Uncomfortable Conversations
Uncomfortable Conversations
The single greatest skill any individual can develop are their communication skills. Why? Because there isn't a single component of your life that does not benefit from enhanced communicative processes. Every relationship you are involved in greatly depends on your communication skills to flourish and to be healthy. The single most difficult skill, but most beneficial, is being able to productively navigate uncomfortable conversations.
What makes a conversation uncomfortable? The topics to this answer will be subjective but the underlying reason is a lack of feeling safe and secure. As social animals we invariably shy away from doing things that will rock the boat out of fear the boat will sink. When we are skilled in navigating chopping waters we will find that not only that most boats are resilient and made for choppy waters but they deal with them better in future storms because the captains know they did it before.
How do we get better at communicating? It is the same road to get to Carnegie Hall, practice. A few things we need to be aware of, our body. When we are uncomfortable we tend to tighten up, close off, and physically get defensive without even realizing it. When you breach an uncomfortable topic take a moment to asses and check I. with yourself. What is your body doing? Take a moment to take deep breaths to activate the sympathetic nervous system and calm yourself. Once you have done this figure out what message your body position is sending to the other participant in the conversation. You need to project your own security onto that person to make them feel comfortable and safe.
At no other time in my middle aged life has there been an opportunity to openly discuss the most uncomfortable of all uncomfortable topics, racism, as there is today. Not even during the Rodney King riots has the opportunity for it to be discussed so openly did the time permit but it is globally obvious that now is the time.
First we must all understand a simple component that is present in all humans and this is implicit learning. These are things we all learn without explicitly being taught them. These are things we learn through emotion feelings, tone of language, unspoken innuendo among many other things. We all operate more from these unconscious processes than most care to acknowledge or understand. Implicit racism operates in this manner. Explicit racism on the other hand is not the problem in society. White supremacists who openly declare and acknowledge their feelings are not the problem because they are easily identified and dealt with. Implicit racism operates under the cover of those who are implementing it themselves. This is the challenge. Stereotypes operate under the premise of implicit racism. We're all aware of them and at times improperly have joked about them. This brings me to this thing called privilege. Privilege is simply living in a society, a culture, where you don't have systematic levers of oppression operating against you. In layman's terms, if you are someone who speaks about racism (whether you are trying to bring attention to it or if you are tired of hearing about it) as opposed to having to experience it, you are living under the umbrella of privilege in society.
The first thing I always hear defensive people speak about are the Irish, or the Italians and their history in the United States. Interestingly enough my Irish and Italian friends who are so quick to portray themselves as astute historians are ignorant to the fact that things changed for the Irish and the Italians when they were allowed to regard themselves as white for census purposes. You read that correctly. They were absorbed by the culture of power and they didn't have to protest to have this done. Italians were lynched in this country before they were allowed to be considered white. This was a consequence of the Civil Rights movement. White numbers in the census needed to be elevated. This is a systemic practice. This is institutional.
My mom was born in South Korea and my dad is an American born Puerto Rican whose parents are from the island. Culturally I am more American than anything else but most Americans would not consider me as such. Notwithstanding, I benefit from privilege. Society does not view me as a threat, not nearly as much as an African American male anyways and I seldom if ever reap implicit benefits of being white, I still acknowledge privilege because I am treated more fairly than African American makes. Behavioral cycles are perpetuated not only in families but in governmental practices, in business practices, in professional practices and so on. Cultures exist outside of one's ethnic and religious culture and one thing all cultures have in practice are the in group and out group dynamic.
Mindfulness, awareness, these are the tools of change. Social norms have to be challenged. We have crossed the rubicon and there is no going back. The Latino American and the Asian American community also need to address systemic and implicit biases in their respective cultures because they exist as well and as they are not a part of the culture of power they benefit from the advances made by African American movements. Implicit biases exist in all of us which means they exist in everything we are a part of. Only by acknowledging this and becoming aware of this can we start to have the uncomfortable conversations that have to be had in order to move forward.
