Race at work: Demystifying the dominant race-neutral narrative

Despite continuing widespread and persistent inequality in the United States, the formal legal structure created to address racial discrimination is now being dismantled. This dismantling is justified by the narrative of race that claims discrimination is no longer significant and that the U.S. is a "color-blind" society. Two points contradict this view: a substantial body of evidence that directly challenges this picture of "reality," and social theorists who argue that racial power has not declined in significance. In fact, they claim that the nation continues to be racialized by mechanisms that are simply less visible than they were prior to the Civil Rights Movement.; Much of this evidence covers the macro-structure of U.S. society. However, the place of race in the micro-world of the "lived experience" also must be covered to fully understand the actual condition of racial minorities. This dissertation details empirical research that examined the everyday workplace lives of people of color, holding a range of job classifications in a large, public sector agency in the mid-Atlantic region. In addition this dissertation examined the beliefs about race held by persons in positions of authority in the agency and their responses to racial matters.; The examination indicates a broad range of implicit and explicit, visible and opaque actions and interactions that racialize the full spectrum of the workplace experience. The findings also indicate that the racialized workplace generates a host of negative feelings and compels a set of responses and adaptations that together constitute a pervasive psychological context that is burdensome and limiting to some employees. The place of race in this workplace is denied by whites in formal positions of authority. The color-blind narrative operates amongst these whites, facilitating their denial, and limiting any real efforts to racially balance the workplace. There are two major implications: the need for research and activism to hasten legal remedies for these conditions, and, simultaneously, the need to demystify the dominant narrative, raise consciousness of the "lived experience" of race, and organize counter-hegemonic equalization efforts.