Invisible injuries and silent witnesses: The shadow of racial oppression in workplace contexts

Who Am I? A Black Leader's Personal Reflections of that Journey

“…(Personal vignette) Unfortunately, these feelings did not last because, as the interview progressed, I began to see the white panel looking across at me not just as work superiors, but as white superiors -looking down at me, questioning the 'uppity black me' standing before them. I felt myself psychologically cancelling out of the interview as my historical slave past symbolised by white power (white interviewers) and black subjugation (black interviewee) swept into the present (Alleyne, 2005).…”

“…The parallel dynamic in operation was that these same presentations were unconscious aspects of my internal black self relations with black/white good/bad objects. I was operating as my own oppressor (Alleyne, 2005). After all, I had nurtured internal furtiveness and guardedness as a protection to ward off persecutory questioning by white people about my black self for as long as I could remember.…”

“…Making sense of the experiences, I reflected on my personal history -parents treated like 'pickney' by white employers who nevertheless demanded their hard work, my secret life of language, food and self-care, my fostered white education, my being accepted, but unacceptable to white friends courting white boys, the exposure of being 'outed' as 'black, black and black'. I surmised that these early experiences were being carried around in me like 'micro assaults' waiting to get stirred up and to stun in present-day situations (Alleyne, 2005).…”

“…However, I struggled to own these external affirmations as 'I', constantly questioning whether this feedback was a true reflection of my capabilities or a reflection of white colleagues' lower expectations of black leaders compared to their white counterparts. This second guessing operated like an 'invisible wound' of an internal racial oppression where I experienced difficulties dispelling the psychological myth that like slaves before me I was 'not good enough', 'as good as white people' (Alleyne, 2005).…”

Schizophrenia and psychosis: the magical and troubling disappearance of race from the debate

“…The issuing of a statement is however not quite a closed chapter. An additional problem is something familiar in examples of institutional racism, and something recognisable to those who not only work in the area of race, ethnicity and health, but also all those who generally live and work within the shadow of invisible, embedded, and un-definable, or unmeasurable racial meanings, potentially causing substantial psychological harm (Alleyne 2005). Being placed in a position where the 'issue' of race has to be raised at the most simplistic level (basic inclusion), often by those deemed to represent BME interests, is often a powerfully loaded, psycho-social dynamic that intersects with practical and symbolic power relations.…”