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The Colored Sense of Awareness: An Analysis of African American Perceptions of Race and Communication in the Workplace David L. Mercer Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts In Communication Nneka J. Logan, Chair Stephanie A. Smith John C. Tedesco 7 May 2018 Blacksburg, Virginia Keyword: race, Diversity and Inclusion, organizational culture, organizational communication, Critical Race Theory

The Colored Sense of Awareness: An Analysis of African American Perceptions of Race and Communication in the Workplace David L. Mercer ABSTRACT The United States has a troubled history with race relations. African Americans have immeasurably experienced racism and racial oppression in various forms and in many sectors of the American society. One of the sectors that the racial inequalities of our past have affected is the employment sector. Many Americans experience the workplace on a daily basis and therefore experience the inequities that persist in such environments. This study explores African American experiences with race in the workplace and the way that race shapes today’s workplace. Specifically, this study analyzes the experiences of African American professionals working at for-profit organizations and their perceptions of the way that race shapes their organization’s culture. This study employs a constant comparative analysis of qualitative interviews using Critical Race Theory as a guide. The interviews explored the manner in which race, Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) programs, and communication affect organizational culture. The thesis further questions if and how organizations are working to create and sustain a more equitable workplace for all employees. The findings suggest that African American professionals perceive that their organizations are welcoming and inclusive of all minority groups. They also perceive the organizational culture to be friendly and family-oriented where open, positive, and encouraging communication exists. The professionals feel that their organizations are generally interested in diversity, however they feel the organization’s engagement with diversity practices is not sufficient. The findings of this study could be used as a tool for organizations to reevaluate their diversity practices and to ensure that they are creating an equitable workplace.

iv Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ for allowing me to make it to this point. I would like to thank everyone who has supported me along this journey, both thesis and graduate school. I would like to thank Dr. Logan especially, for the time, assistance, and guidance she has offered me as I worked to complete this thesis. You helped in more ways than you know and you made this experience one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Your support and encouragement allowed to be confident in myself and my work. I truly do appreciate you and all that you have done for me. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Smith and Dr. Tedesco for their support and advice during this process. Thank you for taking time to offer suggestions and feedback over the course of the last year. Your continued support, advice and assistance made this all possible. Thank you for devoting your time and energy to assist me with this thesis. Your contributions did not go unnoticed and I appreciate all that you have done. I would like to thank all of faculty and staff members in the Department of Communication who offered their encouragement countless number of times, whether it be in passing or in extended conversation. To the members of my cohort, thank you for embracing me from the time we met and for being sincerely interested in my life. Thanks for being my friends in Blacksburg. To my undergraduate advisor Dr. Ohl, thank you for seeing my potential and guiding me in this direction. This would not have been an option if it was not for your guidance. To the most important people in my life, Momma, Daddy, and John, thank you for being the best support system I could ever imagine having. I would not have made it without your love and support. Thank you and I love you. To all my other friends and family, thank you for supporting me along my journey. I appreciate you all.

v Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................................................... 3 Critical Race Theory .................................................................................................................... 4 Diversity and Inclusion .............................................................................................................. 15 Organizational Culture ............................................................................................................... 22 Chapter 3: Methodology ................................................................................................................ 28 Qualitative Research Methods ................................................................................................... 28 Grounded Theory Approach ...................................................................................................... 29 Constant Comparative Method .................................................................................................. 31 Research Questions .................................................................................................................... 33 RQ1 ............................................................................................................................................ 33 RQ2 ............................................................................................................................................ 33 RQ3 ............................................................................................................................................ 33 RQ4 ............................................................................................................................................ 33 Sample ....................................................................................................................................... 33 Recruitment ................................................................................................................................ 34 Interview Procedures ................................................................................................................. 34 Trustworthiness .......................................................................................................................... 35 Analysis Procedures ................................................................................................................... 37 Chapter 4: Findings ........................................................................................................................ 39 RQ1 ............................................................................................................................................ 39 Racial Disparity ..................................................................................................................... 39 Hiring/Promotion processes ................................................................................................... 44 RQ2 ............................................................................................................................................ 45 Inclusive workplace ............................................................................................................... 45 Family-oriented culture ......................................................................................................... 47 Desire for diversity within the organization .......................................................................... 48 The intersection of race and gender ....................................................................................... 50 RQ3 ............................................................................................................................................ 52 Affinity Groups ...................................................................................................................... 52 An overall commitment through initiatives, programs, and events ....................................... 53 RQ4 ............................................................................................................................................ 55 Positive and open communication ......................................................................................... 56 Encouraging and supportive leadership ................................................................................. 58

