Shifting
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Shifting

Ms. Charisse Jones, Kumea Shorter-Gooden

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eBook - ePub

Shifting

Ms. Charisse Jones, Kumea Shorter-Gooden

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"Always moving, at times haunting, and often inspirational, Shifting provides a richly textured look at the lives of Black women. Jones and Shorter-Gooden poignantly portray the day-to-day challenges and triumphs of 'sisters' at work, in relationships, and in their spiritual lives."—Bebe Moore Campbell, author of What You Owe Me

Based on the African American Women's Voices Project, Shifting reveals that a large number of African American women feel pressure to compromise their true selves as they navigate America's racial and gender bigotry. Black women "shift" by altering the expectations they have for themselves or their outer appearance. They modify their speech. They shift "white" as they head to work in the morning and "Black" as they come back home each night. They shift inward, internalizing the searing pain of the negative stereotypes that they encounter daily. And sometimes they shift by fighting back.

With deeply moving interviews, poignantly revealed on each page, Shifting is a much-needed, clear, and comprehensive portrait of the reality of African American women's lives today.

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Year
2009
ISBN
9780061977114

1

THE ROOTS OF SHIFTING

Black women are seen as “hot in the pants,” tough and strong, able to withstand a lot of physical and emotional abuse, unfeeling…. I find this to be demeaning, degrading, and unproven. Yet I find myself constantly trying to disprove them.
CECILIA, 52, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT
The Gifts of Black Women in America
Black women in America have learned to find humor in heartache, to see beauty in the midst of desperation and horror. They have been both caregivers and breadwinners, showing incredible strength and resilience, unflinching loyalty, boundless love and affection. They have risen above centuries of oppression so that, today, after years of dealing with society’s racist and sexist misconceptions, with its brutal hostilities and unthinkable mistreatment, not only are they supporting families, they’re leading corporations, major media organizations, the military, our state and federal governments. Black women have often been the champions on our nation’s sports teams, breaking Olympic records, guiding the nation to victory. They have assumed a prominent place in the culture of our times both in the United States and abroad, contributing great literature, journalism, music, dance, theater, science. They have etched anew the cultural landscape with their courage and vision. Maya Angelou. Oprah Winfrey. Mae Jemison. Venus Williams. Alfre Woodard. Judith Jamison. Faith Ringgold. Lauryn Hill. Ruby Dee. bell hooks. Carol Moseley-Braun. Anna Deavere Smith. Faye Wattleton. Toni Morrison. Johnnetta Cole. There are so many brilliantly talented, beautiful, deeply thoughtful and intelligent African American women who are shaping our world today and doing everything possible to make it a richer and better place.
Black women have so much to offer our country, so many gifts to share with all of us. And yet, as a society and as a nation, we have never quite stopped to appreciate the truth of their experience, the verity of what it feels like to be Black and female, the reality that no matter how intelligent, competent, and dazzling she may be, a Black woman in our country today still cannot count on being understood and embraced by mainstream White America.
As a society, we know very little about the psychology of Black women, a group of 19 million people—7 percent of the U.S. population.1 The way they experience the workplace, the complexities of their romantic lives, the challenges they face as mothers and grandmothers, their spiritual and religious practices, these and so many other aspects of their lives are largely unknown to the wider community. Being ignored and poorly understood likely explains why so many Black women today still feel profoundly unhappy about their place in society. In a June 2002 Gallup poll, 61 percent of Black women said they were dissatisfied with “how Blacks are treated in society.”2 For Black men, the rate of dissatisfaction was lower—47 percent. In the same poll, 48 percent of Black women, in contrast to 26 percent of White women, said they were dissatisfied with “how women are treated in society.”
Black women in America have many reasons to feel this deep sense of dissatisfaction. As painful as it may be to acknowledge, their lives are still widely governed by a set of old oppressive myths circulating in the White-dominated world. Based upon those fictions, if a Black woman is strong, she cannot be beautiful and she cannot be feminine. If she takes a menial job to put food on the table and send her children to school, she must not be intelligent. If she is able to keep her family together and see her children to success, she must be tough and unafraid. If she is able to hold her head high in spite of being sexually harassed or accosted, she must be oversexed or promiscuous. If she travels the globe, she must be ferrying drugs rather than simply trying to see the world. Fifty-year-old Melissa from Los Angeles articulates what she finds most challenging about being a Black woman in America today: “Believing what I know and not what I’m told, and beginning to understand the divide. I am a Black woman. I am moral. I am intelligent. I am lovable. I am valuable. But the majority of the messages I get all say that I’m not…. I don’t know how I do it.”
