Code-switching for one, please ✋🏿
An email recently crossed my inbox with the following sentence – “All, my back of the fag packet calcs based on the above would suggest that there has been a movement increasing x…..” and I couldn’t move past it. I was stumped because I’d never heard this expression before; I understood what it meant, but I wondered why it was being used in this context, given the number of senior leaders on the thread.
My initial thought was to ping Kevin* a message in Teams and ask whether the words envelope and napkin got cancelled in the last few months and had missed this? I didn’t think he’d appreciate my humour and I’d have to explain my sarcasm.
However, as I continued to think about the use of the word fag in this context, I concluded that Kevin didn’t think anything about its use, and he had a level of comfort in the workplace that I, as a Black migrant woman, did not have.
There is a brilliant episode on code-switching done by the Still Processing Team @wesleymorris and @Jenna Wortham, which I will try to link below, which discusses the cost of code-switching in the workplace for people of colour, namely Black people. I highly recommend it.
If this term or concept is new to you, I’m glad you’re here. It’s especially important if you’re managing diverse teams.
Why do we code-switch in the workplace?
1. For black people and other racial minorities, downplaying membership in a stigmatized racial group helps increase perceptions of professionalism and the likelihood of being hired.
2. Avoiding negative stereotypes associated with black racial identity (e.g., incompetence, laziness) helps black employees be seen as leaders. **
3. Expressing shared interests with members of dominant groups promotes similarity with powerful organizational members, which raises the chance of promotions because individuals tend to affiliate with people they perceive as similar.
**add ‘being loud’ to the list of stereotypes in point 2
What does this look like in reality? A few excerpts from a World Economic Forum article:
Sarah Shakour, Marketing Communications, Forum Foundations: You’re taking out your culture or your personality and adapting to the environment you might be put in. It’s a little bit like imposter syndrome. I definitely get a lot of anxiety when I talk and present even though I know that I know it, I just still feel like I'm not the right person to know it. I also feel like I'm supposed to be a native English speaker – which I am, I’m American – but then you still feel like you don't articulate things well enough, or you don't communicate things clearly. So much thought and energy goes into presenting myself this way.
Jordynn McKnight, Designer: It means having to repress a part of yourself – be that the way you talk, or the way you appear, or the way you style your hair – so that people treat you at the same level as they do others. It comes with having a job and being in spaces where you're the only person like you there, and where you need to, essentially in other people’s eyes, build yourself up to that level, rather than everyone coming to an equal level and coming as they are.
McKnight: There are a couple of things that Black children or people of colour are taught to do to survive and succeed – and code-switching is one of those things. It can involve making sure you work harder than everyone around you, times three. And making sure you are dressed for the part – and if you're overdressed, that's even better. So the idea is your 130% will equal up to maybe 90%, right? You're always going to be behind, so just overdo it in every aspect. It obviously has a lot of ramifications from mental health to just existing on a day-to-day basis.
One of the most discussed consequences of code-switching is the mental health impact of being or presenting as someone different in the workplace or the like. But, I often wonder about the knock-on consequence of opting out. For example, do people of colour, especially women of colour, drop out or opt-out at certain levels of leadership because it’s simply exhausting to strive for success in an ecosystem not set up for our success whilst being someone else at work?
There are many studies conducted, with accompanying statistics, on the impact of having a family on women in leadership and the levels at which they opt-out or drop out in organisations. However, my research didn’t yield similar studies on the impact of POCs opting out because of mental fatigue brought on by acts of code-switching. Is psychological safety or lack thereof the POC’s glass ceiling?
I recently chaired a meeting for a leadership group at my Company, and I found myself zoning out and assessing each person present. I was the only leader of colour amongst the group of 9 and asked myself why, how was this still a thing? To be brutally honest, I was also exhausted from trying to navigate being myself amongst my peers. We were reviewing a deck, and the discussion became a bit contentious. I was looking for a way to diffuse the situation whilst refocusing everyone on the agenda at hand. I immediately thought of jokingly saying, “I think we can all agree that this deck is not giving what it’s supposed to give, shall we start over?” I didn’t say that, but I did think that a Monty Python or Only Fools and Horses joke would be beneficial here.
Another thought I had on Kevin’s email was the assumption that everyone on the thread knew what a fag is/was. I can imagine a scenario of a junior expat/economic migrant being confused by the term and asking what it meant. So, in addition to the level of comfort that accompanies not having to code-switch, there is also an assumption that everyone speaks the same way and has the same cultural and societal comfort that you do.
I’ve linked a few articles below on code-switching and what leaders and employers can do to help. I hope you find them useful.
One last note on Kevin, a few emails later, he used the phrase, “He’s going to noodle the best was to present the data……..” For the fun of it, please google: Noodle + urban dictionary and take a read of the second set of definitions.
*his name isn't Kevin….
Code-switiching articles:
https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-costs-of-codeswitching
https://diversityq.com/code-switching-having-to-fit-into-the-corporate-world-1511085/
This post was originally published on December 10th, 2021.