1 Chapter 1: Introduction The United States’ history with race has been clouded with years of the oppression and subjugation of racial minorities, particularly African Americans. The country’s struggle with racism and discrimination has had various effects on many societal routines, processes, and traditions. One of the areas that race has had a serious effect is the workplace. Race has quite actively shaped the American workplace in a manner that has led to many advantages for white Americans and disadvantages for African Americans. Scholar Cheryl Harris (1995) illustrated the country’s troubled past with race and the workplace with her anecdote of her grandmother’s experience with employment at a large retail store in Chicago: Every day my grandmother rose from her bed in her house in a black enclave on the south side of Chicago, sent her children off to a black school, boarded a bus full of black passengers and rode to work. No one at her job ever asked if she was black; the question was unthinkable. By virtue of the employment practices of the ‘fine establishment’ in which she worked, she could not have been. Catering to the upper middle class, understated tastes required that blacks not be allowed. She quietly went about her clerical tasks, not once revealing her true identity. She listened to the women with whom she worked to discuss their worries – their children’s illnesses, their husband’s disappointments, their boyfriend’s infidelities – all the mundane yet critical things that made up their lives. She came to know them but they did not know her, for my grandmother occupied a completely different place. That place – where white supremacy and economic domination meet – was unknown turf to her white coworkers. They remained oblivious to the worlds within worlds that existed just beyond the edge of their awareness and yet were present in their very midst. (p. 276)

2 I quote at length because this story powerfully portrays the way that race has shaped the American workplace. Harris’ African American grandmother was so fair skinned that she was able to pass for white, which allowed her to enjoy the racial advantages associated with a segregated labor structure that privileged whiteness. The story of Harris’ grandmother offers a compelling and authentic account of one of the ways the relationship between race and the workplace has affected American workers – black and white. The inequities caused by the marginalization of African Americans have spread to various areas of social life, one of the most important is the workplace. The purpose of this thesis is to study the relationship between race and the workplace by analyzing the role that race has played in shaping organizational culture through communicative processes. Specifically, this thesis will explore the experiences of African Americans in the workplace and their perceptions of race, D&I and communication within organizational cultures. This study employs a grounded theory approach by way of constant comparative analysis of interviews with African American professionals. These inductive interviews were informed by a comprehensive understanding provided by the review of literature. The methodology follows a modified grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). While Glaser and Strauss (1967) argued that grounded theory works to develop theory from data, this thesis does not result in the formulation of theory. It will follow the basis of the constant comparative analysis method to produce these themes and answer the research questions. This thesis addresses the enduring problem of race within American society as it focuses on how race affects the experiences of African American professionals. The thesis is significant for two main reasons. First, it helps to provide an historical account of the role race has played in shaping the American workplace. Secondly, it addresses the role of D&I in shaping

