Varying Dress, Idioms : Races Split by ‘Cultural Divide’

Clay Normand is a “huggy-kissy” person, a characteristic he proudly ascribes to his black cultural heritage.

“That’s the black style,” says Normand, 43, a private youth services consultant who specializes in programs for black inner-city youngsters. “When we greet one another, for example, we’re usually very affectionate on a ‘brotherly-sisterly’ level, no matter where we meet. You put your arm around your ‘brother,’ you hug and kiss your ‘sister.’ ”

But it is a style that--along with many other black cultural styles he values and freely employs in his relations among fellow blacks--Normand has learned to use cautiously with whites. Whites too often are offended by it, he says. And the consequences can be serious, particularly if the whites are ones upon whom your livelihood depends.

“I’ve had white men let me know, in so many ways, that they were very uncomfortable with such expressions of friendship by me to their ladies,” he said. “And although many white women can relate to this style with no problem, there are still those who find it insulting or sexist--even though there’s nothing sexual or demeaning to women about it.”

Even some black women have complained: “I’ve had them say to me privately: ‘Cut that out in the workplace, Clay, because white folks will think we’re sleeping together.’ ”

Normand’s experiences are not an isolated case. They reflect a side of daily life that is commonplace for black Americans and is becoming a matter of increasing concern and controversy between blacks and whites.

Race relations have made dramatic strides in recent decades. Traditional barriers of color and class have fallen, old racial prejudices and stereotypes have waned, and blacks and whites are sharing their lives as never before--in the workplace, in the classroom, at public assemblies and private gatherings, in restaurants and bars, and on the streets.

Formidable Barrier

But for all this progress, many social scientists and race relations experts say, the “cultural divide” between black and white Americans still forms a barrier to greater racial harmony and togetherness, a barrier that is sometimes even more formidable and intractable than color or class.

These cultural differences go well beyond such issues as styles of greeting. They include patterns and preferences in dress, idiom, communications, interpersonal relationships and social behavior, and they reach even to many basic values and attitudes that blacks and whites hold toward life, work and spiritual well-being.

Blacks generally shy away from discussing such differences out of well-grounded fears that distinctive cultural traits will be mislabeled as inherent racial “deficiencies.” Whites, on the other hand, tend to pass over the issue lightly, presuming that blacks operate largely--though imperfectly--according to the same cultural conventions and assumptions they use.

Meanwhile, divergent cultural assumptions challenge efforts to improve racial tolerance and understanding.

“I think the cultural problem is the key problem right now in race relations,” said Thomas Kochman, author of the 1981 book, “Black and White Styles in Conflict” and a communications professor at the University of Illinois’ Circle Campus in Chicago. “After you deal with the problem of inclusion--that is, increasing the number of blacks in the workplace and so forth and working on the racism, sexism and other things destructive of human potential--you’ve got the cultural differences.”

The workplace is one of the major focuses of the cultural clash, and one of the most troublesome spots in the work world involves the off-hours socializing that often is considered an unwritten job requirement in many professions and occupations.

Not ‘Status Conscious’

Blacks and whites have often widely differing styles of socializing, not only with regard to preferences in food, music, dance and entertainment but in patterns of social behavior, male-female relationships and “small talk” as well. Blacks, for instance, generally are not as “status conscious” as whites, and thus tend to be much more intimate and “person oriented” in their approach, Kochman said.

But another difficulty is that blacks also tend to consider their off-hours private time when they can be “black” without worrying about how whites will judge their behavior.

“I keep my car radio programmed to a ‘soul’ station so that when I get off work and get into my car, I can get an instant blast of black culture--whether it’s rap, Motown or Whitney Houston,” said a black communications specialist in Los Angeles who works in a predominantly white office. “If I’m angry, it calms me down. It makes me realize there’s another world out there.”

But, particularly in careers where socializing in private life is sometimes deemed vital to professional advancement and success, blacks violate this convention at their own peril.

