We live in America, and we live as Black Americans. We come in many shades of skin. Some of us are brown, some chocolate, some of us look white, some of us look tan, and some of us are dark like the night.
We have always been a society of people who "struggle" to get over. Has this changed for us? I recently was involved in a short converation in a meeting with a black group who worked at a Health Community Center. The topic of discussion carried on the floor involved important issues such as improving Customer Service and improvising ways to increase postive approaches to facilitating their job duties. They were asked to list ways to improve themselves as a person, and also to improve themselves working overall as a team player? In addition, what changes could be made that would improve customer relations as well. The tone in the meeting was well accepted until the manager informed them what the top adminstration had indicated they had viewed of them. The words went like "Yes, the manager commented they are saying that "You're black, you're dumb, and you're unprofessional!" The group's self-esteem dropped to the floor. It was evident that they were totally distraught. Then, they became angry! How and why were they considered to placed in a situation of being "put down"? They were in a rage! The meeting ended with remmissions of anger, a little remorse, but also at lot of positiveness came out as well. The positiveness being that the entire team wanted to improve their outlook to others and proving they could should show professional traits in the workplace. It was noted that the perception they displayed was too much laughing and joking, too much idle time, not enough courtesy and poor language skills.
Overall, I know this does not reflect the entire community of "Black Folk" We have certainly come a long way to improvements of ourselves. This is my personal opinion, but we have so much further to improving our conditions of our skills. We need education, and we need to improve our perception of ourselves. We need to practice habits of being a professional people. However, in all of this we must not forget, being black does not mean forgetting our nature of staying black. We are black, and we a a major class and a responsible society of people. The world of Corporate America will always consider us dumb and unprofessional. It's a fact, we battle with name calling this very day. We will always be black. We have the constant shadows facing us of being stero-typed by other races, and we have even went as far where we are now giving stero-type of ourselves.
There is a not super ending to writing comments like these. It's because actually is a contionous struggle in the need of professional and growth in the black communities. Each person of color should want to improve oneself's ability in the business and in the workplaces . What outlook are you displaying? The ability to change who are as person IS NOT the intention of this blog, IT IS having positive growth and making this our own reponsiblity of being smart, being strong, learning professionalism, staying the person of balance and harmony. Showing others we are proud to be black, smart enough to shine, and professional enough that we communicate well with others, no matter where we go.
Much Success to you!
MIISRAEL
Posted By: MIISRAEL Bride
Saturday, September 27th 2008 at 9:52AM
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