Culture Wars

I work in a federal agency where eighty percent of the employees are American Indian. That's as it should be - it's an agency that serves Indian people and tribes. I was hired during a brief window of time (about a year or so) when Indian Preference policy was not ascribed to some of the lower secretarial and administrative positions. Indian Preference, in case you didn't know, is a hiring policy which excludes from consideration any non-Indian applicant, no matter how outstanding, so long as there is at least one Indian applicant, no matter how marginal (it's called "minimally qualified" in bureaucratese). The point of the policy is to populate agencies that serve mostly Indians with Indians, the idea being that Indians have a vested interest and will therefore serve their Indian customers in a more committed way. A highly commendable idea. It just so happens that, in practice, at this stage of the game, the result is different.

Can you imagine if such a policy existed with any other group? Imagine, as an example, a policy that excluded African American applicants from consideration, no matter how outstanding, so long as a white person applied, no matter how marginal.

We could go into a free-wheeling conversation here about the devastating experience of Indian people at the hands of white settlers, the treaties broken, the millions of lives lost, the land stolen, the destruction of cultures and ways of life which flourished for thousands of years. There aren't words harsh enough to describe the horror inflicted on this continent's native peoples, a horror shared with most of the other indigenous people of the world, for that matter. Certain chapters of history are unutterably tragic. I know that and am empathetic.

Another conversation we could have would be about what it's like for this white male American of a certain age to be the low man on the - ahem - totem pole at a time when, for much of his life, to be a white male in America was to be bestowed with privilege and opportunity that had nothing to do with ability and everything to do with being the top dog. There's a story there to be told as well.

But what I'd like to focus on is how Indian Preference has created a culture at my agency which leaves everyone on rocky footing.

Part of the story is simply a rift between cultures. I'm going to make some broad characterizations here so please bear with me. Indian people are different from pueblo to pueblo, tribe to tribe, state to state. These are generalizations I see played out in my particular neck of the woods - Albuquerque, New Mexico. Most of the Indian people who work at my agency are from the Pueblos near here.

Pueblo culture, it seems, bestows honor and respect on people who have reached a certain level of achievement or education. A person with a law degree, for example, is respected because of the degree, regardless of the nature or quality of the person who holds it. The person is believed to deserve respect because of the position they hold. This turns out to be completely at odds with the way I see the world, and as it happens, I share this perception with many of my non-Indian coworkers. I think it's ludicrous. I mean, I worked for the Justice Department, where attorneys were a dime a dozen, and where a person could be brilliant and educated and high-achieving but didn't deserve respect because of the way they treated other people. Despots, bullies, ruthless people - sorry, I don't respect them even if they have law degrees or are high-ranking government employees.

The flip side of this belief is that people who have not reached a certain level of achievement or education - secretaries like me, for example - do not deserve respect no matter how wonderful they may be or how much they accomplish at work. Again, this is exactly the opposite of a core belief I hold dear, which is that people who are kind and sincere and hard working and good deserve my respect regardless of their achievements or education. This goes without saying, or at least, it always did in my life until now, where I find myself in a work environment that holds tight to the opposite point of view. Again, it's just outrageous to me. I have true respect for the low-ranking typist who is struggling with two kids at home, no spouse to share the work, and going to night school to complete her elusive degree. I respect the hell out of her. I don't withhold my respect and admiration because she makes half my salary. Again, ludicrous.

Complicating matters is Indian Preference (IP). Possibly in most other office cultures, there is at least the tacit understanding that the person who holds a position, unless they were the recipient of blatant nepotism, has earned it. Somewhere in their career, they competed with other similarly-educated and experienced people and were found to be the best. But this is not the case in my agency. There are so many people in high-level positions who simply would never have the opportunity to serve in that capacity because they would've been washed out in the job search process. But still they sit, in these high positions, expecting respect and deference by virtue of their having achieved these high positions.