At the New England university where he once taught, for example, playwright and black culture specialist Paul Carter Harrison declined to attend faculty socials because they had a style that he says was particularly at odds with his sensibilities as a black.

“I found it very provincial and ‘Joe Collegiate,’ ” said Carter, a native New Yorker whose books include “The Drama of Nommo” and his latest, “Totem Masks.” “I preferred to do my socializing with black people.”

But Harrison was shocked when he received his first-year evaluation and discovered that he had been downgraded for what was regarded as antisocial behavior. “It said that I was a wonderful teacher, the students loved me, my work was terrific, my lectures were great, I was very well informed. There was only one problem: I failed to attend faculty socials.”

Harrison stormed into his department chairman’s office and demanded an explanation. “I said: ‘What’s this about attending socials?’ He said simply: ‘You don’t.’ I said: ‘I’m quite sociable but I pick and choose the people with whom I prefer to socialize--and I’m not interested in being with these people on my own time.’ ”

The upshot, says Harrison, who is now playwright-in-residence at Columbia College in Chicago, is one that is familiar to many other blacks after such confrontations: “They’re still there and I’m not.”

Kochman comments: “It’s a problem blacks have all the time--how to give white people what they want, and yet to stay black at the same time.”

On the job, blacks find they are often severely penalized for failing to conform to the usually dominant white cultural standards and practices.

In a case last year that drew widespread attention and sparked a national black protest because of its symbolic value, one black employee of the Hyatt hotel chain lost her job and another was forced to wear a wig at work in a clash with company policy over their African-inspired “cornrows”--tightly woven braids, sometimes beaded, that many black women wear as an affirmation of ethnic pride.

The Hyatt worker who lost her job, a coffee shop cashier, was told that her braids violated hotel policy against “extreme and unusual hair styles.”

“These anti-cornrow braids policies exist in corporations throughout the country,” said Eric Steele, a labor relations lawyer in Washington, D.C. “Hundreds of black women have been directly affected by them, either through disciplinary action or dismissal, and thousands more have been indirectly affected because they fear what might happen to them.”

Helen Asenath Moody, a professional wardrobe consultant in Washington who is black and has an exclusive clientele that is largely white, says her black clients are almost invariably plagued by fear that they will break some unwritten norm of dress and fashion in the white-dominated “power elite” circles in which they move.

Black Concept of Fashion

“I have very little trouble selling the black concept of fashion to my white clientele,” Moody said. “In fact, they seem to enjoy being seduced from the solid-color canvas of their own cultural style and getting into the black style, which mixes feeling, comfort, color and joy.

“Unfortunately, the black woman who can afford me wants to look just like that solid-color canvas. She can’t take the risk to her professional career or social status. She starts fighting me the moment she sees me coming. I’ve even had some of them try on an outfit and say: ‘Don’t you think that looks a little too ‘colored?’ ”

Such fears have solid grounds. Kochman, who also serves as a consultant on black-white relations to many private corporations, says blacks are penalized far more often and severely than whites for failing to conform to prevailing white business mores and manners.

“It’s not just violations of dress codes, it’s across the board,” he said. “Blacks have said all along that they perceive they cannot get away with the things whites can. This especially applies to black males, more so than black females. A constant complaint I hear from them is: ‘If I did that, ‘the man’ would be all over my back.’ ”

A constant source of friction between blacks and whites in the workplace is what Kochman calls the black “improvisational” style.

“The Anglo work concept,” he explained, “believes the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and it values economy and efficiency. Only those moves considered essential to the job should be allowed.

“In contrast, in the black work ethic, there is an emphasis on spontaneity and individual style, on changing routine tasks to make them more interesting--things that whites don’t see as work-connected but as play.”

Kochman said that conflict in styles is evident on the professional football field, where black players try to go beyond the technical aspects of the game to perform not simply with proficiency but with flair. White coaches and officials, on the other hand, tend to view this as “showboating” or “hotdogging” and constantly impose rules and sanctions in efforts to deter such behavior.

