Conversations on Race and Racism will
explore important history and social concepts around issues of race.
Participants will explore commonly accepted definitions and elements of
personal behavior and organizational dynamics. Conversations will also
address the importance of emotional authenticity and look at how organizations
can deepen their ability to provide effective personal and community service.
Thank you so much for allowing me to have this conversation with you. Please be free to post any questions, thoughts, reflections, awarenesses or feelings about our work together. Be free to engage the comments of your co-workers in the spirit of personal, communal and organizational growth. Be free also to leave your name or initials.
(See above for links to the video resources shown or referenced in our conversations....there are additional links below the comments section)
Hello Ukumbwa and everyone.
ReplyDeleteThank you again for an interesting and thought provoking presentation. I had a thought I was wondering you could provide some insight on.
I advocate very strongly for respecting and supporting individual and family cultures in our practice and daily lives- as it can be an effective resource for building therapeutic relationships.
However, acknowledging ones own culture and its impact on these relationships has always been a work in process for me.
I was raised very differently than some of the more financially privileged families we may work with. And it's during these times where I feel more vulnerable that I may be judged -and in effect, find myself being less authentic at times.
Do you have any suggestions on how to balance cultural differences while maintaining a successful therapeutic relationship?
Thanks!
CK
Cynthia, thank you....and this is such a great question. There are two dynamics here: 1) your feelings about your culture and 2) the possible negative responses of the families.
Delete1) It's an important life practice to live authentically and powerfully, especially when embodying a cultural perspective that is not the dominant culture. It is like standing on top of a mountain, each time, and saying out loud, "This is me! I am who I am! I am enough! I am amazing!". Racism and prejudice, classism put such a crimp on our expression of ourselves. I think it's important to remember why you are proud of your culture, that it is a gift to those who come into contact with it through you. Also, it is part of the antidote to fighting racism, to infuse the world with beautiful expressions of non-dominant cultural traditions. It is a statement of resistance to the degrading energies of racism and it opens a doorway to others in the future who will be more accepted by people who you are able to positively influence.
2) It is normal to make assumptions of negative reactions in a racist society, though we know that all situations do not automatically go poorly. I've said for some time that this kind of pre-judging or prejudice is a defense mechanism and survival technique for members of marginalized groups. We are "trained" by racism to pre-think and overthink situations and try to foresee outcomes around so many elements of ourselves and how we show up, things that people with white privilege don't have to do, at least for that reason. If you are going to share some of your cultural music, you might start with a more known or "standard" song (even half will do), but follow it up with one from your culture. The statement is that your cultural songs hold similar valid space with those of the dominant culture and it sets the expectation that they might be heard again. Also, if there are questions or resistance, don't tell them that you are playing (Culture X's) music, just remind them you are playing music. Also, lead in with a statement that you use diverse sources of music (and don't flinch! Remember our talk about that at the presentation?). : ) If you can, provide lyrics and information about the songs you utilize that you might be able to leave at the home to familiarize families and make them accessible. It will probably be more than they know about the songs they are used to hearing. But most of all, remember that these songs enrich family life,no matter the source. And these investments of culture in the children will pay off in the future for them, long after you are gone...as I'm sure they will enjoy them immensely while you are with them.
I hope this helps. As always, be free to engage again.
Cynthia, thank you for your deep question. I can relate to what you are saying with my spiritual identity and the perspectives/wisdom I have embraced and carry. Some families seem more open and receptive to this perspective and I open up more. For other families, I remain in the realm of mainstream thinking. I end up feeling a bit like a chameleon. And, like you, I wonder about staying true to my authentic self. Peace. Rebecca
ReplyDeleteThank you Ukumbwa for your advice and self reflection tips. Your words of Investing in culture really resonate with me. Time to invest in (and embrace ) both my clients culture and my own as well...I feel that if this is done respectfully - doors will most definitely open.
ReplyDeleteAnd Rebecca - chameleon is a great image for this feeling .
I've had a few conversations with people since our morning together about the awareness of BOTH.... AND. For women of European decent we are both part of the dominant group as white people ...and we are part of an oppressed group as women. While I know I can never compare my experience as a woman to the experience of racism, my experience has opened my eyes and heart to deeper empathy, understanding and compassion. A big part of both, and is that if someone is making a point about white privilege they are not leaving out other forms of privilege. One perspective does not exclude another. One person's truth does not trump another's. It has been a gift to remember the equity and unity of gathering in circles where each perspective is respected and heard. Here's an example: religious privilege is citing religious freedom to take away the human right of marriage. What is so threatening to the dominant group about equity? What does giving another the same right that you have take away from you? Both, ....and.
ReplyDeleteRebecca, this is a great point. It is important to look at the intersection of oppressions, like with gender and race and class. We know that women are oppressed by men. We also know that African women are oppressed by men and by people who are European/white. The experience of African women is not the same as European (or Native American women for that matter). Though we can gain that important empathy about others through deeply inquiring into the levels and rationales for our oppression, we can not trade one for the other. We do have a challenge to engage our empathy and compassion to acknowledge our oppression and acknowledge and fight the oppression of others. Asian, African and Latino men must fight racism, but also their male privilege. European/white women must fight sexism, but also give up their white privilege and fight racism. Men of all cultures must relinquish their male privilege and European men must find cultural strength and political will to take on the onus of fighting violence and oppression against women and their entrenched privilege and support of racist social structures. All levels and locations of oppression must be fought and disempowered. All levels and locations of oppression must be acknowledged.
DeleteUkumbwa, thanks for reflecting back and articulating what I was trying to say at an even deeper level. Thanks for your clarity. It helps me get clearer and more grounded. Peace.