4 Critical Race Theory Critical Race Theory (CRT) differs from other theories as it grew out of a collection of works rather than one seminal study or project (Willis, 2008). Its inception in the 1960s and 70s occurred when scholars in legal studies explored race and the inequities that were being faced by African Americans. Scholars studied racism, anti-discrimination law, and desegregation and integration (Bell, 1995; Friedman, 1995; Lawrence, 1995; Crenshaw, 1995). While there was no single study that was credited with the development of CRT, Derrick Bell has been recognized as the founder of CRT (Willis, 2008). Bell’s fundamental works dealt with desegregation (Bell, 1995). In many ways, CRT is a descendant of Critical Theory. Critical theory focuses on the notion that all human beings should have a certain level of equity and equality as they attempt to develop themselves (Wellmer, 2014). Critical Theory further contests the predominant beliefs about truth, knowledge, power and the prevalent notions of identity. The Frankfurt School of social research is credited with the inception of Critical Theory and the two fundamental foci of critical thought. Their foci include, “the analysis of the causes of oppression” and “an empathetic participation in the experience of social suffering” (Müller-Doohm, 2017, p. 253). These two features are seen in CRT as scholars work to reveal the underlying causes of racial injustices in society and attempt to challenge them. The Frankfurt School included philosophers such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Friedrich Pollock, Leo Lowenthal, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm and Walter Benjamin. The scholars sought to denounce the capitalist structures of society and their restraints on human emancipation (Wellmer, 2014). In his fundamental essay, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” Horkheimer (1972) exemplified the Frankfurt school’s critique of reason by writing, “If activity governed by reason

5 is proper to man, then existent social practice, which forms the individual’s life down to its least details, is inhuman, and this inhumanity affects everything that goes on in society” (p. 210). He further argued that Critical Theory was not a mere attempt to understand the aforementioned societal inequities, but “its goal is man’s emancipation from slavery” (p. 246). Jürgen Habermas, who has been thought of as a “direct heir of the intellectual legacy of Horkheimer’s Frankfurt School,” argued Critical Theory should “inform the practice of those involved in struggles for emancipation” (Parkin, 1996, p. 418). As Wellmer (2014) asserted, it is clear that Critical Theory works to confront the established social and political hierarchies and inequalities in a society. Years later, these thoughts and objections helped influence a new movement called Critical Legal Studies (CLS). The ideas of the Frankfurt School have been captured in CLS and can be observed in Matsuda’s (1995) explanation of CLS. The movement known as Critical Legal Studies is characterized by skepticism toward the liberal vision of rule of law, by a focus on the role of legal ideas in capturing human consciousness, by agreement that fundamental change is required to attain a just society, and by a utopian conception of a world more communal and less hierarchical than the one we know now. (p. 64) CLS furthered functioned upon the notion that the law should support minority rights rather than uphold the unjust institutions that have been created in society, because when minority rights are respected, equality is more likely to prevail. Cook (1995) contended that CLS calls into question “the accepted values of classical liberalism by undermining the interpretations of private property, individual rights, equality of opportunity, meritocracy, and governmental power” (p.85). Harlon Dalton (1995) described CLS scholars as “minority scholars” who are “committed

7 methods, and pedagogy that seeks to identify, analyze, and transform those structural and cultural aspects of society that maintain the subordination and marginalization of People of Color” (p. 6). CRT scholarship has encompassed various aspects of race, discrimination, inequity, and property to describe the construction of existing inequalities in the United States. In a seminal work, Bell (1995) examined school integration and desegregation and maintained that racial discrimination in the education system could not be tolerated. He further argued that the emphasis on desegregation brought new obstacles for African Americans and that several well-known legal trials were viewed as “legally irrelevant” (p. 5). Bell (1995) reviewed Brown v. Board of Education (1955), Morgan v. Kerrigan (1975), and NAACP v. Button (1963) to explain how the fight for desegregation led to numerous hindrances for African Americans and their bigger struggle for equality. Additionally, the scholar described various other barriers that made it difficult for African Americans to attain the privileges that were afforded to them by the constitution, but stripped from them by those white counterparts who wished to maintain a system of racial inequality. Race, being of utmost importance to CRT, was expounded and studied in distinct forms and fashions. One of the most paramount conceptualizations of race in CRT was through the study of its relationship with property. Harris (1995) asserted that “The origins of property rights in the United States are rooted in racial domination” (p. 277). The scholar argued further that the basis for the apparent problems in the relationship between race and property stemmed from “slavery and conquest” which were the manifestations of “the seizure and appropriation of labor” and “the seizure and appropriation of land” (p. 277). Harris (2015) meant “human rights, liberties, powers, and immunities” were a form of property (p. 279). Here, to claim white identity

