Why start this blog with “tattoos”? This may seem like a curiously retrograde concern (on my part). Still, I think, there is a stigma that persists in some professional spaces, even the most liberal spaces such as university campuses, that needs interrogating because many people have tattoos. Even the people whom you wouldn’t expect to have one, if asked will likely say “Oh yeah… I have one on my back.”
So, the case for tattoos is a human one. When we catch site of a tattoo on a person’s body, there are a number of questions we sift through in order to identify the individual behind the body art:
“why did they do it?”, “what does it mean?”, “do they have others?”, “do they regret it?” etc.
This diagnosis of the other person may happen unconsciously or rather willfully. Tattoos force us to confront the mechanics of our thoughts when perceiving another. A tattoo is a choice of non-conformity, non-normality, non-uniformity when the opposite is expected, especially in the workplace.
I myself have four tattoos and the reveal always strikes a note of shock in the person I tell this to. (I can’t help but wonder why? Is it because I’m not radical enough?) The real question is, do tattoos make a person radical? If the answer to that question is yes, then would the same apply for other things a person chooses to put on their body like jewelry? Or other ways they chose to define their individuality like hairstyles?
In a 2018 article for the Harvard Business Review, Professor Michael T. French claims, “Since [a decade], body art has gained much more acceptance as a form of personal expression, just like your clothing, jewelry, or hairstyle.” While Prof. French’s research that revealed no setbacks for employees with tattoos (large or small; visible or imperceptible) is encouraging, I am reminded that it was only in the Fall of 2020 that the House passed the CROWN Act (Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair). A Black Woman wearing natural hair in the workplace was seen as radical less than a year ago (and the new CROWN laws enacted in states such as California and Nevada likely didn’t change this perception). Michelle Obama wearing hoop earrings never fails to cause a flurry of comments from fashionistas and pundits. Senior Fashion Editor at InStyle, Samantha Sutton, wrote a profile in which she might believe she was praising the former first lady. In Sutton’s words, “Michelle also wore hoops earlier this year, while addressing the class of 2020. Although her sleek white blazer could only be seen from the waist-up, these earrings made just enough of a statement without distracting from her message.” Reading this, I was distracted by the word “distracting.” As Sandra E. Garcia writes in a 2018 New York Times op-ed, “Why I Can’t Quit You Hoops,” “I felt that wearing large hoops would make me stand out, make me seem too loud, too visible, too ghetto, too black.” So, Sutton’s appreciation is a bit backhanded, opposing the sleekness of the white blazer and the almost distracting effect of the hoop earrings.
I am by no means a scholar or expert on body art. But, I caution against the immediacy with which we might dismiss the concern about how tattoos are perceived in professional spaces. The privilege of climbing the metaphorical success ladder while showing off their body art may only apply to certain few (non-black, non-brown, non-racialized, non-marginalized, non-ethnic, non… non… non). It is still the norm for clinicians to define tattoos as (self)mutilation; for disciplinarians to view tattoos as deviance; and for family, friends, and other allies to approve tattoos as marks of rebellion. None of these views are good and, in fact, they don’t explain my choice for getting one (let alone four of them).
I got my first tattoo during my second year, third semester of graduate school. It was a spur of the moment decision that I don’t regret (yet… I’m leaving that choice open). It is the tattoo in the picture; an open heart that resembles a “M” facing inward. I desperately needed a reminder to love myself and this tattoo gave me that. It’s something to look at on my own body when the need for external acceptance and desire for validation become too painful wracking every muscle and fiber of my being. I suppose you might say that graduate school made me do it, AH! I would like to think that I gave myself the strength on those cold, dark nights in Ithaca to keep going.
So, to answer the question in the title of this blog, “Am I radical enough?” I would say, hell yeah! I am not looking for my tattoo to be accepted in the academe; it is meant to keep me true to myself.
Drop a line in comments or ask me about my other tattoos…
Alsion Beard, “A Tattoo Won’t Hurt Your Job Prospect,” Harvard Business Review, November to December 2018.
Sandra E. Garcia, “Why I Can’t Quit You Hoops,” New York Times, January 11, 2018
Samantha Sutton, “Michelle Obama has been Wearing this one Accessory for Decades,” InStyle August 19, 2020
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