"Other" awareness

Does race matter? To whom? To everyone!

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

“People who say that race is not important have not usually been mistreated/disrespected most of their lives because of their race. To say that race SHOULD NOT be important is one thing, and correct, but to recognize that for many people, race is a game-changer in terms of their life experience, that is reality. We should all be working for a time when race is not important in terms of life experience, but to deny the reality of many people’s current life experience – that in itself is disrespectful and illustrates the point.” Diana Gardner Robinson

I posted this on Facebook a few days ago, based on the experiences of many of my friends. When I was teaching future addictions counselors, among the students who worried me most were those who claimed, innocently and often smugly, that they don’t “see” race. What we need to “see” is how people have been affected by life experience, and people of different races (as well as backgrounds, nationalities, even the decade of their childhood) may have had different experiences. THAT is what we should pay attention to. If a person’s experience leads them to see the world through “black eyes” or “as a black woman” then to ignore that person’s race is to disrespect her experience of life. To do that is to demonstrate white privilege in all its ugliness.

Unfortunately it may be difficult for those of us who have never been in a specific situation to “grok” what it is like for someone else. The fact that we can’t imagine it does mean that we have the right to try to overlay our own experience over theirs. The fact that I, originating from England, have been judged by some people of certain other nationalities does not mean that I know what it is to have been discriminated against, or at least to be aware that discrimination is a probability/possibility, all my life.

We need to learn to accept other people’s realities as real in their experience, and move on, and allow them, to move on in that reality.

I could probably rant for pages on this, but I’ll be merciful and leave it at that.

Diana

I hope you find this blog interesting, useful, or amusing, depending on its topic. One way to keep track of my posts is to subscribe to my newsletter (see form on the right), which will always contain a link to my recent blogs. Or, of course, you could bookmark this page and keep checking back. Either way, I hope that my work makes your life easier and more balanced. To explore my offer of the gift of a 30-40 minute coaching session on whatever issue is a stumbling block for you, please see my Contact page.

Respect – Should it be Earned, or the Default?

By Diana Gardner Robinson 1 Comment

A meme that floats through social media from time to time bothers the heck out of me. “Respect is earned, not given” it says.

Think about that for a minute. How does the person you have just met, the person to whom you are introducing yourself, earn your respect in that first thirty seconds? Is it the case that during that thirty seconds you do not offer respect because it has not been earned? Does this not mean that immediate respect depends on outward appearances? Can we accurately judge what kind of a person we are encountering?

How much respect would you have given – if you did not know his story – to that high-rolling, wealthy businessman named Bernie Madoff whose machinations ruined many honest and earnest investors? How much respect would you give to the sweaty, scruffy clothed, dirty-faced man who has just worked a double shift to keep the electricity flowing to your home after major storms – if you did not know his story?

Surely respect, for any living, breathing human being should be the default. Does not everyone deserve the benefit of the doubt until we know the story – if we ever do? How different would this make our lives? How different would it make the lives of those many people who society tends to assume are unworthy of respect?

I’m not talking unquestioning trust and adulation here. Just basic respect both in our behavior and, most importantly, in our thoughts.

Would that be too much to ask?

Diana

I hope you find this blog interesting, useful, or amusing, depending on its topic. One way to keep track of my posts is to subscribe to my newsletter (see form on the right), which will always contain a link to recent blogs. Or, of course, you could bookmark this page and keep checking back. Either way, I hope that my work makes your life easier and more balanced. To explore my offer of the gift of a 30-40 minute coaching session on whatever issue is a stumbling block for you, please contact me via my Contact page.

Can just one word change how we communicate? Can we stop the lumping?

By Diana Gardner Robinson 2 Comments

Lumping?

“What, you may be wondering,” is “lumping?” And then, perhaps, “And if I don’t know what it means, how can I be doing it?”

The dictionary describes “lump,” when used as a verb, as meaning “to put in an indiscriminate mass or group; treat as alike without regard for particulars.”

There has been a lot of lumping lately – lumping of people by religious group, by nationality, by skin color. Think about it. Think about social media. About the way people talk when speaking of others not like them. So many of us tend to lump.

“Americans,” “white people,” “men,” “Muslims,” “Democrats,” “Tories,” “Socialists,” “black people,” “women,” “Christians,” “Republicans,” the list goes on and on and one part of our brains knows, when we use these terms, that they – whichever “they” it may be – do not all think alike, act alike, don’t even look that much alike. Yet we use the terms, over and over again. When we do this we make whatever group we are mentioning into “the other.” We add to the many splits that separate us from others on our rather small planet.

When we lump, we imply that what is true of some becomes true of all. When we write (or say) something about “women,” we are lumping all women together as though all were the same even though, if we pause to think, we know that this is not true. Unfortunately, when we lump we are usually expressing something negative. When we speak positively, it is usually to describe someone’s behavior as though it were exceptional – which it may well be. Sadly, when we describe groups of people, it is most frequently an attempt to portray them in a negative light, often based on some stereotype.

We also strengthen our own tendency to perceive the entire body of those people, in whichever group they may be, as being in alignment with that stereotype.