The single greatest skill any individual can develop are their communication skills. Why? Because there isn't a single component of your life that does not benefit from enhanced communicative processes. Every relationship you are involved in greatly depends on your communication skills to flourish and to be healthy. The single most difficult skill, but most beneficial, is being able to productively navigate uncomfortable conversations.
What makes a conversation uncomfortable? The topics to this answer will be subjective but the underlying reason is a lack of feeling safe and secure. As social animals we invariably shy away from doing things that will rock the boat out of fear the boat will sink. When we are skilled in navigating chopping waters we will find that not only that most boats are resilient and made for choppy waters but they deal with them better in future storms because the captains know they did it before.
How do we get better at communicating? It is the same road to get to Carnegie Hall, practice. A few things we need to be aware of, our body. When we are uncomfortable we tend to tighten up, close off, and physically get defensive without even realizing it. When you breach an uncomfortable topic take a moment to asses and check I. with yourself. What is your body doing? Take a moment to take deep breaths to activate the sympathetic nervous system and calm yourself. Once you have done this figure out what message your body position is sending to the other participant in the conversation. You need to project your own security onto that person to make them feel comfortable and safe.
At no other time in my middle aged life has there been an opportunity to openly discuss the most uncomfortable of all uncomfortable topics, racism, as there is today. Not even during the Rodney King riots has the opportunity for it to be discussed so openly did the time permit but it is globally obvious that now is the time.
First we must all understand a simple component that is present in all humans and this is implicit learning. These are things we all learn without explicitly being taught them. These are things we learn through emotion feelings, tone of language, unspoken innuendo among many other things. We all operate more from these unconscious processes than most care to acknowledge or understand. Implicit racism operates in this manner. Explicit racism on the other hand is not the problem in society. White supremacists who openly declare and acknowledge their feelings are not the problem because they are easily identified and dealt with. Implicit racism operates under the cover of those who are implementing it themselves. This is the challenge. Stereotypes operate under the premise of implicit racism. We're all aware of them and at times improperly have joked about them. This brings me to this thing called privilege. Privilege is simply living in a society, a culture, where you don't have systematic levers of oppression operating against you. In layman's terms, if you are someone who speaks about racism (whether you are trying to bring attention to it or if you are tired of hearing about it) as opposed to having to experience it, you are living under the umbrella of privilege in society.
The first thing I always hear defensive people speak about are the Irish, or the Italians and their history in the United States. Interestingly enough my Irish and Italian friends who are so quick to portray themselves as astute historians are ignorant to the fact that things changed for the Irish and the Italians when they were allowed to regard themselves as white for census purposes. You read that correctly. They were absorbed by the culture of power and they didn't have to protest to have this done. Italians were lynched in this country before they were allowed to be considered white. This was a consequence of the Civil Rights movement. White numbers in the census needed to be elevated. This is a systemic practice. This is institutional.
My mom was born in South Korea and my dad is an American born Puerto Rican whose parents are from the island. Culturally I am more American than anything else but most Americans would not consider me as such. Notwithstanding, I benefit from privilege. Society does not view me as a threat, not nearly as much as an African American male anyways and I seldom if ever reap implicit benefits of being white, I still acknowledge privilege because I am treated more fairly than African American makes. Behavioral cycles are perpetuated not only in families but in governmental practices, in business practices, in professional practices and so on. Cultures exist outside of one's ethnic and religious culture and one thing all cultures have in practice are the in group and out group dynamic.
Mindfulness, awareness, these are the tools of change. Social norms have to be challenged. We have crossed the rubicon and there is no going back. The Latino American and the Asian American community also need to address systemic and implicit biases in their respective cultures because they exist as well and as they are not a part of the culture of power they benefit from the advances made by African American movements. Implicit biases exist in all of us which means they exist in everything we are a part of. Only by acknowledging this and becoming aware of this can we start to have the uncomfortable conversations that have to be had in order to move forward.
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