I have been away from corporate Canada for a while. One of the features of my 20 plus years career in corporate Canada is that every time I got a new supervisor I was fired. What I remember about these firings is the consistency of the excuse. Each of these supervisors said the same thing, used the exact same words: “Mr. Mbdw is not a good fit for my team”. The last time that happened, I said, “fuck it” and I spent the next several years doing things that I have been putting off including writing a book.
Recently, I rejoined corporate Canada and there are some new features in corporate Canada that are designed to refine the system. If I didn’t know better, I might even think that corporate Canada has become an ally in Black liberation. I can’t say that corporate Canada is any better for people of African origin but there are different policies and behaviours in the terrain that I can see. One reason for the new features is the pandemic. The pandemic has caused corporations, at least the one I am at, to become okay with silos. Silos were one of those things that corporate Canada raged again. They didn’t want people working by themselves or teams working in silos. The pandemic brought home to corporations that people have to be somewhat crazy to work in a corporation. It turned out that most people have some form of mental issue. These issues ranged from a light touch of alcoholism and drug addiction to anxiety or to outright fear of differences, including differences in opinions. Of course, silos are one way of dealing with people’s mental issues. It is the corporate equivalent of cell phone gazing when someone with obvious mental and social issues get onto the same bus or train as us normal people.
Corporate Canada, to me, has always been a place where people have mental issues. The personalities shift from being sycophant to being bullies. Being a bully is defined as showing leadership, while a sycophant is a team player. Even though, mental issues have always been a part of corporate Canada, now the corporation seems overly concerned with it; as if asking people if they are “open to feedback today?” will solve their issues. I don’t think it is at the point in corporate Canada where an African can let his or her mental issues be known. Corporate Canada is just a white supremacy institution, and it is, as that old Black man had told us. The old Black man that would have been found in any barber shop, anywhere in the world sixty years ago. He would remain anyone who would listen that there is one rule for white supremacists and another for us. Unfortunately, we have learnt over the past sixty years that, that old Black man was wrong. The reality is that there are no rules for white supremacists; the rules are only there for us whether those rules are administered by a white face or a black face. If you are of African origin with mental issues and working in corporate Canada, make sure you keep that to yourself. Old Black men are seldom ever wrong on issues of race and survival.
The other thing that has caused corporate Canada to change while I was away, is the murder of George Floyd. After George Floyd was murdered, corporations came out with formal diversity policy statements. Before George Floyd, they had diversity moments, which were similar to safety moments. But since George Floyd, they moved away from what was obviously lip service into more formal policies on diversity. Some corporations even have committees. Committees that report to the board of directors. You would think that the people who would benefit from corporations becoming aware that there is a disproportional amount of injustice against African people would be Africans. That is not the case, the outcome of George Floyd in corporate Canada had been the development of so-called diversity policy. From an African perspective those policies are as meaningless as the diversity moments that they replaced. Those policies are just another clever way to refine white supremacy. What diversity means is that people of colour and white women are the biggest benefactors of George Floyd murder. When white supremacy talks about diversity, they are not talking about providing justice to African people. Diversity and justice are not related. Diversity for the white men who run corporate Canada is a question about how many white women are in management or on the corporate board. It has nothing to do with people of African origin. Every corporation that I worked for had a statement that it was an “equal opportunity employer”. People thought that meant that the corporate had some kind of Affirmative Action program. That was not true, and diversity is similar. Diversity in corporate Canada is just another method in the white supremacist’s playbook. It is a way for white supremacists to look after their own people. First, white women, then People of Color and Indigenous.
Diversity as a policy has made its way into Annual Reports and MD&A discussions. A review of Canadian companies’ annual reports will uncover statements similar to the following: “In accordance with governance best practice, (company name) seeks to encourage diversity in its board recruitment efforts and requests in its calls for nominations that diversity of gender, age, geography, background and ethnicity be considered in nominations from the regions. As of December 31, 2021, 33% of (company name) board, 60% of its executives and 50% of its director-level employees are female.” Female of course means white females.
In returning to corporate Canada, I see on my daily walk downtown more African faces carrying laptop and notebooks than I saw during my first 10 years in corporate Canada. I was in corporate Canada for over 15 years before I sat down in a meeting with another Black man across the table from me. We both had higher level education; we were both useless to our own community, but we were doing our thing for the white man. In all the years I spent in corporate Canada, I have never heard of any corporation celebrating Black History Month. Black History Month in corporate Canada in the worst but it is the kind of thing that white supremacy is great at. It uses our own behavior to oppress us more efficiently. I actually get an emotional reaction when I see the posters and hear a Black employee say, “Black History Month is not just for Black people”. I might finally be fired for something other than being Black. Black History Month is only for Black people. It was created just for them. Carter G. Woodson hoped that knowing his history would “radicalize the negro”. It is only Black people who could be radicalized by discovering their history. Black History Month in corporate Canada is the latest method that our oppressor is using to refine white supremacy. Similar to my experience working in the public library, corporate Canada simply never cared about Black History Month, Juneteenth or Kwanzaa. Carter G. Woodson said that “The Negro needs to become radical, and the race will never amount to anything until it does become so, but this radicalism should come from within.” Co-oping Black History Month and using it to refine white supremacy will ensure that “the race will never amount to anything” as the Father of Black History Month was worried about.