The Pornography of Corporate Cultural Appropriation
A couple of years ago, I was sitting in an All Hands meeting listening to one of the various directors give over 200 employees the current state of our department. One of the directors gave a short presentation on the changing world of microbusinesses. She dove into the growing population of people with a second source of income aside from their ‘day job.’ Halfway through her presentation, she mentioned ‘I mean, I even have a side hustle.’ My ears perked up. Did this White woman just go in on her ‘side hustle?’ She kept repeating the phrase again and again, possibly to play to her audience, which erupted in laughter and nods of ‘picking up what she was putting down’ every time she said it.
Later, in the same meeting, another exec walked through the public perception of our brand versus our competitors. At the very top of the list for a major competitor was the word ‘bougie.’ The presenter verbalized ‘bougie’ over and over again in the same way the director did moments before. Again, everyone really enjoyed his use of AAVE to land his point, though I’m pretty sure that most of the audience didn’t even know that there’s an official term for this version of English.
I left the meeting feeling incensed without knowing why. I set it aside thinking that my id was on high alert for no reason. I mean, I heard terms like this around the office pretty frequently, so I couldn’t put my finger on why it bothered me in this forum.
A few months later, my director pulled me aside for a one on one. She wanted to talk to me about ‘elevating my language’ to achieve a ‘better executive presence.’ This down right pissed me off. For background, most people mistake me for White on the phone, without the need for code-switching. I’m the kid that corrected everyone’s grammar in my family. This same director had previously admonished me for my ‘overly heightened inaccessible’ writing style. In that prior conversation, she’d instructed me to ‘dumb down’ my content because of my audience, which happened to be a high-tech audience. So, what in the world was she talking about this time?
She went on to tell me that my use of slang and ‘ghetto-isms’ (her word) prevented me from moving to the next level of my career. I don’t really think of myself as using ‘hood’ lingo in the office, so I asked her for examples. She said, “Ya know, off the top of my head, just this past week I think I heard you reference your ‘side hustle.’ I can’t think of any others right now.”
In the moment, I took the feedback and said ‘thank you.’ I’d previously been told that I don’t take feedback well because I’m ‘too passionate.’ As I walked away from the conversation, the memory of that All Hands Meeting snapped into my brain like a thunderbolt. ‘Holy shit,’ I thought, ‘THIS is the new incarnation of appropriation…pornographic cultural appropriation.”
Our defs just ain’t in yo’ books: Defining Pornographic Cultural Appropriation (PCA)
Pornography, N: printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.
I’ve steered clear of the ‘cultural appropriation’ conversation that has been resurfacing over the past two decades. The main reason for my rare silence is that I really couldn’t pinpoint what I considered cultural appropriation to be. When I read various forms of discourse on the matter, I could see both sides of the argument. On one hand, I do see people from outside a culture appropriate some aspect of said culture that’s disconnected from its intended meaning. On the other hand, are canoes an example of appropriation? And if so, then where would that leave us as a species if we stopped appropriating? Along this spectrum, where does cultural appropriation live?
Because of this wide range of potential appropriation, I couldn’t quite define it other than to say, like porn, ‘I know it when I see it’ and have abstained from sharing my opinion. After surviving corporate America for over 10 years, I’ve been provided with enough day to day experiences of appropriation to form a definition.
While my definition only encompasses a small span on the cultural appropriation spectrum, perhaps we need to start with the specific. Then, we can expand it once we can define it in a way in which all parties can acknowledge its truth.
Pornographic Cultural Appropriation (PCA): an explicit mimicking of a sub-culture by an in-power majority intended to display or enhance one’s coolness, desirability, connectedness, or worthiness rather than a genuine desire to empathize with a subculture’s journey as an outsider; unintentional ridicule of someone’s culture via emulation.
