The standards of “professionalism” are heavily defined by white supremacy culture, therefore a lot of the career advice you’ll find on the internet, including Career Central, might be biased towards a predominantly white, male work environment. While organizations need to take ownership and address this, it’s important to figure out how you can bring your authentic self to the workplace. This will depend on your organization’s values, culture, employees, leadership, and inclusion efforts. In reality, this isn’t easy and you may have to make complicated choices.
The bottom line is that your identity (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) matters and should be honored in the workplace. We encourage you to check out the following resources to learn more about code-switching and how to navigate your identity in the workplace:
- Code-Switching at Work: More common than you think and hurting your team (BetterUp, 2022)
- How Code-Switching in the Workplace Has Been Normalized for POCs (Jopwell, 2021)
- How To Survive In A Mostly White Workplace: Tips for Marginalized Employees (NPR, 2020)
- The Costs of Code-Switching (Harvard Business Review, 2019)
- The Cost of Code Switching | Chandra Arthur | TEDxOrlando (YouTube, 2017)
- A Misfit’s Guide to Navigating the Office (The New York Times)
Note: This list is a work in progress, meaning the Career Team will be updating resources as we continue to learn ourselves.