Meanwhile, secretaries and other low-ranking employees who are non-Indian receive no respect (they don't deserve it - they're secretaries) and even the enormously capable ones (okay, like me) do not have the opportunity to promote (and therefore be respected) because they are non-Indians.

Maybe if I hadn't had fifteen years of experience in a non Indian Preference government office I wouldn't rankle so. Maybe I wouldn't be as aware how so many of my co-workers simply do not have the skills necessary to perform their duties. Maybe I wouldn't tut-tut in disgust when someone who earns $120,000 a year can't seem to write a simple email (a person who inexplicably has earned a master's degree along the way). And maybe, if I weren't an egalatarian, I wouldn't find myself butting heads with my office culture over who is and isn't worthy of respect.

I would love to say most of us are able to celebrate our differences and acknowledge that what we struggle with is just a cultural clash that can be smoothed out by learning the secret handshake or bowing just so. But our cultural landscape is too rocky for that. This question of who is deserving of respect sits at the bottom of almost every conflict, of every uncomfortable boss-secretary relationship in my agency. It is the pink elephant in the room. Nobody talks about it. But everybody experiences it in some way. Call it respectism. It's as rancid as racism, and as corrosive.

Another cultural difference that plays out in this mess is that many Pueblo cultures encourage their people not to speak out, not to communicate clearly, not to participate in discussions or meetings or even "soft skills" trainings designed to ameliorate some of the tensions in the office. The Pueblo way is to hold it in, ruminate, and maybe whisper disparagingly about what was said by a white person later on, but to offer no feedback, to remain stone-faced. Meanwhile, us loud-mouthed whites, who have long been encouraged to speak our minds and volunteer our opinions no matter how useless, find ourselves dominating conversations and expressing vociferous opposition to lame-brained policies, which is perceived as showing a lack of respect. Oh, it's a vicious circle, all right.

The upper-level Indian people want respect from the lower-level whites, but the lower-level whites don't ascribe to the idea that the upper-level Indians deserve respect by virtue of the positions they hold. Meanwhile, the upper-level Indian people don't respect the lower-level whites because they're lower level. And the whites feel it, and it's hard to have respect for people who don't respect you.

Everybody's dissing everybody else.

A big part of me simply wants out. And eventually I'll find another job and get out. But another part of me wants to point the finger and say, "Hey! There's something fishy here."

I feel like the kid who naively points out that the emperor has no clothes. It isn't so horrible for me, the white male who is experiencing institutional discrimination for possibly the first time in my life (oh, I've been on the receiving end of sexual discrimination and fat body discrimination, but not to my knowledge for my ethnicity). I don't mind being thrown on the bonfire of trying to right a despicable wrong, and I'm lucky - I make a decent living and am relatively secure at a time when many people are struggling. Get over it, white boy, you say, and I join you. It's not so dire for me. So what if people who "should" respect me for my sterling attributes hold me in disdain because I'm a secretary? Should they really respect me? Isn't it enough that I'm not openly held in contempt just for being white? And couldn't I in turn muster up a show of respect for them just for making it to the upper echelon when, only a few years ago, it would have been impossible for them to achieve what they've achieved? Bow down, lower-level white man. Take your medicine. In this culture, I am "less than," and it's as if I'm living a Star Trek episode about the privileged people up in the clouds (Stratus, right?) and the drones who live and work in the caves on the planet below. Never fear; Mister Spock is on his way to clear everything up, and Captain Kirk will seduce one of each of the women, proving that we're all the same.

Still.

It's more than me. The office culture resulting from Indian preference is problematic for all of us who work there. More far-reachingly, Indian preference is problematic for the people it most dramatically impacts - our constituency. Frankly, Indian people are receiving less than stellar quality service from our agency because the people who are hired may be in over their heads, and we are engaged in an unstated culture war among ourselves. Until such time as there are outstandingly qualified Indian people applying for every position, the discrepancy in quality is a detriment to those we serve. Maybe it won't be long until that is the case - a few years, maybe longer. But for now, things could be better.