My dilemma wasn't unique – these are considerations for many minority applicants at the gates of professional careers. In a recent study, a third of Asian and black participants reported whitening their resumé or covering their minority status. And though it may pain the soul to do so, it works. Black students who whiten resumés get 2.5 times more callbacks. For Jamal to be considered equal to Greg, he needs eight more years of experience. Companies say they want diverse candidates, but the numbers don't bear the claims out. Whitening is just one of the many ways we try to fit into these worlds when we would rather they expand to include us.
My parents moved here to offer me the promise of the North American dream, the promise that if I had the brains and the willingness to work hard, I would get what I deserve. But pure merit is a myth. Even in the legal profession, and maybe especially so there, as much as merit may be about working hard, it is more accurately about opportunity, belonging and fit. And as a person of colour, these are roadblocks at every step along the way. Do you fit in as a law student? Can you even go to law school in the first place? Do you get an interview? Do you choose not to apply because you don't see yourself represented? Do you fit enough to get the job? And if you get the job, can you fit enough to remain? These are questions we all ask, black or white, male or female, but the answers are harder for some of us than others.
Later, a fellow law student, a white woman, asked me if I was going to wear my natural hair to interviews. I hadn't thought of that. I'd worn it naturally since I started university. But how black is black enough, and how black is too much? Should I straighten my hair, which I hadn't done in seven years? I didn't want to work for a firm that wouldn't want me as I am. But I knew this principle might come at a cost. After all, I'd never met a black lawyer with natural hair.
People gravitate toward people who are like them. Social scientists call this homophily. We consciously and unconsciously surround ourselves with others like us, who in turn validate our own choices and values. "You are trying to pick candidates from a very, very qualified group of people," a management consultant named Amit explains in Pedigree, a book by sociologist Dr. Lauren Rivera that explores professional hiring. "And what separates them ends up being some of your preferences and if you have shared experiences." We end up defining fit, and thus merit, in our own image.
But when a firm is mostly white, who do you have to be and what experiences do you have to have to belong? What does it mean to be like them? The website of any major downtown Toronto firm shows an ocean of mostly white faces, especially at the partnership level. Take Torys, a top-tier firm. Of its 87 partners in the Toronto office, about 10 appear to be minorities. Akkawi is first. Middle Eastern maybe. Amm is followed by Armstrong. I scrolled past the Gs, past the Ns. I reach W. There, I found what appeared to be the sole black partner, Cornell C.V. Wright. McGill undergrad, like me. Law degree from U of T, just like me.
But when a firm is mostly white, who do you have to be and what experiences do you have to have to belong? What does it mean to be like them? The website of any major downtown Toronto firm shows an ocean of mostly white faces, especially at the partnership level. Take Torys, a top-tier firm. Of its 87 partners in the Toronto office, about 10 appear to be minorities. Akkawi is first. Middle Eastern maybe. Amm is followed by Armstrong. I scrolled past the Gs, past the Ns. I reach W. There, I found what appeared to be the sole black partner, Cornell C.V. Wright. McGill undergrad, like me. Law degree from U of T, just like me.
When I was a child, my father told me I could be anything I wanted if I put my mind to it. He always added a reminder that as a black person, I would have to be twice as good to be considered equal. But I learned that other people don't like it when I'm twice as good and am the colour I am. They didn't like my confidence, and they didn't like when I overshadowed their daughters and outperformed their sons without the tutors and the lessons my parents couldn't afford. Invariably, these people would take steps to try to put me in my place. And so, I learned to excel, for me, for my father, but to keep it hidden.
Sociologist Annette Lareau distinguishes between the approaches of working-class parents and privileged parents. The former tend to adopt a natural-growth parenting strategy, where kids are free to develop without interference in their school lives and extracurriculars. Conversely, privileged parents engage in "concerted cultivation," playing integral and operative roles in their children's schooling and activities.
Despite not having much money, my father took the concerted-cultivation approach. He was savvy enough to know that being able to speak the language of the upper class would be useful one day. My mother focused on making sure we were fed well and chauffeured around. My father's domain was school and activities. He was the classic example of the parent who, when I got 95 per cent on a test, asked what happened to the other 5 per cent. He made sure I took all the right advanced courses and applied to well-regarded programs at excellent universities. From a young age, I participated in after-school clubs and extracurriculars: swimming, dance, gymnastics and guitar, among others. My dad didn't buy a new winter coat for five years, but we had a piano and listened to Coltrane (now, the name of the family dog). My dad knew what to do. Many parents don't.
Despite not having much money, my father took the concerted-cultivation approach. He was savvy enough to know that being able to speak the language of the upper class would be useful one day. My mother focused on making sure we were fed well and chauffeured around. My father's domain was school and activities. He was the classic example of the parent who, when I got 95 per cent on a test, asked what happened to the other 5 per cent. He made sure I took all the right advanced courses and applied to well-regarded programs at excellent universities. From a young age, I participated in after-school clubs and extracurriculars: swimming, dance, gymnastics and guitar, among others. My dad didn't buy a new winter coat for five years, but we had a piano and listened to Coltrane (now, the name of the family dog). My dad knew what to do. Many parents don't.
