Where should conversation on race start? - Yahoo! News
Where should conversation on race start? - Yahoo! News
“Let’s talk about what we have in common, common values, rather than what makes us different,” he says.
I want to relate a story from my days in academia. Early on in my employment at a certain private University, all of the staff had to go to Diversity (with a capital “D”) training. You know the drill, split into small groups and share the trivialities of your life so that we all can better “understand” each other. Here’s the basic gist: I sat at a table with:
- A fresh out of college white woman
- An older white woman who had worked at the university for 25+ years
- A black, woman in the union with maybe a high school degree
- A middle aged white woman? administrator (I think, it was a few years ago…)
Of course, just so we all have labels, I am a 30ish white, male, jock, computer nerd, or that’s at least what you would probably think if you met me on the street.We started off with the usual pleasantries and then our first task was to brainstorm 4-5 things we had in common with each other and write them on a sheet of paper. We then went around the room and each table had a spokesperson who mentioned some things we had in common. We spent maybe 5-10 minutes on the discussion of this aspect for the whole group of 30+.
Next task, we had to come up with a whole slew of things that were different about each of us and then we did the same spokesperson thing. However, this time, whenever the facilitator came to someone who was “different”, they delved into their feelings about being “different” and then implored us to respect these kinds of differences. We probably spent 30-45 minutes on this, which was then followed by even more details on how we should respect our “diversity” and how it can lead to better team building. It kind of reminded me of an item I saw on kid’s self esteem about how most kids see right through the fake praise of so many adults and come to see it as an actual put down, not helping their self-esteem at all. Essentially, by emphasizing the differences of those select individuals, they were singling them out and saying, yes, you are different, that’s why I am talking to you.
Now, I know what the class facilitators were getting at and I think the concept could be helpful, but I think they missed a golden opportunity. Namely, we are all human and pretty much everyone of us has something in common with someone else, no matter what our background, race, sexual preference, age, nationality, or shoe size. All you need to do is spend the time to find out what that commonality is instead of focusing on their differences. As I recall, I had many things in common with each and everyone of the people in my group, and I don’t just mean superficial things either, I mean common interests and desires, things that were somewhat surprising. Something we could relate about and talk about and get past the labels about. That, to me, should have been the emphasis of the training. Not Diversity training, but Commonality training. After all, isn’t the whole goal of said training, to make us all accepted as “normal”? What could be more normal than not being singled out for being _____, no matter what gets put in that blank. Isn’t that Martin Luther King’s dream? That we don’t see color, etc., that we just see each other for their character (or lack thereof)?
I sometimes wonder if we wouldn’t all just get along better if we stopped “celebrating” our differences in everything we do and instead “celebrated” our commonalities. It’s always interesting talking with people from other countries, especially those who are from the same place as one’s ancestors (i.e. Europeans for me). I can remember, in particular, having a conversation about ancestry with a Dutch woman, and I said, “Oh, I’m Dutch” (well, not even 50%, but when pushed I would say I am Dutch) and her matter of fact reply was: “No, you’re an American.” You idiot. Then it struck me, a lot of us Americans _want_ to be labeled as being “Dutch Americans” or “Italian Americans” or “African Americans” or “Irish Americans” when the fact is, maybe 3 or 4 or more generations ago our ancestors were Dutch or Italian or African or Irish, but now, we’re just Americans. Don’t get me wrong, I like my heritage (I’m really a mutt: Dutch, English, Scandinavian, Native American, which is maybe why I don’t get what the big deal is about being X-American) and all, but it I realize that me being of a particular heritage is something I had ABSOLUTELY NO SAY WHATSOEVER IN choosing and therefore realize it is pretty much meaningless when it comes to defining who I am as an actual person and how I behave toward others.
I’ve been on many sports teams, some winners and some losers, and if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that teams get built and succeed by recognizing and working towards common goals, not by focusing on what makes each of us different. Not saying it isn’t important to respect differences, just saying it is far easier to do that when you know you have something in common than it is when both people assign some abstract label based on your heritage or skin color or shoe size.
So, if you want to have a real dialog about race/religion/sexual preference/diversity in this country, I think we ALL need to stop labeling ourselves as belonging to some special interest group and work to find common ground, shared interests, etc.
At any rate, as Forrest Gump says, that’s all I have to say on that.
