In his most recent piece for the The Atlantic, “The Black Journalist and the Racial Mountain,” Ta-Nehisi Coates attempts to defend himself in a way that may feel familiar to those who do diversity and inclusion work.
The piece is a response to a different piece published by another black journalist named Howard French for The Guardian. In “The Enduring Whiteness of American Media,” French rails against big media for failing to produce diverse newsrooms and by damaging the careers of black journalists by pigeonholing them into stereotypical silos: sports, entertainment, and “urban” stuff. French cites Coates as the premiere example of the latter transgression: “For decades it has been clear that space is made in the firmament for a tiny number of black journalists at any given time, if mostly to write about race. These figures, however brilliant, find themselves transformed into unwilling emblems of inclusivity – the journalistic and literary equivalent of a black president, a figure whose ascendancy can be cited by white people as proof that we don’t have a race problem any more.”
Coates’ response is long and measured, but he sets it up this way: “French believes that it is imperative that black writers cross ‘the river,’ as he did, and escape the presumably provincial confines of covering race. In this, he echoes the white critics who so often say to those of us interested in black America, ‘Can’t you write about something other than racism?’ without realizing that racism is the font of their very question, their very identity, their very world.”
The two journalists have now framed a long-read debate that’s tough to watch, but necessary to consider. At the heart of the argument is an exploration of power and identity, and how humans operate within a broader social system. For those in corporate environments, it speaks to the very real risk that you will always be the only one who looks like you in the room. And research shows if you point it out, you may be punished for it.
David Thomas, dean of the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown, shared research of his own. “It takes longer for people of color to get their first managerial jobs,” he says. “People are more likely to trust performance data that says someone is an outstanding performer when they are white—it literally takes longer for people to make a positive attribution to a black or brown person than a white person.” And the inclusion work they do as “representatives” is often uncompensated and a distraction from their core jobs.
Common attribution error is just one of the biases that we can work on. But the psychological cost to people when they have to work harder to be noticed—or constantly justify the inclusion work they do—is real. “We have to factor our health in,” he says. “We pay a high price.”
To that end, have a wonderful weekend. Doctor’s orders.