Verified by 
Key points
- The fawn response may manifest in present-day America through internalized narratives commonly shared within POC communities.
- Common manifestations of the fawn response may include staying safe by not being a target and adopting mannerisms to appear non-threatening.
- A compulsion to always be productive, or attempting to work “twice” as hard to earn the same respect, are among other manifestations.
In Part 1 of this series, I explained that the fawn response describes when abused children resort to creating safety by being useful or valuable to their abusers—because they learned that freeze, flight, and fight responses increase the risk of harm and danger they are subject to. I also shared that in a violent, oppressive white supremacist society, many people of color (POC) intuitively resort to fawn strategies because freeze, flee, and fight strategies increase the risk of harm and danger they are subject to.
In Part 2 of this series, I would like to share my reflections on five ways that the fawn response manifests in present-day America through internalized narratives commonly shared within POC communities. While these narratives originally arose to create safety, I’ve realized in my own life that if I mindlessly believe them and never question them, they can instill and perpetuate maladaptive patterns. Therefore, I’ve been working on recognizing these maladaptive patterns in my own life and changing them.
5 Common Manifestations of the Fawn Response Among POC
1. Staying safe by not being a target.
American history is peppered with tragic stories of people of color whose success in business, politics, or activism provoke the envy and outrage of white supremacists who then create an excuse to kill them or chase them out of town and confiscate their property. When these stories are passed down in communities, young people can internalize a message that their safety depends on being hard-working enough to be seen as a valuable member of society but not too prosperous or uppity that a white mob would want to destroy them.
This need to avoid becoming a target may manifest in parenting behaviors. Whereas many white parents may feel comfortable praising their children when speaking with other parents, parents of color may have a greater tendency to belittle their children when speaking with other parents to prevent their children from developing a big ego and to keep their children safe.
To pre-empt racial bullying and stereotypes, POC may also deliberately cultivate interests and behaviors that are non-stereotypical as a form of protection. For instance, an Asian student may dive into hip-hop culture. A Latino student may write for the school paper to showcase their English fluency. A Black student may join the debate team rather than a sports team.
Whatever strategy they use, many minorities are careful about managing their persona so that they are neither seen as a stereotype nor as someone whose success threatens the existing white power structure and corresponding socioeconomic hierarchy.
2. Adopting "white" mannerisms to appear respectable and non-threatening.
Respectability politics refers to the way marginalized communities conscientiously manage their outward appearance and mannerisms in order to be perceived as respectable by mainstream white society and to distance themselves from negative stereotypes associated with their group.
For men of color, this often means dressing more formally in a buttoned-down dress shirt, tie, and suit jacket. For women of color, this often means dressing modestly, like they are going to church, or straightening their hair. It can also mean code-switching and changing the way they speak to sound more "white" around white people.
By carefully curating their appearance, some POC try to convey to white people: “Hey, I'm a good Black/Asian/Latino/Indigenous man/woman. I am a respectable American like you. I am safe and don’t pose any threat to you. You don’t have to be afraid of me. Please don’t discriminate against me.”
In reality though, no matter how much effort a person of color makes to manage their appearance, they have zero control over how white people perceive them. If POC focus on policing how we or other POC look, we can miss the important truth that all people deserve respect and that the government and society must respect and protect the rights and humanity of POC, regardless of the way they dress.
3. Shapeshifting into whatever the job market values.
When I started the Collective Success Network in 2017 to support first-generation college students from low-income communities to navigate college and enter professional careers, I noticed a clear pattern. Almost all the first-generation students of color were being steered by their parents into STEM careers that provided job security, stable salaries, and prestige, regardless of whether the student had an affinity or aptitude for that career path.
I remember one debate I had with a Black first-generation professional who declared that first-gen/low-income college students should never ever major in a liberal arts field that has no job security. He believed that the advice to “follow your passion” only applies to rich kids with trust funds. He felt that first-gen students of color from low-income communities had no buffer to take that type of risk, so they had to be practical. To him, that meant looking at the job market and picking a major that would enable them to get a job with a salary that could pay off their student loans.
I explained that it can backfire to force first-generation college students to choose majors in STEM fields before they have an informed idea of what career excites and energizes them. In fact, the likelihood of dropping out of college increases when students discover that their major isn’t what they want to do and lose their motivation to take more classes in that field. I also explained that people who are passionate about what they do are more likely to rise through the ranks and advance into leadership positions.
After that conversation, I decided not to transmit this limiting belief when I advise students. I make a point to share that most people build careers that are not related to their major in college. I also share that it’s important to shadow professionals or do internships in different careers that interest them to confirm if their conception of that career matches the reality. They won’t know until they interact with people in the field whether that type of work actually energizes and excites them. They have to trust their gut if it tells them that the career they’ve been exploring isn’t what they want to do or might even be something that makes them miserable. I also reassure them that their time isn’t wasted because learning what career isn’t a good fit for them can help give them a better sense of what career would be a good fit for them.
I also make clear that no matter what field they go into, they need to become financially literate, understand business realities, maintain a disciplined budget, save for a rainy day, and invest for retirement.
4. Feeding a compulsion to always be productive.
A few years ago, I noticed that I tend to feel a sense of foreboding danger whenever I’m not being productive and this helped me to realize that I’ve been conditioned to associate being productive and being a workaholic with being safe. I’m not clear how or why I learned to associate being leisurely with danger. Perhaps I internalized this from watching documentaries and movies in which slave masters and overseers whip, punish, and even kill laborers who were not working fast enough or producing sufficient output.
This realization helped me see that the idea of taking a long vacation activated my sympathetic nervous system and triggered feelings of fear and danger. I also saw that whenever I tried to enjoy my weekends and leisure time (rather than doing more work), I experienced hypervigilance.
Unfortunately, this realization came after I burned myself out from working six to seven days a week for several years without taking any vacation. To recover, I had to create space to mindfully sit with the hypervigilance and stress response that kept me from ending my workday in the early evenings or unplugging from my computer on the weekends, and from taking a vacation. I slowly reconditioned my body to feel safe enough to actually rest and to viscerally understand that it is essential to rejuvenate in order for me to create high-quality creative content.
5. Being twice as good and working twice as hard to earn the same respect and pay as a white person.
Marginalized groups from different ethnicities and regions share a belief that they have to be twice as good and work twice as hard as a white colleague just to earn the same respect and pay as that white colleague. A positive effect of this narrative is that it motivates marginalized groups to strive for excellence and work hard. A negative effect is that it causes many marginalized groups to subliminally undervalue their own labor and accomplishments, and to drive themselves to work so hard that they experience higher rates of burnout.
The power and resonance of this narrative can blind POC who are conditioned by it from seeing that they actually deserve the same respect and have their labor valued at the same rate as a white person.
After I realized how this narrative affected me, I decided to make sure that I appropriately valued my work. I now do market research to understand what high-quality work looks like for a given project, the number of hours it takes to produce that work, and the market value that clients pay for that quality of work. Then I ask to be compensated at market value for producing excellent output for my clients.
---
I hope that examining these narratives and patterns can help more people see how they may have internalized the fawn response to create a sense of safety in a society shaped by racism and white supremacy. I will continue to reflect on and unpack more ways in which the fawn response shows up in how POC and other marginalized groups navigate American society, and will share more insights in the next post in this series.
