Civil Rights and Uncivil Lefts – Opportunities and Challenges for Oregon's Professional Minorities

By Joel Gunz
Originally appeared in Commerce Magazine, October 2006

Part two in three-part series.

Kevin Johnson begins our interview by asking me to let people know that isn’t his real name. He’s not trying to make my life difficult. It’s just that he isn’t interested in being pegged as anybody’s “poster child.”

Over the last 15 years, Johnson has owned several businesses, ranging from a construction services firm to a mortgage brokerage. He is now preparing to complete his MBA at Portland State University while maintaining his position as one of the top-producing commercial lenders for a regional bank. Kevin is also African-American, a detail that makes him a bit anomalous in the purportedly liberal city of Portland.

In Oregon, observers note that leaders who come from racial minority groups are few and far between. Yet, while racial tension and discrimination admittedly persist, enormous progress has been made; generally speaking, business and civic leadership roles are there for the taking by whites, Hispanics, blacks and Asians alike. So, why the disconnect between availability and actuality?

In his book Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America -- and What We Can Do About It, author Juan Williams speaks to the issue on a national scale. He cites a dearth of leadership voices from the black community urging their members to take responsibility for their own advancement. He writes, "Why is rhetoric from our current core of civil rights leaders fixated on white racism instead of on the growing power of black Americans, now at an astounding level by any historical measure, to determine their own destiny? Fifty years after Brown [v. Board of Education], much of the power to address the problems facing black people is in black hands."

Mr. Johnson (not his real name) is doing just that. Interestingly, as a precondition to being interviewed for this article, he asked to change his name on the grounds that he "does not want to be a poster child for black advancement." He is simply an ambitious adult who wants the rewards due for his hard work and intelligence, regardless of skin color.

During his time in the construction industry, contractors frequently asked Johnson to register his firm as a minority business, which would increase his chances of winning certain bids. He never did, though. He says, "I didn't need that to be successful. I didn't want anyone to perceive my success as coming from a handout."

That guiding principle – refusal to take handouts based on race – has been a constant. And Johnson is the first to admit that that has, at times, been a tough row to hoe. After he sold his construction firm in the mid-1990s, Johnson joined Smith Barney as the company's first black stockbroker in its history in Oregon. Occasionally, after speaking for weeks with a prospective client on the telephone, he would finally arrive in that person's office only to see the deal screech to a halt. Since he doesn't have a so-called "black" accent, these prospects were often surprised to find that he was black when they finally met him in person. For some, that was a deal-killer.
Still, Johnson insists that racism isn't an insurmountable obstacle to success. "Can a black man succeed in business in Portland? Yes. It does present a hurdle. You have to expect that some people will be surprised by your skin color when they meet you. And some just will not work with you. But that's a small group. Most people I've met have worked with me."

Four decades after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, minorities have more opportunities than ever. Nevertheless, Johnson says, "I'm still surprised to see how few blacks are represented in professional-level banking positions in Portland."

Why is that? The reasons are complex, and most agree that the finger cannot be pointed at any single racial or interest group. In 2004, comedian Bill Cosby gave a searing commencement speech at Brown University, calling the black community to task for not doing more to improve the situation. His comments provoked a national debate.

Johnson agrees with much of what Cosby has said. He observes a tendency among some in the black community to devalue those who want to succeed in the academic or business world. "If a black kid does well in school, other black kids will put him down. And that doesn't change once you're an adult. If you don't use the slang, you're a sellout."

Even in families where success is encouraged, racial lines can be drawn that discourage black kids from reaching out in certain ways.

"My parents raised me to be articulate and successful," says Johnson. "So it was surprising and confusing when my father criticized me for not using slang. He felt that I was being condescending to other blacks when I didn't use the accent or the lingo. There's a perception that only if you act like you're from the hood – only then are you truly black. That's stupid."
The rub is that if a black person insists on using slang or wearing hip-hop clothes, his or her chances of advancement in the job world are sharply reduced. Further, as Johnson notes, some in the black community attach a negative stigma to certain professions, such as banking or high-tech engineering, which discourages many blacks from pursuing these lucrative careers.

Today, blacks are leaders in media (Richard Parsons, head of Time Warner, Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek), global corporations (Kenneth Chenault of American Express, Ann Fudge of the public relations firm Young and Rubicam), and national politics (Senator Barack Obama, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice). Civil rights leadership, however, remains in the hands of older individuals, such as Jesse Jackson and Julian Bond, who made a name for themselves in the 1960s and are perceived by many as anachronisms.

In Enough, Juan Williams writes that these civic leaders don't "recognize that national politics has changed and [that] black people [and] white people, as well as Hispanics, Asians, and other immigrants, have changed. … [T]he black leadership is fighting the old battles and sending the same signals even as poor black people are stuck in a rut and falling further behind in a global economy."

Johnson takes that concept a step further, looking askance at the very notion of a civic leader who stands up to represent the black community. He says, "I think the idea of having a person speak for the whole black community is ridiculous. It presupposes that you vote a certain way, that you have a certain set of values, et cetera. I don't agree with that concept. Nobody can speak for what my opinions are."

He feels that the sort of leadership that, say, Martin Luther King, Jr. once provided is no longer needed. King and others "served a purpose. But now that kind of leadership has to come from the individual or from the parents."

Perhaps the kind of leadership that is now needed is just what Kevin Johnson is providing.
"I can sit wherever I want on the bus," He says. "I can go to any college I want, I can be a banker or anything else. I don't see myself as any different from other hardworking blacks."