The Race Trap: Smart Strategies for Effective Racial Communication in Business and in Life

An educator and a physician outline strategies designed to initiate communication in the workplace and in the streets in an effort to tackle the racial divide.

In business, it's not productive to try to alter people's racial biases, at least in the short run, declare Johnson, a black pediatrician, and Simring, a white psychiatrist, who have worked together since 1976. Nor do they believe that questions about issues like affirmative action are resolvable. The more pressing issue, in their view, is what they call racial intelligence, a capacity to negotiate racial terrain in the workplace, daily life and the bureaucratic system. They begin with a test that includes questions such as how a white professional should deal with a colleague who tells racist jokes, or how a black salesperson should deal with the fact that many white customers gravitate toward white salespeople, or whether a white salesclerk should acknowledge that his innocuous interjection "boy" might be interpreted as offensive by a black customer. Later in the book, the authors tease out the implications of possible responses. (For example, the white salesclerk should apologize if it seems like the customer has taken offense; if not, he should ignore it and concentrate on closing the sale.) The authors offer principles for better communication (e.g., don't pretend to be color-blind) and discuss strategies in the workplace and in sales. Some advice may rankleDone black salesman they quote advises young black men in his field to conceal Afrocentric names if they want to deal with whites. Still, this hardheaded bookDwhich declares that sometimes reason must trump even justified emotionDprovides much practical advice. (Nov. 1)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Johnson is a black pediatrician; Steven Simring, a main coauthor, is a white psychiatrist. Both are professors at the New Jersey Medical School, where they met in 1976 and had to reckon with the aftermath of racial confrontations brought on by New Jersey's decision to build a new health sciences university in Newark's decaying inner city. Together they worked to develop a program to enable people to become more "racially intelligent." Johnson and Simring acknowledge up front that it is "next to impossible" to eliminate existing bias. They hope, instead, to give people the skills necessary to avoid or eliminate situations in which racial misunderstandings can result. The authors developed the Racial Intelligence Quotient to help diagnose difficulties in "negotiating diversity encounters," and they explain their eight-step process for communicating effectively across racial lines. They discuss the "language of race" and contrast overt, covert, and accidental racism. Although their focus is on the workplace, the authors also consider situations in everyday life, and they devote a separate chapter to raising "racially smart" children. David Rouse
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