8 meant to claim property, in the form of rights, liberties, powers, and immunities that were not available to African Americans. As Harris (2015) explained, whiteness was exclusive because it was founded on black racial subjugation and “signified racial privilege and took the form of status property,” (p. 283) possessed by whites. While black people were possessed as property, dating back to the nation’s roots in chattel slavery, whites were not. Harris (2015) declared that legislation, such as the Neutralization Act of 1790, played a role in the exclusivity of whiteness by granting citizenship solely to white people. This further supported her argument that, “The assigned political, economic, and social inferiority of blacks necessarily shaped white identity” (p. 283). Harris’ work on whiteness as property is fundamental to CRT scholarship as it portrays the social and legal basis for discrimination, prejudice, and racism in the United States. Harris’ work recognized that inequity is historical and monumental in the construction of the American society and workplace. It was an important advancement in CRT scholarship that encouraged other scholars to explore how whiteness as property contributed to ongoing racial discrimination in society in political, educational and workplace contexts. From a political perspective, Peller (1995) identified how integrationist and black nationalist discourses shaped discussions about race and equality in the United States. He wrote, “Race consciousness defines conventional civil rights thinking – by contrasting integrationist and black nationalist images of racial injustice, and by comparing the ways in which white and black communities have understood race” (p. 127). Peller (1995) differentiated between the two groups – integrationists and nationalists. Integrationists advocated for a sense of “reason and neutrality” and sought to minimize race-consciousness, which can be defined as a “racial understanding” of the obstacles or privileges that one might face or possess based on the color of their skin (Peller,

10 that were adopted and adapted by CRT scholars in their attempt to challenge the institutions that suppressed African Americans’ educational opportunities. They do not believe that positivism or empirical science holds the only key to change in education; in fact, they envision change as an outgrowth of more critical conscious awareness and the valuing of all cultures and languages. Further, they reason that social and institutional structures must be dismantled and rebuilt in a more humane manner and where critical theory is translated into praxis. (p. 23) She contended that educational scholars moved from critical theory to CRT because they believe that critical theory does not account for “race, racism, and power” the way it should to explain the educational inequities (p. 23). Scholars have attempted to adopt CRT to better study and understand the diverse society of the United States and to promote approaches, methods, and processes to advance and develop equality for African American students (Ortiz & Jani, 2010; Taylor, 1998). Education research is one of the many fields where CRT has been adopted, demonstrating the theory’s adaptability. CRT scholars have also studied Affirmative Action and its implications for society. For example, Kennedy (1995) offered a political and cultural case for Affirmative Action. In a legal context, he explained the political case by arguing that law school teachers are few in number, but great in wealth and significance. With that basis, he argued that “legal knowledge is ideological” (p. 162). In other words, Kennedy argued that legal knowledge was developed and shaped primarily by a homogenous group of people who held similar worldviews and ideological beliefs: white males. This led to the exclusion of many ideas, values, knowledge and people from non-white racial backgrounds in the legal field, making it a racially exclusive terrain. He

