Who Am I or Who Might I Be?

By Monique Cox

OGL 350 Diversity and Organizations

 The question throughout life is always who am I or who I might be. This topic couldn’t more on

time if I had planned it myself. This week our oldest son found us on Facebook. He is my stepson but a

son that I know that has been missing for 24 years. As a Stepmom to four children with different

mothers, I am required to be a master of diversity management. I had to learn to build trusting

relationships with each of the children as well as maintain a civil relationship with their mothers. We are

all culturally different therefore learning the cultural differences is imperative. For me it was a true

learning experience. I am African American and Puerto Rican. Although we lived in an urban

neighborhood most of our lives, I went to schools that were predominantly White. One would think that

this prepared me for all that would come my way in my adult life, but I can tell you that I wasn’t ready. I

didn’t know the inner workings of the urban neighborhood and I was raised with the politeness and

norms of the white schools where I spent most of my time. I married an African American man and he

opened my eyes to a whole new world. We often disagree on what the proper protocol is for going to

visit people at their homes or which events require a gift and which ones don’t. I’m a fan of my privacy

and he is ok with sleeping on a family member’s couch. Our children are no different. They were brought

up with different definitions of respect or what is considered an appropriate request. All in all I have

great relationships with 2 out of 4. The relationship with our son that just found us is developing

therefore I can’t accurately place that one. He was raised White. He truly looks like the albino version of

my husband and to hear the shock in his voice that he is half Black was an eye opener. We don’t think of

it and race isn’t something that we point out every day. Just as Beverly Daniel Tatum pointed out in The

Complexity of Identity “Who Am I?”, “areas where a person is a member of the dominant or advantaged

social group, the category is usually not mentioned.” He turned on Facebook live and told all his

followers that he was half White and half Black. He then encouraged them to look up his father’s name

on Facebook just in case someone didn’t believe him. In that moment, I could see how everything he

was raised to believe had crossed his mind. He shared that in high school, he and friends were talking
about other people and how he emphatically stated that he wasn’t Black. His friends asked him if he had

looked in the mirror and taken a hard look at his nose, lips, and eye brows. He said that is when he went

to his mother and demanded the truth. He wasn’t given the truth of his race but a series of degrading

truths about who is father was and descriptions of the woman he married. He spent years believing the

stories and continued with his theory that there was no way for him to be Black. Here we are a few days

later after he found out that he is in fact half Black. He is in disbelief and is overwhelmed that everything

he was taught was incorrect. He is in a place where he now needs to find himself all over again. He has

to ask himself who am I and who might I be. I listen to the confusion and use every skill I have to help

him swim through this new found identity. This is a new culture immersion that he had no idea was

coming. He now knows that he has been looked for and sought after his entire life. In watching him

learn about himself, I learned that I am stronger than I gave myself credit for. I learned that my earlier

life learning the three cultures has prepared me for this very moment. I can understand a lot of what he

has gone through growing up and I can ease him into the new cultural differences that he is learning. I

would label this under cross-national diversity management as stated in Diversity Management,

Paradigms, Rationale, and Key Elements Chapter 10. The reason I say it falls under this label is because

he was raised in a different world. His new learning will submerge him into a new culture and give him

insight on a culture that was completely foreign to him. It is a culture that was presented to him as

stereotypes. It is all he knew. I look forward to the day that we can sit and talk about how his

perspective on the Black culture has changed and how he views it after learning that he is a part of it.

I completed the cultural intelligence pre-test and wasn’t quite sure how to add up all of the

categories. I totaled the points according to the selection of one thru seven. When I added up each one,

I had a total of 91. In looking at my selections, I see that I need improvement in knowing the true details

and inner workings of other cultures. I am open to learning however I don’t actually know any culture

the way I know my own. I am also unaware of the proper non-verbal communication to interact
successfully with other cultures. Being that I am a very non-verbal communicator, this would be where I

need to start. I would need to know what is considered offensive and adjust what I consider to be the

norm within my cultural interactions.

Our family structure is very individualistic according to Hofstede’s cultural values model. We all

lead our own paths and come together is crisis. This COVID 19 has added strength to our connections

even though we are in different states. We have virtually connected and joined forces in ensuring that

our parents are taken care of. We do expect each person to perform at the standards of the group. We

operate in a moderate power distance in most situations. In situations with our elders, it becomes a high

power distance. You are expected to use formal titles and to take the directive as given. I have noticed

that the younger generations prefer to operate in a low power distance. When it comes to uncertainty

avoidance, the younger generations tend to be ok with uncertainty. They accept the assumption of the

situation rather than researching for clarity. In the older generations, we tend to request complete

clarity prior to continuing any situation. In our family structure, we operate with clarities of sex roles.

We fall under the masculine mind fame and the need to be tough when obstacles present. Although I

am not a fan of showing off wealth, I do understand that it is the norm in today’s society. Our children

love to show off what they have even if they only have it just for the picture. This has become the norm

with the growing technology interest as each year goes by. Today’s society has become predominantly

visual in the US. There is an underlying theory that a person really doesn’t have it if they don’t show it

off. In reference to time orientation, our family structure perspective depends on who you ask. I tend to

think of things in the long run however my husband operates on the short term orientation of life. I

believe this has to do with the way we were raised. I also can see how our children’s views depend on

who they relate to the most.

 References

file:///C:/Users/mcox011/Downloads/Diversity%20Management%20-%20Chapter%2010.pdf

file:///C:/Users/mcox011/Downloads/Complexity%20of%20Identity.pdf

https://asu.instructure.com/courses/40029/pages/module-1-a-slash-v-presentations?

module_item_id=2424643 (AV Lesson 4)