“For whites, the play is over when it’s over,” he said. “For blacks, there must always be time for the ‘signature’ move.” He cites as an example the famous “end-zone shuffle” that Cincinnati Bengals’ rookie running back Ickey Woods uses to celebrate his touchdowns.

Even when blacks do conform to white cultural norms, they still run the risk of being perceived through racial or cultural stereotypes.

Seen as ‘Temperamental’

“At the newspaper in Washington where I used to work,” said Sandra Gregg, Atlanta bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report, “two reporters--both women, one white and one black--got into similar disagreements with their respective editors. The white reporter screamed and carried on, but she was seen as just being ‘temperamental.’ ”

On the other hand, Gregg said: “The black reporter was very stern in her approach but became terser and quieter during the argument, in the white style. However, she was seen as having an ‘attitude problem’--and that reputation hung around her neck for years after that whenever she came up for evaluation.”

Although many blacks can adopt a “white style” in an effort to get ahead, that approach has a price. Kochman believes that blacks have a two-part identity--one part based on race and the other on culture. He thinks that, emotionally, the cultural component is much more central to their personal identity than the somewhat artificial categorization of race.

“To give up that cultural identity means giving up being for real,” Kochman said. “Most other ethnic groups assimilate to the Anglo standard without any great sense of being false to themselves. But for blacks, that is a disintegration of self.”

This sense of dishonesty is reflected in such expressions as “playing the game” and “fronting,” which blacks often use colloquially to describe getting over in the larger society, he said.

Debates on School Tests

Schoolrooms and college campuses are another major focus of the cultural clash, with debates that frequently reach national proportions over biases in such areas as standardized tests and course offerings.

Blacks contend that standardized tests have long failed to recognize the distinctiveness of their culture. For example, a test administered several decades ago to both blacks and whites showed that, overall, blacks scored higher than whites on “measure of femininity” because they agreed more often with such “feminine” choices as “I would like to be a singer” and “I think I feel more intensely than most people do.”

But as Eric H. Erikson points out in his 1968 book, “Identity: Youth and Crisis,” to be a singer and to feel intensely “may be facets of a masculine ideal gladly admitted if you grew up in a Southern Negro community--or for that matter, in Naples.”

Robert Williams, a black psychology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, knows the biases of standardized tests first hand. As a sophomore at Dunbar High School in Little Rock, Ark., he took an IQ test and scored 82, barely above the level achieved by the mentally retarded.

Looking at the score, his guidance counselor suggested that Williams learn a trade, so he studied auto mechanics and bricklaying. After graduation he took a job serving hamburgers at a drive-in restaurant.

Helped With Homework

During a break one day, he helped a co-worker with his algebra homework. The man was so impressed that he asked Williams where he went to college.

“I wasn’t smart enough for college,” Williams replied.

“You’re wrong about that!” the other man said.

The next semester Williams enrolled in Philander Smith College in Little Rock. He earned his master’s degree at Wayne State University in Detroit. In 1961, he became the first black person to win a doctorate in psychology at Washington University, where he now teaches.

Williams says that what the IQ test really measured was the great cultural and social gap between him and the test’s designers.

“I came from a poor family that spoke non-standard English,” he said in a published interview. “If I was presented with sentences and asked to pick the correct one, I chose the one that sounded the way people I knew spoke. To me, the sentence, ‘I had went down there,’ sounded correct. That’s how I got an 82 on the test. Obviously I don’t have an 82 IQ, but that was how I seemed to the schools. . . . And the same mistakes are still made, if unintentionally, with kids every day.”

Williams is a prominent figure in the movement for aptitude tests that take into account cultural differences of black Americans. But it is a volatile issue that, among whites and blacks alike, tends to raise more questions than it answers.

In a column last year, for example, syndicated journalist Paul Greenberg asked, not altogether facetiously: “How long would it be, one wonders, before those designing these new separate-but-equal tests would have to work out the kind of cockeyed racial categories that bedeviled practitioners of other forms of racial segregation? Would mulattoes take the test for whites or the one for blacks? Or half of each?