11 emphasized the lopsided nature of race in the legal profession and detailed the struggle for minorities to enter the profession and gain adequate knowledge (Kennedy, 1995). In the cultural context, Kennedy (1995) argued that “we should structure the competition of racial and ethnic communities and social classes in markets and bureaucracies, and in the political system, in such a way that no community or class is systematically subordinated” (p. 162). He further emphasized merit as criterion for employment, rather than it weighing entirely on one’s race (Kennedy, 1995). He argued that Affirmative Action should “preserve a sharp boundary between meritocratic decision and race-based decision” (p. 162). Kennedy (1995) contended that this equal competition should replace the subordination of racial and ethnic communities, thus, calling for programs that enhance and promote diversity and a move away from a homogenous workforce. While emphasis on diversity should be emphasized, it should not overtake the merit of any applicant, so that it can ultimately “improve scholarship and teaching” and the workforce as a whole (Kennedy, 1995, p. 163). Kennedy’s conceptualizations highlight one important way that CRT scholars have addressed Affirmative Action. CRT scholars have been divided over Affirmative Action (Farber, 1994). Scholars such as Patricia Williams and Robin Barnes are in favor of affirmative action because it works as a reparation for the subordination of and discrimination against African Americans in the past (Farber, 1994). Contrarily, scholars Derrick Bell and Richard Delgado are apprehensive toward affirmative action based on the notion that it functions to satisfy the concerns of whites more than those of African Americans (Farber, 1994). These scholars and others similar to them were worried that Affirmative Action would mean that only small numbers of African Americans would be hired and this would help to satisfy the needs of whites who controlled the workplace by falsely portraying a commitment to diversity and equality (Farber, 1994) when really

13 relations. She argued that the diversity of both the practitioners and the audiences of organizations have become increasingly more evident, leading to the obligation of multicultural communication. She further asserted “the differences between audiences from (nonwhite) ethnic groups and (usually white) practitioners are presumed to be greater than the similarities,” therefore, “race becomes a skill or asset that practitioners offer to organizations wishing to bridge (though not eliminate) the gap between them and their audiences” (p. 58). Edwards (2012) used these ideas to express the role of race and its effects in the public relations profession. She further noted that this could help a profession that is still developing as it attempts to understand the implications of race for both practice and research purposes. In her call for multicultural communication and interpretation of race in the workplace and in the public relations profession, Edwards (2012) outlined the central tenets of CRT. She offered nine principles that exhibit the essence of CRT. 1. “Race” is socially constructed, not a biological given. 2. Races are fluid: their membership, depiction and hierarchical position change over time. 3. Race intersects with other aspects of identity (e.g., gender, (dis)ability); it cannot be understood in isolation. Identity, therefore, is also intersectional. 4. Racism is a normal aspect of life, not an aberrant even or situation. Its “ordinary” appearance makes it difficult to address. 5. Racism is embedded in social systems and structures. This has particular consequences: a. As a part of a wider system, racism serves the interests of elite groups so there is little incentive to eradicate it.

14 b. Equality legislation is designed to address overt and obvious forms of racism; it is more limited in its ability to address the systemic and “ordinary” aspects of racism. 6. History influences the shape of current social systems and structures: therefore, understanding and addressing racism is not possible without taking into account past inequities. 7. The voices of people of color can articulate the experience of racism and the effects of race as a systemic process most effectively; research methodologies must create space for these voices to be heard. 8. Racism also operates at the intersection of identities; the experiences of minority individuals cannot be understood without reference to gender, class, religion, an/or other aspects of their identity. 9. CRT scholarship is marked by a commitment to social justice. (p. 60) While these principles exemplify the fundamentals of CRT, they also illustrate the main ideas that have been captured by many other CRT scholars. This list of CRT principles also helps to explain the problem of race and racism in the United States. Public relations scholars using CRT help advance the theory into organizational contexts in a manner that extends the opportunity to study race and the workplace in various ways. Scholars have studied race in various other communication contexts, many through a CRT lens (Allen, 2007; Ashcraft & Allen, 2003; Parker & Grimes, 2009; Waymer & Heath, 2016). Ashcraft and Allen (2003) contended that organizational communication scholarship has helped “to craft the dominance and invisibility of Whiteness” (p. 7). They further argued that there is a particular manner employed by researchers through specific messages that “hush race”