Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesĪs I worked to break the barrier of acquaintance with whites, there were many uncomfortable moments. Protestors and Oakland police officers during a demonstration over grand jury decisions in police-involved deaths on December 15, 2014, in Oakland, California.
I wanted and needed something better than that. Not only was my professional development dependent upon broadening my worldview, but I became convinced that if I maintained a monoracial social life, I was settling for tolerance rather than acceptance and understanding as the standard for race relations. Diversity was not just about managing differences, I came to realize, but creating inclusive conditions that make a better society. What didn’t work was that I wasn’t practicing socially what I was preaching professionally. Being “separate as fingers” socially and coming together “as the hand” only for economic advantage or to advance collective causes worked. Washington’s 1895 proposal, “In all things that are purely social, we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress,” still made sense to me. It stayed that way for years.Īs I deepened my professional experience in diversity management, my monoracial list of friends became multiracial, at least at work. Although I had white co-workers and acquaintances, my closest friends were black. I joined all-black social groups, attended a black Catholic Church, almost exclusively read books by black authors, attended plays and movies with black themes, sponsored Kwanzaa celebrations, donated to black causes, and patronized as many black businesses as I could. When I left the convent, I immersed myself in black culture.
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