“Would middle-class blacks from Vermont who wouldn’t know June Teenth (a reference to blacks’ celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation) from July the Fourth get their pick of tests? Would all Southerners whose ‘life styles’ include day-long Sunday services, chitlins and watermelon take the black test instead of having to wrestle with questions of how to drive on ice and snow?”

Academic course offerings are another source of controversy over how far cultural conformity should go. In a move that provoked a furious “great books” debate among scholars across the United States, Stanford University decided last April to drop a mandatory list of 15 classics in the “Western Culture” course it requires of all freshmen, after a growing number of teachers and students charged that the list ignored completely the cultural contributions of minorities, especially blacks and women.

Another aspect of the cultural divide in schools and colleges that is becoming a matter of growing concern is the pervasive cultural alienation and isolation that black students suffer in predominantly white school settings.

Sit at Separate Tables

The scene at Homewood High School in suburban Birmingham, Ala., is typical of those at many nominally integrated schools across the country. At Homewood, where blacks make up 14% of the student population, blacks and whites study together in the classrooms and play together on the athletic field. But in the cafeteria at lunch, for instance, blacks and whites almost invariably sit at separate tables. At school proms, the bands play the music that white students--who are the majority--favor, leaving blacks feeling--as one black junior put it--”like outcasts, because it’s not what we’re used to.”

Other factors come into play in creating this disaffection among blacks. For example, the lingering racism based on color and class certainly enters the picture, since most of the whites are from affluent, middle-class families, while many blacks are from lower-income families in a residentially segregated part of the community. But the cultural component seems by far the strongest.

“It’s like there’s two different worlds,” said Wilbert Pryor, a 16-year-old black senior. “There is the school life and there is the social life.”

Bringing those separate worlds together in the true sense of integration is no easy task. Pervasive patterns of residential segregation throughout the United States tend to reinforce racial and cultural boundaries between whites and blacks.

A recent study by University of Chicago researchers, for example, showed that Asians and Latinos have far greater contact with other races as they move out of large U.S. cities and into the suburbs, while blacks still encounter major barriers to integration.

This residential separation is behind the still strong patterns of the so-called black English that is spoken by many urban black Americans.

William Labov, a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an authority in the field of black English, says that--contrary to expectations that the black vernacular would become more like standard English under the homogenizing influences of television, radio and the movies--it shows evidence of going its own way.

“It’s a healthy, living form of language,” he said in an interview with the New York Times. “But separate development is only made possible by separate living.”

Anthony Lankford, a 17-year-old warehouse worker who lives in Atlanta’s South Side ghetto, knows how strong the barriers of racial and cultural separation can be.

“I don’t live near any whites,” he said, “I didn’t go to school with any whites, I don’t have any white friends, and the white guys on the job don’t even speak to me, much less ask me out to lunch with them.”

In an even more ironic development, an apparently growing number of talented young blacks are turning their backs on the mainstream world and seeking economic opportunities elsewhere that will allow them more freedom to express their black cultural identity.

“I don’t want to go into the mainstream,” said Michele Booth, a Harvard graduate who is now a law student at George Washington University and part-time law clerk at a large white law firm in Washington. “I’m tired of being ‘white’ by day and ‘black’ by night. I want to reintegrate my black identity.”

Economic necessity may compel her and others with similar ideals to think differently. “When I worked for a black radio station where I could be my ‘real’ self, I couldn’t (afford to) eat,” said Regina Gilmore, 27, the news and public affairs director for a country-western radio station in Memphis, Tenn.

C.T. Vivian, a prominent black Atlanta civil rights leader and private consultant on human relations, warns that the cultural divide will not be easy to bridge.

“What we find,” Vivian said, “is that until white people can feel something of what black people feel, there is no way to either emotionally or intellectually comprehend what blacks go through every day in the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Researcher Edith Stanley in Atlanta contributed to this story.