Our society’s parameters and conventions for acceptable conduct largely mirror the behavior of Caucasian American culture who are largely unaware of the complexities of prejudice and discrimination that most BIPOC and immigrant people regularly encounter.
Almost all successful people of color practice code switching. It is an innovative strategy of successfully navigating the workplace, society and social platforms. We shift our vocal tonality, grammar, so as to not intimidate or be stereotyped as “less than”. We self-edit our speech patterns and tone, modify our vocabulary, lessen our exuberance, pare down our body language and change our hair styles.