The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Americans are angry and scared. The world around us is changing and the more racial and ethnic diversity we experience, the more confusion, conflict, power struggles and meltdowns we will have because we do not have norms and structures in place to process all of that. People hunker down to protect what they know, have and love … from the perspective of their own culture. We interpret and create meanings around what we hear and see from our own worldview.
How do we communicate with one another when we speak different literal and metaphorical languages? How do we tolerate the discomfort of dealing with different behaviors, and the differences in the meanings of those behaviors, compared to the ones we are used to? How do we handle the disruptions imposed on everyday “business as usual” when cultural conflicts and misunderstandings occur?
It is time consuming. We don’t have ready answers for dealing with unfamiliar situations. We are blinded by our own culture and the unconscious rules/expectations we all know and use without even thinking about them. It stops us in our tracks when someone from another culture steps over those lines and our brains apply meaning to the unexpected behavior in the context of our culture, not the other person’s culture (which is unfamiliar to us).
The person of color is held to the standards of the dominant, white group and expected to conform. Any deviation from the norm is punished, overtly and covertly (shunning, gossip, confrontations, dismissing, lower ratings on work evaluations, etc.). No effort is made to question the behavior, how it might reflect a different reality/meaning for the person of color, or what might be an exciting and interesting exploration of the differences and how we can all learn and grow from them. White folks, in general, passionately hang on to their way of life, see deviations as transgressions and don’t even see the dissonance between their professed values and actual behavior.
Inclusion and diversity really messes things up! Everything about our mainstream way of life comes into question. How are people supposed to know what to do? It is scary! It is uncomfortable.
But out of that mess comes the opportunity to choose the best of many worlds. Instead of blindly inheriting a way of life that maybe worked for past generations, we now have to opportunity to ask what parts we want to keep and what parts we want to adopt. We have the opportunity to really question why we do what we do and how ineffective, hurtful and crazy some of it is.
A timely, if tiny, example, is shaking hands. It makes no sense in terms of disease transmission but it feels so much a part of who we are. What do other cultures do in formal greeting? Does any of that appeal as a better alternative? The Japanese bow of respect in greeting comes to mind. Sort of a socially distanced personal connection that I think is really nice.
So, what I think we need are experts to study this phenomenon and identify the best ways to facilitate transitioning from where we are to the new reality of our diverse population. How do we communicate across and within cultures; how do we identify our blind spots; how do we create rules and structures to guide us through the transition; how do we find new and better ways to manage conflict; how do we identify and integrate the best from each diverse group to create an evolving and improved American culture. And most importantly, how can we help people to feel safe throughout the transition?
