Attending an author talk - Dr. Robert Livingston - Nia Gooden Class of 2029

 

On September 30th I had the pleasure of attending Dr. Robert Livingston’s book talk about his book Play the Game Change the Game Leave the Game. Learning about Dr. Livingston’s unique and innovative three pronged approach to navigating race relations as a Black person in the United States of America was both eye-opening and affirming. Dr. Livingston’s book talk centered around addressing the three different strategies he had identified for existing in predominantly white spaces: playing the game, changing the game, or leaving the game. 

Dr. Livingston described playing the game as using your knowledge of racial bias and racial stereotypes to come up with ways to subvert the prejudices of the system. One of the techniques Dr. Livingston spoke about when playing the game was the act of “whitening” your resume by attempting to make your race undetectable. This could be done by a first name being changed to an initial and or the removal of involvement with diverse organizations such as the BSU. In order to offer more clarity on what playing the game looks like, Dr. Livingston exemplified and categorized three different famous Black men. He labeled Clarence Thomas an enabler, Michael Jordan a climber, and Lebron James a lifter. The enablers and climbers work the system to their benefit with no regard to the rest of the race whereas the lifters attempt to use their success to create progress and change for the Black people who come after them and the race as a whole. The description of lifters reminded me of the ADW concept of sankofa, the idea of looking back to the past to inform the future because lifters are inherently acknowledging the past in order to make informed decisions about how to conduct themselves in a way that creates a more just future for the rest of the Black community. Dr. Livingston also detailed the method of changing the game by offering examples of types of Black people who employ it. The type that stood out to me the most was one that he deemed the “tempered radical”, explained as a person who obtains a high position for example in corporate America, and then proceeds to change the game from the inside by making positions more accessible for other people of color or making the workplace environment more equitable in other ways. Finally, Dr. Livingston spoke about the third strategy: leaving the game. Leaving the game can be most easily likened to Black people creating our own spaces and our own world. This can be done through entrepreneurship by creating Black capital that separates the business owners from the subjugation of working in white spaces or through enclaves which create large environments where Black people are self-sufficient outside of white society, reaping all the benefits from our own self-fueled economy.

Another concept that was heavily discussed during the book talk was the metaphorical idea that white supremacy is an addiction. Dr. Livingston delved into his comparison by explaining how informing white people of the history of racism is not effective in preventing it because they are aware that racism is bad just like how a smoker is aware smoking is bad for their health. Similarly, you can’t convince them through morality e.g “if you were a good person you wouldn’t be racist” because that doesn’t stop the behavior either. Finally, even the notion of self-interest fails because convincing an addict that halting their addiction would be beneficial for them is not enough to get them to kick their habit. 

  I connected deeply with Dr. Livingston’s assertion that there are multiple ways to go about thriving and succeeding in predominantly white spaces, ways that don’t have to be mutually exclusive. I found that his strategies and descriptions could have very practical applications for Black people in predominantly white professional spaces. Despite my belief that many of his approaches would be effective, I found that some of them made me question their deeper implications outside of the professional world. His idea for “whitening” a resume for example made me think, what are the psychological effects of concealing your true identity in order to gain employment? What are the personal costs of professional success by stifling your true identity? Dr. Livingston used his background as a social psychologist to study the ways that Black people are affected by social systems and this inspired me to contemplate the way that I will one day use my degree in psychology to study mental illness, in the Black community specifically.

                                                       By Nia Gooden