Racial Justice at Work

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Problem with “Professionalism”

TAMI JACKSON

Instructional Designer

The Winters Group, Inc.

(she/her/hers)

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

—W. E. B. DU BOIS

Entering the workforce, I was taught by those before me that in order to survive and succeed, I’d need to sacrifice everything about myself—no speaking in my natural voice or speech patterns, ...