Great post, thanks Marie. I love Valdary, and I wish her approach were being adopted more often. Most of us are encountering these conversations online, and my anti-racist friends are, perversely, the most toxic, abusive people with whom I’m familiar.
I think it’s so important, as you said, to assume positive intent when talking with people. A friend of mine referred to it as giving people the presumption of benevolence, which I love. We have almost nothing to lose with that approach, and much to gain.
I feel that this is a matter of trust and communication as well as empathy.
In my firm, the D&I committee does not have a single white man on it. So you know right there that this is not about “diversity” as meaning fostering multiple strengths and points of view, or “inclusion” as making everybody feel valued and comfortable and productive in their environment. After a few minutes’ presentation, it is obvious to everyone that D&I is really about the percentages: getting more women and especially non-white faces into the company. Period. The right words are said, but the agenda and all the other communication runs the other way: white men are a problem, and the solution must exclude us and our perspectives. It is deeply sad, that those of us who perceive it this way, cannot even talk to each other about our exclusion.
Maybe I’m overreacting, but I don’t know how it can be otherwise. I can’t give people the benefit of the doubt if they won’t let me through the door in the first place, or if my job is at stake if I contribute my opinion into the diversity mix. I’d add that this is where the language of “anti-racism” becomes really harmful, tending to have the effect of engendering hyperawareness and mistrust of the kind of racial talk that the members of D&I initiatives seem to favor. Personally, I am now more fierce, much less likely to give those initiatives a positive chance than I would have a few years ago.
As a non-technical person with a long career in technical organizations, I think I have some useful things to say about the work environment and understanding of different professional ways of thinking, and other things that aren’t even related to race or gender, but which might be very much informed by them. But I would have to be included as I am, and this includes, for instance, a lot of skepticism about racial balance as an end in itself. With active listening and welcomed engagement like you describe - who knows, I might change my mind.
So I think that D&I advocates have to decide what they really want, and be sincere and open about those as separate things with their own messaging. If you truly want to see diversity and inclusion for everyone, and to value it for itself, it’s probably best to stop describing it as a vehicle for the racial agenda, because the racial messaging will overwhelm the former and grind down the sense of trust without which nothing valuable can happen.
The part I like here is your insistence upon leaders or, perhaps more accurately, change agents practice of empathic listening. The people seeking change need to build up a bank account of trust and I don’t know any other way to achieve that than listening closely to what people are saying or are not saying.
I dawned on me the other day that I didn't even use the word "empathy" in this talk, which is pretty shocking considering it's the most obvious disconnect happening between saying and doing (and hopefully it's obvious that I am indeed calling for empathy). But yes, putting it in terms of "building up a bank account of trust" through listening makes total sense! Why would skeptics trust that advocates really mean "everyone" when they don't seem to want to listen to skeptics' thoughts on any of this?
Great post, thanks Marie. I love Valdary, and I wish her approach were being adopted more often. Most of us are encountering these conversations online, and my anti-racist friends are, perversely, the most toxic, abusive people with whom I’m familiar.
I think it’s so important, as you said, to assume positive intent when talking with people. A friend of mine referred to it as giving people the presumption of benevolence, which I love. We have almost nothing to lose with that approach, and much to gain.
I feel that this is a matter of trust and communication as well as empathy.
In my firm, the D&I committee does not have a single white man on it. So you know right there that this is not about “diversity” as meaning fostering multiple strengths and points of view, or “inclusion” as making everybody feel valued and comfortable and productive in their environment. After a few minutes’ presentation, it is obvious to everyone that D&I is really about the percentages: getting more women and especially non-white faces into the company. Period. The right words are said, but the agenda and all the other communication runs the other way: white men are a problem, and the solution must exclude us and our perspectives. It is deeply sad, that those of us who perceive it this way, cannot even talk to each other about our exclusion.
Maybe I’m overreacting, but I don’t know how it can be otherwise. I can’t give people the benefit of the doubt if they won’t let me through the door in the first place, or if my job is at stake if I contribute my opinion into the diversity mix. I’d add that this is where the language of “anti-racism” becomes really harmful, tending to have the effect of engendering hyperawareness and mistrust of the kind of racial talk that the members of D&I initiatives seem to favor. Personally, I am now more fierce, much less likely to give those initiatives a positive chance than I would have a few years ago.
As a non-technical person with a long career in technical organizations, I think I have some useful things to say about the work environment and understanding of different professional ways of thinking, and other things that aren’t even related to race or gender, but which might be very much informed by them. But I would have to be included as I am, and this includes, for instance, a lot of skepticism about racial balance as an end in itself. With active listening and welcomed engagement like you describe - who knows, I might change my mind.
So I think that D&I advocates have to decide what they really want, and be sincere and open about those as separate things with their own messaging. If you truly want to see diversity and inclusion for everyone, and to value it for itself, it’s probably best to stop describing it as a vehicle for the racial agenda, because the racial messaging will overwhelm the former and grind down the sense of trust without which nothing valuable can happen.
The part I like here is your insistence upon leaders or, perhaps more accurately, change agents practice of empathic listening. The people seeking change need to build up a bank account of trust and I don’t know any other way to achieve that than listening closely to what people are saying or are not saying.
I dawned on me the other day that I didn't even use the word "empathy" in this talk, which is pretty shocking considering it's the most obvious disconnect happening between saying and doing (and hopefully it's obvious that I am indeed calling for empathy). But yes, putting it in terms of "building up a bank account of trust" through listening makes total sense! Why would skeptics trust that advocates really mean "everyone" when they don't seem to want to listen to skeptics' thoughts on any of this?
Very relevant post. Tribal groupthink is tearing this country apart.