Is that how you really want to be? Does it fit with your self-concept of yourself as an independent, thinking, and compassionate human being?

A Solution – the Word “Some”

There is one little word, just four letters long, that can begin to change this sad tendency. One word can change our thinking and the way we communicate, so that we begin to perceive the world as a little less “good” and “bad.” One word combats the tendency to lump. Perhaps we should consider using it more often.
That word is so simple. It is “some.” “Some men…,” “Some women….”

It is a word that admits that not all of almost any group are… anything. We do not think alike, believe alike, vote alike, love alike, hate alike… if we have to hate at all, which seems unnecessary.

“Some” admits that when we generalize, there are exceptions to what we are saying.

“Some” admits that there is good among the bad and bad among the good. It admits that people are capable of thinking for themselves, of being independent of whatever we are concluding about that particular group of people.

Wouldn’t you want to know, when people speak negatively of whatever particular group you may belong to, that they allow for the fact that not everyone fits into their judgment? That they are not assuming that you fit their stereotype? That they allow that there are exceptions by preceding their generalization with the word “some”?

As a personal example, I know that I feel hurt when I read a post from a friend of mine who tends to politicize race and to refer only to the wrongs that Caucasians have committed upon African Americans. I know very well how much I wish that, rather than “whites,” those posts referred to “some whites.” They never do.

Don’t we all consider ourselves, and want to be considered by others, as exceptions to some judgments? Should we not allow that there are exceptions to our own judgments?

(Of course, I could rant against judging in any form, but it is sometimes difficult not to draw conclusions – hopefully based on facts – and what one person sees as a conclusion, is often seen by others as a judgment.)

So, for now, let us remember that there are exceptions to every rule and every stereotype, and let us begin to use the word “some” whenever we are generalizing about people or situations.

Let us say “no” to lumping by adding “some” to every generalization.

May your 2016 be the best year yet!

Diana

(This blog was originally published as an issue of my free newsletter, “Work in Progress (because we all are!).” I do not usually mix newsletter and blog. However, I think this topic is important enough to want to give it wider distribution, so I am also distributing it as a blog, available to all on my website. If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter (WIP), which is distributed approximately twice a month, please look to the right of this page for the sign-up form.)

I hope you find this blog interesting, useful, or amusing, depending on its topic. One way to keep track of my posts is to subscribe to my newsletter (see form on the right), which will always contain a link to recent blogs. Or, of course, you could bookmark this page and keep checking back. Either way, I hope that my work makes your life easier and more balanced. To explore my offer of the gift of a 30-40 minute coaching session on whatever issue is a stumbling block for you, please contact me via my Contact page.

Do You Hear what I Hear?

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

Is the sound that you hear the sound that I hear?

If we are to communicate well, we have to listen well, and most of us don’t listen as well as we think we do. However, no matter how carefully we listen, we may not always perceive exactly the same thing as anyone else. To show what I mean, here’s a true story that happened a few years ago…

The sounds of nature, particularly the ocean, are an effective background for relaxation for many of us. The roar of the waves gets louder as they approach, reaches a crescendo as they come closer, and then fades away as they retreat. To me, and to most people, it is very easy to visualize that one is relaxing peacefully as the nearby ocean waves advance and retreat in a soothing symphony of sound. Sometimes we may use such sounds when leading relaxation sessions. However, I encountered one individual who did not hear an ocean wave tape that way at all. He was noticeably not relaxed as the tape played. Later he asked why I would expect that the sound of trucks would help people to relax.

Trucks? TRUCKS? I wondered if we were speaking the same language.

However, he went on to explain that as a teenager he had been a frequent run-away, and between attempts at hitch-hiking had often tried to sleep under interstate bridges. Above him, throughout the night, the roar of the big trucks would gradually get louder as they approached, reach a crescendo as they passed overhead, and then fade away as they retreated into the distance. This was the scene that was re-created for him whenever he heard the tape that, for most people, created the peaceful sound of ocean waves.

What is real, what is interpreted?

The sound was the sound. What was actual was that the sound waves came from a piece of magnetic tape. What was real to me was that it was the sound of ocean waves, which led to relaxation. What was real to this man was the sound of interstate trucks, even after he became aware that the source of the sound on the tape was the ocean. And so that sound continued to remind him of his dangerous life as a runaway, which led to tension and a need for vigilance.

Our interpretation of most of the signals that we see and hear is subjective. How often have we discovered that another person’s interpretation of exactly the same events was quite different from ours?

What we perceive is real to us. We need to remind ourselves that it may not be exactly what actually happened, and it may not be what is real to another person. Do not assume, without checking, that you know what another person’s perceptions are.

To explore my offer of the gift of a 30 minute coaching session on whatever issue is a stumbling block for you, please see my Contact page.

I hope you find this blog interesting, useful, or amusing, depending on its topic. One way to keep track of my posts is to subscribe to my newsletter (see form on the right), which will always contain a note of recent blogs. Or, of course, you could bookmark this page and keep checking back. Either way, I hope that my work makes your life easier and more balanced.