No matter what firms claim, the hiring process is just not set up to test how good a lawyer you might be, whether you'll craft that memo just so, or be willing to work 18-hour days on a pressing transaction. Instead gut feelings and underlying similarity seem prized over all else, a significant disadvantage for those from less privileged backgrounds.
Nowadays in Canada, overt acts of racism are rare. Instead, the subtle ones tire you out and wear your sense of belonging. They happen more often, more insidiously. These acts of discrimination can be more detrimental than blatant racism or sexism. It's easier to point out prejudice when someone is overtly racist. Organizations have policies and procedures for reporting explicit racism and sexism. Others, hearing your story, are suitably outraged. But the underground cracks, passive-aggressive dismissals, the ghostly put downs, are harder to mark.
I was not alone in these feelings. Ritu Bhasin, a diversity consultant and former legal talent director at Stikeman Elliott, and author of The Authenticity Principle says, "People feel they have to change who they are, move away from their authentic self to get ahead. But there's only so much conforming and masking we can do. It eats away at your spirit. And after a while, you'll either be pushed out or self-select out, because it's exhausting to be someone you're not." No wonder so many of us leave.
In October, 2010, I attended an event called Black Partners on Bay Street. The Canadian Association of Black Lawyers was honouring 17 people for making it to the upper tier, believed to be the only ones among the more than 2,000 partners working at large firms in the Toronto financial core. Waiters moved around the Blake Cassels & Graydon conference room with appetizers and canapes. I ate my first oyster, the taste of horseradish and the sea salty on my tongue.
Amidst the mix of chatter and laughter, I realized it was the first time I wasn't a minority in the room at a law firm. Where I didn't feel like I was wearing a mask. That rare and, until then, unknown sense of lightness told me what corporate life could be like for others like me – the same lightness I felt chatting and commiserating with Walwyn about our experiences as black women on Bay Street. Sitting with her, I felt a glimmer of what it would have been like to go through my time at my firm with someone who looked like me, who had felt the same unease. Who wouldn't have questioned or invalidated my concerns.
I still feel some discomfort, guilt and shame about my time at the firm. Uncomfortable that I kept myself boxed in. Shame that I didn't stand up for myself and my values and push the needle on what constituted a good associate. Guilt that I didn't do more to stick around to be there for the next black woman to come up the ranks. I tried to return to the firm, after discovering that the small firm wasn't for me – I missed my friends and colleagues, the bigger files. The same partner who'd asked me to stay argued against my return.
Amidst the mix of chatter and laughter, I realized it was the first time I wasn't a minority in the room at a law firm. Where I didn't feel like I was wearing a mask. That rare and, until then, unknown sense of lightness told me what corporate life could be like for others like me – the same lightness I felt chatting and commiserating with Walwyn about our experiences as black women on Bay Street. Sitting with her, I felt a glimmer of what it would have been like to go through my time at my firm with someone who looked like me, who had felt the same unease. Who wouldn't have questioned or invalidated my concerns.
I still feel some discomfort, guilt and shame about my time at the firm. Uncomfortable that I kept myself boxed in. Shame that I didn't stand up for myself and my values and push the needle on what constituted a good associate. Guilt that I didn't do more to stick around to be there for the next black woman to come up the ranks. I tried to return to the firm, after discovering that the small firm wasn't for me – I missed my friends and colleagues, the bigger files. The same partner who'd asked me to stay argued against my return.
But that will never happen for me. That belonging remains out of reach for so many. It's been five years since I left private practice – I eventually left the small firm and have been working on my Ph.D. at U of T since then – and even now I still feel on edge when I find myself at the intersection of Bay and Adelaide, staring up at Fasken's windows. No one slows down or engages with anyone else, motoring forward in a form of Bay Street chicken and dodging only when faced with an equally determined person. I engaged in that battle, noting how often the white person expected me to be the one who moved out of the way, and was surprised when I didn't.
It's a subtle assertion of power here on the sidewalk, same as the right bowtie, a flashy sock, the name-brand purse, the determined march while making a deal on the phone. The assumption that I should be the one to make way is a means of stating that I don't belong down here in the world of power and money. I notice a black man in a sharp suit, and then a black woman talking on her cellphone. We catch eyes, almost as if to say, "I see you," and "We belong here, too."
It's a subtle assertion of power here on the sidewalk, same as the right bowtie, a flashy sock, the name-brand purse, the determined march while making a deal on the phone. The assumption that I should be the one to make way is a means of stating that I don't belong down here in the world of power and money. I notice a black man in a sharp suit, and then a black woman talking on her cellphone. We catch eyes, almost as if to say, "I see you," and "We belong here, too."
I do miss some things about being a lawyer: power outfits; coffees with my fellow associates to decompress after a busy morning; nailing a legal argument for a case; Brian taking me to a grocery store in Rosedale to buy my first soft-shell crab after our hearing ended early; the confidence of handing my business card to people and seeing them look suitably impressed. But I don't miss the isolation and the nagging sense that other people didn't feel I belonged. Or the sense that I was once again play-acting at another life, putting on a mask and the body armour of a sharp pin-striped suit to go to work, steeling myself against the discomfort I might face. And, then, when I returned home, unzipping my skirt as quickly as possible, massaging my aching feet after eight hours in heels, sinking into the comfort of my couch and changing back into myself.
