a grown-up game of pretend as they change their voices, attitudes and postures to meet the cultural codes of a workaday America as well as the broader societal codes of gender, race and class. Work is where they are most likely to confront all the myths about black women head-on, and the stage upon which they may utilize every shifting strategy in their arsenal.

With their white peers, they must shift to shatter the stereotypes of the unqualified "token" who has her job because of affirmative action. With their black male colleagues, they shift to topple the idea held by some that their progress up the organizational ladder comes at the expense of black men. Some shift by ignoring the codes of sisterhood that normally bond many black women, instead striking up a more distant, neutral stance that strains those relationships yet puts their white colleagues at ease. And still others shift by downplaying their success at work. They feel guilty about their achievements and worry that other African Americans will think they have shunned their own community to make it in the mainstream.

This constant shifting, many black women say, has made work a place of alienation. Having to overcome the myths, shift their language and behavior and endure outright inequities all take a great toll. And their careers, personal lives and health suffer
tremendously as a result.

When we asked our survey respondents about the major difficulties that they face as black women, 39 percent pointed to problems related to work—struggling to be hired, having to work harder than others, being paid less than their colleagues for comparable work and being passed over for promotions. Over two thirds (69 percent) had experienced some form of bias or discrimination at work; 41 percent indicated they had experienced racial discrimination, and 34 percent said they had experienced gender discrimination while on the job.

Many women testify to spending several hours each day feeling profoundly disconnected from who they truly are, a loneliness that may remain long past quitting time, when the dishes are washed and the children are in bed.


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