In short, I’m comparing the intention to titillate rather than integrate with a culture. Like pornography, it’s based on the superficial not the authentic. Like pornography, you’re potentially subjugating a minority for the appeal of the majority. Let’s face it, you know that WE know you’re not cool. We know that this show is not for us. It’s for you and the White people in power that control your upward mobility.
“See, how down I am with the in-crowd? I’m totally accepted and cool and therefore diverse and inclusive because I speak their language.”
The one major difference between legit pornography and PCA is that legal pornography means that all parties have consented to the act, recording, and imbibement.
In the case of PCA, subcultures have asked so many times that they not only be heard but have also provided examples of how they haven’t been heard. And these voices are only met with denial, subjugation, and layoffs. I could make a comparison to rape, but at the risk of being called an alarmist, I’ve decided not to go there. The pornographic label will do.
Y’all hatin?: Why we see this so much in corporate environments
I was asked by a colleague, “If I say the N word out loud when I’m rapping along to rap songs, is that okay?”
I would have to say that rapping out loud and saying the ‘N’ word as a White person always puts you between PCA and Blackface on the continuum. However, the fact that I was asked this question in front of about 20 other colleagues in an open office setting crosses into the rape territory. With all the witnesses, I was stripped of my agency and forced to defend myself in a way that could be deemed worthy of corporate.
Though I currently live in a world where that comment flies and I was ultimately dismissed for reporting it to HR, I’d like to live in a world where my colleague would’ve known just how inappropriate that question was. I’ve been having this conversation my entire life and still don’t have the answers. How was I supposed to sum this up in 30 seconds in a way that was corporate-appropriate?
It was obvious that his friends at his pod knew he was going to ask me that question. I saw their eyes magically rise above their monitors to look at me just before he got my attention to ask the question. Outraged but thoughtful, I let my own corporate training kick in and tried to engage him in an intellectual conversation, attempting to ‘rise above’ whatever he thought I might be. I remember starting by saying, ‘Well, since the use of the ‘N’ word is divisive in Black culture, I would ask, why do you want to say it?’
We see this version of cultural appropriation so much in corporate environments specifically because this is where White people seek the approval of more powerful White people so they can display their promotability. Aaaaand this is where D&I has become a blocker for a lot of White people. Culturally appropriating speech, for example, can signal the clueless Whites in power that they (as middle managers) are ‘down’ for the cause. Even further, it shows that they’re willing to get down and dirty into the trenches for the sake of their company’s D&I imperative. They know how to communicate with us. They are one of the people. Being ‘one of the people’ is now a sexy competency to showcase in corporate environments.
Yet again, this is an example of a majority culture using a minority culture, built from our experiences and our bodies, for your upward mobility. I am the horse. You are the jockey. And with each inauthentic uttering of ‘coolness,’ I hear ‘giddyup.’ Again, this would not be on my radar if I weren’t literally told that my utterances of MY cultural expressions were the reason for me not moving up in a company. When I heard White executives using the same exact expressions, how could I not feel like the horse to their jockey? I’m an Ivy League graduate with a world of experience that was often lauded by direct managers as helping them to look good. How can you use my brilliance and my cultural ‘coolness’ to supplement your inadequacies? I expected corporate America to jockey my intelligence. I was prepared for corporate culture to harness my brilliance under the guise of empowerment. I draw the line at using my culture. Especially when I’m denied my own authentic expression of who I am in the same setting.
At the same time, I can’t fault those upwardly-mobile White folk for tapping into my culture’s coolness. Diversity, equity, inclusion — they’re the corporate buzzwords of the last five years. You have to showcase your relevance by adopting the occasional corporate-appropriate AAVE term. Corporate America has given you a charge without also providing the resources to successfully accomplish the mission. It’s as if you were told to go and talk to the monkeys without Jane Goodall’s years of experience. Instead, you’re shown an hour of videos with her accomplishing that impossible task, and are then asked to show how you too can communicate with monkeys in your yearly review. The pressure is high.