While most people of color, and African Americans in particular, are perceived through a distorted lens, Black women are routinely defined by a specific set of grotesque caricatures that are reductive, inaccurate, and unfair. bell hooks of the City College of New York enumerates these “gendered racist stereotypes” that include the emasculating Sapphire, the desexualized Mammy, and the scheming temptress Jezebel.3 Today, in the twenty-first century, these and other stereotypes, so prevalent in old Hollywood movies and black-and-white television reruns, have mutated into contemporary versions of their old selves. Sapphire, for instance, can inevitably be found with just a few clicks of the remote control in an old episode of NYPD Blue or Law and Order when police make their way into a poor Black neighborhood. Sapphire is harsh, loud, uncouth, usually making the other characters seem more professional, more charming, more polished by contrast. She is a twisted take on the myth that Black women are invulnerable and indefatigable, that they always persevere and endure against great odds without being negatively affected. This is one myth that many Black women themselves embrace, and so they take on multiple roles and myriad tasks, ignoring the physical and emotional strain, fulfilling the stereotype. There is peer pressure among Black women to keep the myth alive, to keep juggling, to keep accommodating. Some women who desperately need balance in their lives, who greatly need assistance, never seek or receive it. Instead, their blood pressure soars. They overeat. They sink into depression. Some kill themselves or try. Others simply fantasize about making an escape.
Indeed, society’s stubborn myths continue to do tremendous damage to Black women. They often seep into their inner psyches and become permanently internalized, battering them from within even if they’re able, for a time, to wriggle free and live the truth. Stereotypes based on race, gender, and social class make it hard to trust oneself and to trust others who look or behave like you do. They set confusing parameters on who you think you are, and what you believe you should or can become. They often dictate what you expect, what seems real, and what seems possible.
The African American Women’s Voices Project
Over the last two years, the two of us—Kumea, a clinical psychologist and professor at Alliant International University, Los Angeles, and Charisse, a New York–based correspondent for USA Today—have completed the African American Women’s Voices Project, an extensive research project designed to explore the impact of racism and sexism on Black women in America. We set out to learn about African American women’s experiences of racial and gender stereotypes, bias, and discrimination; what it feels like; and how they react and respond to it. We wanted to know about the impact of racism and sexism on different aspects of their lives, on their self-image, their relationships with men, their lives as mothers, their experiences in church, and their experiences in the work world. We wanted to hear about whether, to what extent, and in what ways Black women change how they behave in order to counter the myths and manage direct acts of discrimination. We wanted to learn about internal changes as well, the emotional responses to and consequences of prejudice, the invisible toll of bigotry on their individual lives.
Ours is the largest, most comprehensive study to date of African American women’s perceptions and experiences of racism and sexism. A number of studies have focused on Black women’s experiences of racial bias and discrimination, and others have focused on gender stereotypes and prejudice, but few, like ours, have looked at both areas of discrimination simultaneously and how they connect and intersect with one another. The existing research on Black women’s experiences of racial or gender bias tends to be characterized by a small number of research participants, often a few dozen women; a research sample that represents a particular segment of the Black female population, for example, Black female college students or Black female managers; and samples that are geographically limited, often restricted to one or two colleges, a handful of workplaces, or one metropolitan area. As described below, our study includes a large number of women from across the country of diverse ages and backgrounds. Moreover, our research, unlike many other studies, entailed listening very closely to how Black women make sense of their lives, to the words and voices they use to evoke their experiences.
The psychology of Black women has gotten short shrift in the national discourse, mostly due to indifference and the same racial and gender prejudice that shadows Black women’s lives. But it is now critical that we pay attention. The rates of hypertension, depression, and AIDS among African American women have reached crisis proportions. Understanding the pressures Black women live with, and the compromises that they make mentally, emotionally, and physically, is of utmost importance. Their lives may depend on it. Thus, the African American Women’s Voices Project.
The project included a survey and in-depth interviews. With the generous and diligent assistance of research assistants located throughout the country, all of whom are Black women, we collected surveys from 333 women, ages 18 to 88, who reside in 24 states and Washington, D.C.: from large cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, Dallas, New York, and Atlanta, to suburbs in New Haven County, Connecticut, and Prince George’s County, Maryland; from small towns in New Jersey, Ohio, and Alabama to rural areas in Kentucky and Arkansas.4 We were able to obtain responses from a remarkably diverse cross section of Black women in America—women of different ages, educational backgrounds, incomes, marital statuses, and sexual orientations. The survey, which has mostly open-ended questions, asks women to write briefly about their perceptions of stereotypes of Black women, their major difficulties as Black women, whether and in what ways they’ve experienced racial and gender discrimination, whether they feel pressured to behave differently, and what helps them to “make it.” It also inquires about their joys as Black women—what they love about being Black and female. (See Appendix for more details on the survey and the findings.)
In addition to the surveys, we conducted in-depth interviews with 71 women throughout the United States.5 The interviewees range in age from 18 to 80 and represent many walks of life.6 Though the sample of women who were surveyed and interviewed is neither random nor representative of Black women in the United States, it provides a meaningful glimpse of the diversity of Black women across the country.
Along with the research we conducted, another source of data is Kumea’s experience as a psychologist. Some examples come from clinical class.
