On Professionalism: How Is It Serving You?
I remember when I was a very little girl, somewhere between 7 and 10 years old, I was briefly heavily infatuated with the idea of becoming a professional. Growing up in my parent’s home, mother a first generation Nigerian immigrant, stepfather a military man from Mississippi, becoming a respected professional and following rules was not just encouraged but expected. These were the formulas they were given, and for this moment in my life, that presented no problems for me. I saw myself with a briefcase (Do people still use those?!) and a well-fitted pant suit, showing up to an office with lots and lots of rules and games and excelling at every single one of them. At that age, it didn’t really matter what work I was actually going to do, I was just obsessed with that image. That’s what I thought it meant to be a professional and that’s exactly what I thought I wanted.
As I got a bit older though, I learned something about these games. Even though I had always liked games and rules, it became quickly apparent that professionalism games weren’t always fun; many at times they were dire. The images and stories I saw of professionalism in adult’s lives and in the media were often merciless. Don’t respond to an email within 48 hrs and see what happens. Wear the wrong hairstyle and see what happens. Don’t sound ‘professional’ enough and see what happens. Don’t push yourself with reckless regard for your well-being in the name of work and see what happens. What often happened looked like entire lives falling apart or haunting shame. By the time I was a teen, I knew enough about myself and the world to start questioning how this concept could serve me. I wanted to be a professional, but I also wanted to preserve my soul. Maybe I didn’t want to play these games. Cue crisis.
Growing into adolescence I began to see professionalism more and more as a tool of protection, not for people, not for our souls, but for images, statuses (proxies for belonging), and resources both individual and organizational. People who some considered ‘non-professionals’ utilized professionalism too for this protection. It wasn’t ALWAYS bad. Sometimes professionalism portrayed kindness and concern, but that kindness and concern was only sometimes real. I just didn’t see many healthy examples of what it could mean to take on the role of a professional without some degree of erasure or pretending for the sake of this false protection.
It’s taken me a while to get here but I realize now that nothing about being a professional or professionalism has to be negative or abusive. What can make professional environments and professionalism specifically harmful, and what I knew in my body but didn’t have the words for for a long time, is when it’s really white supremacy culture. If you’re unfamiliar with white supremacy culture, it’s a concept that has been refined in depth by Tema Okun with the help of many other thought and movement leaders. (This article is not a deep dive into white supremacy culture so please read Tema’s work and other recommended resources on Tema’s website if this is your first encounter). Succinctly, white supremacy culture works like this: if race is a manufactured social construct used to determine who on the color spectrum of humanity is deserving of power and resources, and ‘white and black’ are constructs within race that were created as standards of ‘good and deserving’ and ‘not’ (i.e anti-blackness), then white supremacy culture are the characteristics that people, organizations, and societies adopt willingly or unwillingly in order to maintain these categories of division, perform whiteness and perpetuate ways of being that are meant to appear to serve some of us, but really harm us all.
So, in adulthood, I learned that my beef is actually with white supremacy culture, not necessarily professionalism; unfortunately, so many elements of what we consider professionalism today are really tools of white supremacy culture. Referring back to the ‘see what happens’ examples I listed earlier, all those displays of professionalism are tied to one or more of the following characteristics of white supremacy: (false) sense of urgency, belief in only one right way, individualism, and of course, white supremacy culture’s favorite: fear.
When laid out on the table, it’s clear that none of these things make me a better steward of my time, energy and resources.. None of these things aid my well-being. None of these things serve or even acknowledge my humanity. No, not one. And yet, somehow, the magic trick that I saw performed as many of us did while growing up was that these things could turn us into better stewards of resources. These things were supposed to aid our well-being in the long-run. These things would make us good humans. False protection, fake magic.
My critique is not at all on any of us who play or have played by the rules of professionalism, who are following the steps of the magic trick in hopes of magic. Many of us are just trying our best to make purposefully broken ways of being work for us. No, my critique is on the practices that disguise white supremacy culture as professional and beneficial. It’s on the trick.
These days, I remain in pursuit of real magic and real protection. Real magic is in the everyday. It can be found in the milliseconds between the extremely ordinary. It springs up in the midst of authentic connection, in honest relationship with people and work. Real protection, protection for my soul, is found in the depths of community.
I like to play with new thoughts about what professionalism can offer me. Knowing when professionalism is just good ole fashioned white supremacy culture and racism allows me to see when it's not. It allows me to appreciate the things that it can offer that don’t have to be oppressive and can actually just be good human practices, rituals to access magic and protection with more ease. A really great example of this is timeliness. I’m perfectly imperfect when it comes to my own consistent punctuality, but I think being as close to on time as possible out of love and appreciation for others is an act that still serves me because it honors the sacredness of gathering. In fact, most things that help me honor myself and others as sacred beings, that some might put under the umbrella of professionalism, I keep. In order to be able to identify this though, I had to call professionalism into question and understand why I couldn’t accept it in whole. I had to contextualize it within my identity and lived experiences as well as others’. I had to figure out what it was supposed to offer, how it pretended to offer some of those things and what it actually offered. I had to identify what spaces and experiences actually did offer the things professionalism claimed to but couldn’t actually provide. I’m still unpacking, learning and unlearning. As my mother would say, “I have not arrived,” but my hope is to do this work as authentically and transparently as possible to continue to humanize myself and the human experience.
I hope after reading this you feel closer to your own humanity and others’ too.