It’s no wonder this manifests in a way that’s a cultural slap in the face for minorities. (Once, an executive that I’ve never met b-lined for me as we passed in the hallway, greeting me with ‘Suuuuup girrrrrl,’ and reaching out to give me dap.) You’ve been given a mandate of cultural relevancy without being given the history or the skills to approach it sensitively. I honestly couldn’t fault that exec. I knew he was just trying to show that he was down for the people. His heart was in the right place?
Soulja in arms, always: It’s okay to embrace NOT simulate
Does this mean that you need to stop wearing that bindi that you love? No. It does mean that if you questioned it, you might. Those that have been connected to Indian culture understand the history and background and would’ve realized that I wasn’t talking to them. If you’ve never taken the moment to understand what the bindi means however, then yes, you very well could be guilty of PCA.
Let’s look at two examples and their approach to hip hop culture: The insider who was initially perceived as an outsider and the outsider that aped our coolness.
Eminem, as a person not born into the culture, lived and breathed the culture for most of his formative years. Machine Gun Kelley, well, he did his best emulating the culture, but failed after a hit or two.
Hip-hop’s response to each of these examples shows just how much insiders can not only see one’s authenticity, but it also demonstrates how an entire subculture can welcome or reject a kindred spirit or a poser. The verdict for Machine Gun Kelley was that it was akin to Blackface…. and so went his hip-hop career.
I’m not saying that you need to be born into a culture for it to strike a chord with your inner self. I am, however, saying that wearing the face of that culture for fun is indeed PCA and closer to Blackface than you’d probably like to consider. Are you twerking because the spirit moved you or because you’re trying to be cool, desirable, or upwardly mobile? If you’re doing it because you think it makes you cool, then you really need to take a moment for self-reflection. It doesn’t matter if this action is borrowed from a foreign or minority culture. If your motivation comes from outside of yourself, to please or be sought after by others, you should question why you’re doing it. It’s not healthy and indicative that you’re not okay with yourself. (Thanks, Margy.)
And yes, it has everything to do with intent — an intent that may even be subconscious and unbeknownst to the doer. However, in a world where judge and jury can strip Black people of their everyday rights, Black culture has become more and more audacious as a cry toward recognition — and we similarly reserve the right to sit in judge and jury of your expression of our cultural heritage.
Every minority can tell when your expression of their cultural identity is an authentic expression of you. We’re not sitting in judgment. Rather, we’re reserving judgment to understand if you’re truly woke or simply wearing the trend of the day — a perpetuator of PCA.
Check Yo’self Before You Wreck Yo’self: Don’t be THAT person
Is your company including words like ‘OG’ or ‘Side Hustle’ in its official discourse? Or are ‘Ain’t nobody got time for that’ and ‘Yassss’ memes the corporate gifs of the day? But you don’t see anyone around you that might use those terms outside of the workplace or in the safety of their own homes? Then your company has PCA running rampant. If you were woke enough to self-assess and admit it, then know that a 2020 version of indentured servitude lies beneath.
Or, did you just think to yourself, ‘these weren’t appropriated from Black culture’? Or do you discredit my opinion because this is ‘American’ culture? Then you probably ARE that person I’m talking about. Congrats. You’ve successfully coopted a language and culture while dismissing its relevancy. You are personally guilty of PCA.
Looking back on that ’N’ word conversation I was involuntarily pulled into, what I remember most are his work buddies laughing.
To this day, I don’t know how earnest that particular question was. I’ve tried my best to entertain it as a genuinely curious and knowledge-seeking question, even though the twinge in my gut suggests something else. I very much believe that if our particular corporate environment had given this Baby Boomer the right tools to engage with someone like me, then its D&I imperative would not have manifested in such an undignified question.
Looking back, I wish I would’ve shut down the conversation by saying, ‘Don’t try to so hard to emulate a trend you don’t understand. It’s okay to be authentically you.’