Many of the women we interviewed commented on how deeply moving it was to be asked about areas of their lives that other people generally express little interest in and offer little understanding of. Some wept during their time with us, and told us how cathartic it felt to have the chance—sometimes for the first time ever—to talk openly about the truth of their lives as Black women.
The “Shifting” Principle and Other Key Findings of the African American Women’s Voices Project
In the testimony of the women who participated in the African American Women’s Voices Project, by far the most resounding theme is that Black women in America find that they still must deal with pervasive race- and gender-based myths. Of the women we surveyed, 97 percent acknowledge that they are aware of negative stereotypes of African American women and 80 percent confirm that they have been personally affected by these persistent racist and sexist assumptions.7
Our research shows that in response to this relentless oppression, Black women in our country have had to perfect what we call “shifting,” a sort of subterfuge that African Americans have long practiced to ensure their survival in our society. Perhaps more than any other group of Americans, Black women are relentlessly pushed to serve and satisfy others and made to hide their true selves to placate White colleagues, Black men, and other segments of the community. They shift to accommodate differences in class as well as gender and ethnicity. From one moment to the next, they change their outward behavior, attitude, or tone, shifting “White,” then shifting “Black” again, shifting “corporate,” shifting “cool.” And shifting has become such an integral part of Black women’s behavior that some adopt an alternate pose or voice as easily as they blink their eyes or draw a breath—without thinking, and without realizing that the emptiness they feel and the roles they must play may be directly related.
The ways in which a Black woman shifts have of course changed over time. An enslaved woman or a Black woman living under the heel of Jim Crow would have to shift literally, casting her eyes downward, moving her body off a sidewalk or to the back of a crowded bus when a White passenger came into view. Today, shifting is more subtle and insidious—keeping silent when a White colleague sexually harasses her, for fear she will not be believed; acting eager but not aggressive at work, so as not to alienate a White boss; and then shifting again at home to appease a Black man who himself has to live with the pain and unfairness of society’s prejudices and hate.
Shifting is what she does when she speaks one way in the office, another way to her girlfriends, and still another way to her elderly relatives. It is what may be going on when she enters the beauty parlor with dreadlocks and leaves with straightened hair, or when she tries on five outfits every morning looking for the best camouflage for her ample derriere.
And shifting is often internal, invisible. It’s the chipping away at her sense of self, at her feelings of wholeness and centeredness—often a consequence of living amidst racial and gender bias.
To shift is to work overtime when you are exhausted to prove that you are not lazy. It is the art of learning how to ignore a comment you believe is racist or to address it in such a way that the person who said it doesn’t label you threatening or aggressive. It is overpreparing for an honors class to prove that you are capable, intelligent, and hard-working or trying to convince yourself that you are really okay no matter what the broader society says about you. It is feeling embarrassed by another African American who seems to lend a stereotype truth, and then feeling ashamed that you are ashamed. And sometimes shifting is fighting back.
There are few high-achieving Black women who are not adept at shifting, and few others who, whatever their proficiency, do not find that they must shift in order to survive. But sometimes in their endless quest to prove themselves and put others at ease, many Black women break down emotionally or physically under the pressure, their lives stripped of joy. Sometimes they are unable to withstand the onslaught of negative messages. Their sense of self falters as they start to believe the falsehoods, doubting their own worth, questioning their own capabilities. They become susceptible to an array of psychological problems, including anxiety, low self-esteem, disordered eating, depression, and even outright self-hatred. They may have made others comfortable, but left themselves feeling conflicted, weary, and alone.
The devastating impact that shifting can have on a woman’s psyche and soul is far more obvious today, if only because there are now statistics to document it. Our research and that of other colleagues suggests that the disconnect between who one is and who one must pretend to be can be tremendously damaging. Research consistently shows that Black women are less happy and experience more discontent than Black men, White men, or White women.8 For example, in a National Center for Health Statistics study of more than 43,000 U.S. adults, Black women were three times as likely as White men and twice as likely as White women to have experienced distressing feelings, like boredom, restlessness, loneliness, or depression, in the past two weeks.9 Our analysis of the survey and interview data from the African American Women’s Voices Project reveals that racist and sexist attitudes and discriminatory behavior are still taking a significant toll on Black women. Specifically we found that:
  • Race discrimination against Black women persists. Fully 90 percent of the women we surveyed say they have experienced discrimination, and 10 percent specifically remember being called a “nigger” at one point in their lives.
  • Gender discrimination against Black women is also pervasive. Sixty-nine percent of the survey respondents report that they have experienced bias or discrimination based on gender.
  • Most Black women “shift” their behavior to accommodate others. A majority (58 percent) of the women in our survey indicate that at times they have changed the way they act in order to fit in or be accepted by White people. Of this group, 79 percent say that to gain such acceptance, they have changed the way they speak, toned down their mannerisms, talked about what they felt White people were interested in, and avoided controversial topics.
  • Discrimination is experienced most frequently at...

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