“Code-Switching For Survival”
Survival: The state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances.
When the subject of code-switching comes up I often hear it defined in the most basic of ways; as interacting differently depending on the social context we’re in.
That basic definition takes on new meaning in the context of examining the impact of white supremacy on people of color, because having an “everybody does that” approach to code-switching serves to flatten the differences and erases the unique ways that people of color have to modify their movements in order to survive in predominantly white spaces.
Early last week, I went to the first day of our annual Teach-In. The consistent theme is power, privilege, and difficult dialogues and attended a student-led session on code-switching and navigating historically white institutions as Black Students.
Lots of themes came up including:
The effects of code-switching. Managing multiple identities: Cultural, social, “professional”.
Ideas about what it meant to “speak proper”.
The struggle with deciding whether or not to be comfortable (being who they are) vs being “smart”.
How tone gets interpreted or misinterpreted. Who gets to be angry? Who is seen as assertive vs. aggressive?
“Proper” hair and attire.
In the evening I had the honor of moderating a panel on code-switching for survival in the workplace for BL²END; an organization dedicated to increasing the engagement and retention of young professionals of color in the Greater Grand Rapids community.
Questions included:
What is your definition of code-switching, and how does it impact your daily work life?
When did you first become aware of code-switching? When did you realize that it was something you needed to do?
What about the cost of code-switching? What does it cost you personally? What are organizations deprived of when you are unable to be your authentic self?
What does resistance look like for you? What are you doing to push back and promote authenticity for yourself and for the folks coming behind you?
What can organizations and working environments change about themselves to create the conditions necessary for people of color to be their authentic selves?
The fact that the program ran over by nearly an hour and a half demonstrated how needed person of color-centered spaces really are.
The next day, I co-facilitated a workshop on code-meshing with some colleagues from the writing center on linguistic diversity that centered African-American Vernacular English and it’s legitimacy.
A major way that power and privilege are maintained, a major way that white supremacy is perpetuated and maintained is by explaining inequity in a matter-of-fact, “that’s just the way it is” type of way.
I see this often in higher education in White educators and administrators who believe that they are somehow “preparing students for the real world” by resisting or outright refusing inclusive interventions that demand them to change their way of doing things because that status quo upholds white supremacy.
Each time I encounter it, these mental gymnastics always surface when racial contexts are salient in discussions about access.
Although it doesn’t always come out this explicitly, the message never fails to communicate that “the world is racist and the only way to prepare students of color for that racist world is or them to perpetuate a racist system.”
Wrong.
Kimberlé Crenshaw once said that when you have conversations about racial differences without talking about power, you get discourse that blames marginalized people for their marginalization.
The truth is that students of color already recognize that they must navigate through systems that did not have them in mind at their inception, and are more often than not designed to inhibit their participation or success. In this way, they are much more in touch with how “the real world” actually works.
Participants who attended the panel discussion event wanted a part 2 where where they could explore more closely code-switching as a way of conforming to whiteness, as well as more conversation about what resistance for people of color can look like. If I’m invited back I may share my reflections here in my Notebook, or at Notes from an Aspiring Humanitarian.
“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”
From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones
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Good job with a much needed topic. This topic was displayed in the movie The Hate You Give. If your audience or you havent seen the movie it’s a great film that deals with the issue of code switching and the emotions surrounding these actions. When this film is out for sale, it is definitely worth the purchase to use as a teaching tool.
Thank you. I have heard great things about the book, as well as the film!