The Awareness and Effects of Racism

While How to Be Black is written with humor, its message underscores the serious issue of racism at both the institutional and individual level. At the institutional level, the degradation of African-Americans by powerful outside societal forces creates a serious imbalance of power, resources and opportunity. Institutions have policies and practices that disadvantage certain racial and ethnic groups. Through his satire, Thurston attacks institutional racism by highlighting The Black Employee in the corporate work environment. Regardless of the company’s statement about diversity, Thurston writes, “the primary functions of the diversity committee are to establish meetings, generate reports, and use the word ‘diversity’” (158). The hypocrisy is underscored by the mere fact that The Black Employee is the only black employee at the company. Thurston’s satire expresses this as, “By hiring The Black Employee, the company really got all black people” (158)! Little diversity...