On Being Brother Outsider: One Black Male Social Workers Experience Working Within Predominately White Spaces
As the only black social worker working at a predominately white agency, I realize that I will never be “on the inside”. I will always be brother outsider. Recently I was reminded of this when a former coworker came to visit the agency to gloat about her new promotion. Needless to say she did not acknowledge my presence whatsoever but congregated with her fellow white counterparts and regaled them all with the news. I never felt so invisible and so excluded in all my life. Picture it: November, 2022, Lonely black social worker looking behind thick clear Plexiglas scratching outside looking to be let into the conversation only to be seen as invisible by his white coworkers. At this moment I realized that for one, I will never be accepted at the agency I work for and two, bias is real even within spaces that profess to be “woke” and progressive.
Truth be told many predominately white social work agencies are just white women parties with bullshit mission statements that do not accurately reflect the reality of the clients they serve or the people that work there. As the only black male social worker working within these toxic white spaces, my invitation always gets lost in the mail. Truth be told, I have no real desire to RSVP to any of these “white women parties” as I find them to be cruel and inauthentic spaces where bigotry and bias reign supreme. Truth be told many of the white women that I work with don’t even like each other but if it’s between working with a black professional they don’t know or another white woman they don’t like, they will gladly take the white woman they don’t like over the black person they don’t know any day. The disturbing truth is that many white people like being in the majority. They like feeling like they are superior to other races. They will intentionally try to exclude you just to feed their delusions of grandeur. They cannot handle being in the minority as when this happens, that is when they start to whine, gripe and complain about the inequity of being in the minority. Many white women will try to center their experience in an effort to dominate conversations and spaces. They will try and leverage their status as women as a means to justify their bias behavior but the truth is they are no better than the white men who they feel are trying to oppress them. They are just as if not more so bias as the men they complain about.
In the social work field, I have had the displeasure of being supervised by vindictive white women who have resented my knowledge, skill and abilities and have deliberately denied me access to their support for fear that should I know what they know, I will somehow take their position. Honestly, I have always had a sneaking suspicion that these vindictive white women are envious of my lived experience as such experience has made me incredibly effective in delivering services to clients in a way they can’t. I’ve noticed how their faces literally screw up anytime the client has a breakthrough moment with me. They are jealous of the rapport I have with clients and the way clients have responded to me. Because of their jealousy, they have often times avoided me. They have also denied me the support necessary to really build confidence in my roles. If on the off chance they do pantomime support, it is merely for show. It is a front, a performative gesture, a charitable bone thrown to boost their white ego and also throw your suspicions off. These illusions of assistance are often times given to cover their own ass and avoid accusations of bias when truth is such counterfeit displays of support only reinforce your suspicions that much more.
Truth be told I do not feel comfortable asking white women supervisors for support as historically I have gotten none. At times when support is offered, it feels phony and merely given as an opportunity for them to work through some underlying bias they have. Because of this I’ve always felt like their support is either conditional or no real support at all. Do you know what this does to a black professional? To not feel supported in your role? It fosters feelings of professional aloneness. The black professional does not get the information he needs to do his job correctly and so not only does the professional suffer, the clients suffer as well. The black professional always operates in a constant state of high alert, always searching for cues that signal imminent danger while at the same time challenging and combating unhelpful beliefs about his very real experience. He always feels like he is walking in a minefield where the wrong step will result in his professional demise.
Additionally the trajectory of his social work career is adversely impacted as not having access to adequate supervision can stifle and inhibit professional growth and also affect his confidence to seek out other ventures. Having access to consistent support and competent mentorship from other black professionals has been known to improve career outcomes and support the professional development of other black employees.
Knowing how important it is to have adequate supervision from people that look like you, I have called for diversity many times within my agency but the truth about diversity is that it is the Freddy Krueger of predominately white spaces. White people say they are open to diversity initiatives but the moment black employees start to match or outnumber white employees, you will notice a phenomenon known as “White Flight” start to occur where white employees start to seek out other opportunities and ultimately abandon their posts in search of whiter pastures. And sure, many white people attend the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion trainings but once these trainings are over and they have signed their affidavits to be more fair, loveable, wonderful white people, it is back to their regularly scheduled bigotry. Now they just have a certificate that shows the world they’ve done their work when fact is, they haven’t done a damn thing at all.
Based on my experience working within predominately white spaces, It has become clear to me that in an effort to maintain prominence and retain the upper hand, white people will continue to form exclusive cliques, huddle in their own private meetings and deny black people real access to information, knowledge and support. It is not their intention to challenge the status quo but rather offer performative gestures of solidarity in an effort to avoid looking like awful people. Many continue to pretend that bias and bigotry bothers them when the fact is they enjoy having VIP seating in this coliseum of inequity. This is how they maintain power while at the same time maintaining a stance of innocence knowing full well their intentions are less than noble. Black professionals stay woke. You cannot continue to rely on the planation for your elevation. If you do, your demise is imminent.