ReplyDeleteHello Ukumbwa and all,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate what has been written so far!
I recently re-watched Laci Green’s You tube video “Is Racism Over Yet?” and it brought up many thoughts and feelings for me. One idea/thought (that I’ve definitely had before when thinking about racism), that came up for me again while watching this video, is how AMAZINGLY strong and resilient people of color have been in our society. This thought might seem basic and obvious, but I think it’s pretty significant.
I think we all know that life can be challenging, even WITHOUT adding racism to the mix. I think of struggles and challenges that I’ve gone through in life and in growing up such as, for example, growing up with pressures like the societal ideals for women to look a certain way, challenges surrounding family, financial challenges, etc. Again, Life can be hard ENOUGH…then add a big dose of racism into the mix.
I think to myself – If I was a woman of color in our society, would I be able to be so strong and resilient in the face of so much adversity? It makes me really angry that women AND men of color have to deal with racism on top of other life challenges. Of course, “on top of” is not even really the right phrase to use here, because racism is interwoven in/is a part of other life challenges (like financial challenges, rights to a decent education, etc.)
I have a LOT of respect and admiration for the kind of resiliency and strength that you see in people who have been the subjects of racism and hate. It adds to the compassion I feel, and the feeling that I really want to help to change the attitudes of those who hold racist beliefs, and who subject members of our society to unequal treatment based on the color of their skin.
I know for myself that when I have really been struggling through something, sometimes I find strength that I didn’t even know that I had. I have a feeling that people of color might say something similar to this when they have been faced with such adversity?
One question that this brings up for me is: How do we (people of European decent) let go of white privilege?
Thanks,
Jenna
Hello, Jenna and welcome to this space!
DeleteFrom my personal experience and observations, letting go of white privilege seems to be a process of "waking up", and then, an on-going practice of self-awareness and vigilance. The waking up part is different for each person and often involves initial defensiveness. Those who are successful seem to be able to listen deeply, have empathy and are willing to change/learn. It also involves personal responsibility, for example, to do your own re-learning of history, reading articles, discerning truth from the dominant narrative.
It is a willingness to NOT put it down.
It is a willingness to be aware, even when the issues do not touch your daily life.
It is a willingness to speak up as an ally.
It is a willingness to step back, and not take up space when people of color are stepping up.
What else, everybody?
Jenna, how would you answer your own question?
Peace,
Rebecca
Thank you, Jenna, for this great sharing and question. There is a lot said here and that issue of resiliency in the oppressed or targets of racism and oppression is a big one to understand. It helps us understand the effects of racism and the heavier price that people of color pay for almost all points of social access, mobility and economic dynamics. I point this out in my "Patterns of Privilege" writing. The issue of resiliency is one of survival on one or many levels and can not be misunderstood when we look into fighting racism and oppression and disempowering European/white privilege.
DeleteLetting go of white privilege.....yes. That is gigantic and it must be understood as a function or "benefit" of the unearned power that oppression, historical and present, has created. Racism is about the consolidation of power in the hands of European people and the control of access to resources and social and material goods and services regarding people of color and indigenous peoples. First of all, privilege must be learned about, studied and observed. It takes a hard process of insight and vulnerability and honesty to begin to see how each person with privilege benefits from it and contributes to its persistence. We can see these things in all areas of life. The Peggy McIntosh article on the Invisible Knapsack is helpful in this area. Identifying that learning and applying it to our personal lives is key. Secondarily, we must begin to see how the structures that you participate in sustain privilege. That helps us figure out how and what to change. We should look at access to jobs, hiring practices and history at our places of work, mobility and promotions, social connections and community, transportation and facility with and access to cultural informational and materials outside of the regular flow of dominant European cultural content, to name a few. Another part of this work is that it can be done alone, but it is best done in community and that is hard, but not impossible and done all the time in particular circles, professional and otherwise. Challenging inequities, questioning them, calling them out and becoming active in the dissolution of those inequities is a major element. Without challenging and changing the structural holds on privilege, the system will continue to work against people of color and therefore against all of the society. Creating stress and trauma for any part of the society destabilizes all of it. We see this happening all too much currently.
Also, thank you so much for resonating with the concept of compassion and applying it to the important work ahead. We have much to do and that has to be a part of it, a central dynamic, eclipsing the less fundamentally validating concept of tolerance.
"To be black in America today is to live under the threat of disposability. Life can easily be snatched away. And many black people spend each day acutely aware of this reality. That is not living. That is a state of constant anguish." Darnell L. Moore, Senior Editor, Mic
ReplyDeleteA response to the death of Sandra Bland.
Her story in contrast to witnessing white fragility makes my entire being ache.
Thank you for that, Rebecca. That is at part of the core of the Black Lives Matter movement, the work of Ida B. Wells and the NAACP and many other efforts. There is a price that African people pay for just showing up that others don't experience and many times do not understand even in the event that they are aware of that. The death of Sandra Bland, her killing, as it is now suspected strongly to be, has opened up a raw place for many people, that danger that many Africans live with. Also, the death of Rexdale Henry, a Choctaw political activist within a day or so after Sandra Bland also speaks to the larger context of oppression of racism and anti-indigeny. He was found dead in his jail cell also after being detained for a traffic-related infraction.
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Deletehttp://austinchanning.com/blog/2014/3/weariness
ReplyDeleteHere's a great article "White Privilege Weariness". A highlight of her vision: "Where white people are expected to connect the dots themselves, to own their learning, to manage their emotions."
http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/invest-in-other-white-people/?utm_source=SocialWarfare&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare
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