I've seen this time and time again but it never fails to astonish me and fill me with twinges of envy. Two white people meet at work. They may have never seen each other before and are only just learning each other's names. They give a hearty handshake to each other. Then they start talking the talk white people do with each other: sports, work grievences, politics, Mad Men... Before you know it, usually within thirty minutes, they are exchanging business cards and contact numbers for how to get into the local country club or the new hip restaurant downtown.
Why don't these kinds of conversations ever happen with me? How come I don't ever get the secret cell phone number of the sous chef at that restaurant that has a three month waiting list for a table? I've been here at work as long as anybody else yet I rarely get these networking advantages that white people so easily come across. Is this another form of discrimination or does networking only work with people of one's own race?
I try not to blame my Caucasian colleagues for this seeming slight. After all, I too find it much easier to talk to Asian, and specifically Chinese, counterparts than to people of other races. Before you know it, I'm inviting them to my house for dinner or trading tips on the best place to buy Asian pears. I admit that I have never given the same to a non Asian. Networking outside the race is difficult. I truly believe that if it wasn't for federal laws, people would naturally segregate themselves into their own ethnic groups. Look at the different neighborhoods in your town. Since the civil rights battles of the 1960's, there are no more laws barring one race from living next door to another. Yet people still prefer to live close to their own kind: Chinese in coastal urbal cities, Hispanics in the Southwest, Blacks, in the Southeast, and Whites in Vermont.
Does this lack of cross cultural networking hurt minorities. In a word, yes. This is something that will be very difficult for state and federal laws to correct without the use of workplace quotas. To promote minorities just because there aren't enough of them in managerial jobs only promotes resentment and worsens racism. Since relationships are so important for advancements in a job, this gives whites a natural advantage at work since most of their bosses are white. The bosses feel more comfortable conversing with their white juniors, making it easier for them to promote them into higher positions. In the meantime other races are left to stay mired in lower ranking jobs with their concommitant lower pay. It's not a glass ceiling per se as much as a relationship ceiling. It takes acts of extraordinary achievements or leaps of faith for minorities to advance to higher positions.
Can these barriers be overcome? Yes, and I've seen colleagues of every race do it. But one has to become extremely westernized, in other words white, to do it. For second and third generation Asians this becomes much easier. They can discuss the latest grilling tips for hot dogs and burgers as well as any white man. They can regurgitate all the greatest lines from Napoleon Dynamite as well as any college slacker. In other words, these Asians have become white. That's when their white bosses can see past their physical appearances and accept them into the coveted board rooms of America. It may never happen to me, but perhaps in another two to three generations, it won't be so difficult for an Asian to be handed the secret number to reserve the VIP suite at the Viper Room.
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