I once spent a week in a Manhattan office as a sort of test
drive for a possible new career. The staff was friendly and competent, the work
was interesting, and the opportunities were sky high. I liked the company well
enough and they liked me. They liked me quite a bit. I was exactly what they
were looking for. I had met the founder/CEO of this top notch firm in church.
We were both serving in leadership roles and had worked together in differing
roles there. He liked how I went about things and asked if I would consider a
career change that would include coming to work for him. It looked like a great
opportunity.
The moment I stepped off the elevator I saw that this was
not like any company I was used to. Everyone was Mormon. Not just Mormon, but
graduates of BYU. It is not normal to find such a place on the East Coast where
Latter-Day Saints are about as common as Panda Bears. At all my previous jobs I
was forced to spend an abnormal proportion of my conversational time explaining
why I wasn’t drinking like everyone else, why I was wearing an extra layer
under my clothes, or why I never dropped the F-bomb like everyone else. I found
this a bit frustrating as I would have rather spent my time talking about literature,
movies, or maybe football. Rarely did I get a chance as my Mormonism trumped my
other interests, or at least trumped anything else that may have been
interesting about me. None of that would happen here. If I took this job those
days would be over. I was intrigued.
“I like hiring Mormons. I understand them, they understand
me, and we can have a work environment more in line with my values,” The boss
told me. “I can start off at a level of trust with a new employee that I wouldn’t
have otherwise and in this business there has to be trust.” I don’t think this
employer was completely against working with non-Mormons, I know that nearly
none of his clients were LDS, but he knew what he was looking for, knew where
to find it, and he just did what he knew. He knew Mormons.
In the end I didn’t take the job. We just couldn’t get the
numbers to work. That was years ago and they are still going strong. I don’t
know everyone there but I can pretty much guess a thing or two about whomever
it was that took the job that I did not. I’m pretty sure they were Mormon, went
to BYU, and were extremely capable. I think about them, and my experience
there, quite often. Strangely enough I think about it when I read in the paper
about affirmative action, racial profiling, and income inequality. I thought
about it during the Treyvon Martin trial, the Cliven Bundy showdown, and now
during the Donald sterling drama. In all these cases there is so much talk
about racism, or false accusations of racism, or reverse racism. Everyone has
an opinion, everyone knows what should be done, and everyone, no matter what
side they take, is upset.
So many are upset in part because we, the collective we, do
not really understand how racism works. We think racism is, or happens when, we
hate someone who is different. We think it is when we act out on this hatred of
another in some way. While this may be one way racism works, it is very much
not THE way racism works. The truth is that today, and in years past, for the
most part racism works just like that office in Manhattan.
Racism happens when we simply show a preference for our own.
Preference for our own is a precarious thing. It makes
sense. It’s easy. It’s also very exclusive and insular. Not only is it those
things but it is also the justification most all overtly racist policies or
groups have used to justify blatant discrimination. Most of those who supported
Jim Crow laws did not claim to hate black people, they simply wanted to “protect”
their own. Real estate agents and neighborhood alliances didn’t say black
people were horrible, they simply wanted to make sure white people could live
amongst their own. Labor unions, employers, and colleges never had to say they
hated minorities; they only had to say that they had a level of trust in the abilities
of their own.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not necessarily calling that
office full of Mormons racist. Nor am I calling the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints racist. But I will say that all the people in that office
were white. There were also no Jews. There were plenty of women and during that
week I never heard one person say anything negative about any group previously
mentioned. But the level of niceness, affection, or broad respect for humanity possessed
by those who worked there didn’t, and doesn’t matter to any black people; because
they aren’t there. Unless something changes, they never will be either.
That is the problem with a racist past never being addressed
by the “non-racist” present.
The group we belong to now, and what that group has or does, is a direct result
of what the members of our group did before. So, if that office would like to
stay Mormon forever, so be it. Who cares right? It is one company, one office,
what’s the big deal? In the grand scheme of things there really aren’t that many
Mormons, especially in New York, so why even bring it up? I bring it up because
this office is how modern racism works. That office is Mormon not because the
people there hate anyone; they simply have a set way of doing things. The same
could be said for Ford, Bain Capital, Tiffany & Co., the United States
Senate, NBC, CBS, ABC, Morgan Stanley, Stanford, any local police department,
the carpenters union, and on and on and on. Wall street firms don’t have to
hate black people, they only have to really like Wharton graduates. Wharton
doesn’t have to hate black people, it only has to really like legacies.
Legacies don’t have to hate anyone, they only have to really want their own
children to get into a great school. It goes on and on, spirals down, down,
down.
The only way things will ever change is if someone
intentionally changes it. It really isn’t enough to simply not be racist. Not
hating someone is not the same as giving them a chance. Really, what it will
take, and I call out that Mormon office because my own personal bias tells me
that Mormons, my people, should be great at this, is to think of someone other
than themselves. Look at someone new and give them a chance. Do the uncomfortable
thing.
Open up and let someone new in. Realize that if people are people, then “strangers”
deserve the same sort of favoritism we give the familiar.