“Wow, you speak English very well,” the senior leader had said to me. I had been walking back to my seat after delivering a presentation to a group of 150 senior Human Resources leaders. This was his immediate and only reaction to my presenting a compelling business case of how we had been upskilling our marketers to be more culturally competent and culturally aware.
“Well done,” he congratulated me, with a big smile on his face.
I stood there. A frozen smile pasted onto my face. My former manager, and other leaders, overheard this brief exchange. They stood there as this compliment and the congrats had been bestowed on me. They had said nothing, smiling and nodding.
That was not the first time that my ability or inability to speak English had been a point of interest or concern for those around me.
There was the time in the fifth grade when I proudly read my Haiku in front of the rowdy class.
“Great job, Mita. Your English is so good.”
There was the time I was visiting London for work, and fellow employees introduced themselves to me and immediately started conversing in Hindi.
“I’m sorry,” I had said, apologizing because I was uncomfortable. “I don’t understand you, I don’t speak Hindi.” A few of them had rolled their eyes in response.
There was the time when I was about to be admitted into the hospital to give birth to our son. I was assigned an English translator, who greeted me with “Como Estas?”
“I don’t need a translator,” I said, clenching my teeth in between contractions in the hallway as I waited for a room. “I speak English,” I said exasperated.
These times. Simply too many of them keep track of, too many of them to count. My English is surprisingly good. My Hindi and my Spanish not good enough (two languages I have never learned, not even to this day.) And my French is now barely coherent after 9 years of study, including some college French literature courses. And oddly enough, no one has ever commented on my ability or inability to speak French.
Why is what I speak and how well I speak or don’t speak fraught with so much curiosity, perplexion and at times even tension? Why can’t I just be left to communicate? And say what I have to say like everyone else?
Because my Brownness enters spaces and places before I even speak. Before I have the chance to offer an elbow pump and sit down, or take myself off mute on Zoom and say hello. My Brownness somehow speaks for me even before I am given the opportunity to speak for myself. Because for some people, the only way they want to understand my Brownness is by labeling me, categorizing me, and putting me in a predetermined box of their choosing.
When did you learn to speak English so well? What other languages do you speak? How did you get rid of your accent? Where are you from? Where are you really from?
It can be exhausting. It can be infuriating. It can chip away at you, the constant subtle and insidious attacks eroding your sense of self confidence and sense of worth.
As I have grown in my career, so too has my self confidence. And my understanding of my responsibility to address head on these every day attacks. Because if I ask myself, if I don’t intervene now in this moment, then who will?
When someone compliments me on my “English speaking abilities,” or compliments a colleague, here’s my approach:
Be Ready with the Quick Response
I am now armed with my responses for the compliments I receive on my English speaking abilities. First, with a smile, I will offer any of the following in return:
“Why, thank you! You speak English very well too!”
“Thank you. I have been speaking English my entire life.”
“You seem pleasantly surprised. Why is that?”
My response is important because I know other people of color are watching and listening to see how I respond. I am not just standing up for myself, but I am standing up for others and in hopes this comment is not made about them in the future. I am calling out the so-called compliment and unraveling it.
When I respond back quickly, the person might be taken aback, and starts to digest what I have said in return. They may apologize, which I will of course willingly accept. They might gloss over my response, pretending that they didn’t hear it, or they didn’t understand it. And if they don’t know what to say, it might offer me a window to engage in dialogue, depending on how open they are to it.
Be Ready to Educate
As a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion professional, educating others and helping individuals move along in their journey is my life’s work. I no longer find it a burden; it’s a privilege and an opportunity to move someone and help them unpack their unconscious or conscious bias.
The education for me might not occur in the moment, in particular if they feel uncomfortable or are embarrassed, or if others are around. I will usually circle back with the person and in many cases, they might reach back out to me after they had some time and space to reflect. One leader came back to say to me: I thought I was complimenting you and then I realized I had offended you. I want to personally apologize to you.
With that opening, some of the questions to unpack are: Would they compliment someone white on their ability to speak English? Why was this the first and only compliment they thought of after meeting me? What was the next compliment they would have offered, and why wasn’t that the first thing they said? How will they act differently next time?
Be Ready to Advocate
As someone whose English speaking skills, whose American-ness, whose ties to this country, are constantly in question, I must show up for others who have similar experiences. If that person does not feel empowered or isn’t in the room to stand up for themselves, it’s my job to do it. It’s the job of all leaders to interrupt bias when we see it.
“Why is Mita’s English speaking capabilities the first thing we are complimenting? Why aren’t we discussing what initiatives she has been leading, and what impact they have had on the business?”
While my experiences have been as a Brown woman, my Black colleagues are confronted with the disguised, insidious compliment of being “articulate.” When you call a Black colleague “articulate” and think it’s a compliment, it actually reveals that you are surprised that they are in fact articulate and well-spoken in the first place.
“Historically, it was meant to signal the exceptional Negro,” Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, said. “The implication is that most Black people do not have the capacity to engage in articulate speech, when white people are automatically assumed to be articulate.”
Challenge leaders on why we are commending colleagues on how they speak. Ensure instead that leaders are focused on what they are delivering and the value they are adding to our organizations.
So I continue to educate others. I continue to push ahead. I continue, like many, to be in a perpetual, constant state of defending my Brownness. In hopes that the next Brown woman who gives an incredible presentation won’t be complimented on how well she speaks English and be defined by the color of her skin. But rather, she will receive an enthusiastic round of applause and be showered with compliments for her work that she so rightfully deserves.
