You’re Not Hearing Me
By: Julia E Hubbel
Tags: Diversity, Personal Development, Race, Culture, BlackLivesMatter

Photo by Mark Paton on Unsplash

You’re Not Hearing Me

The deep, deep difficulty of OTHER Points of View

I write at times about race, and even got to a point where, although I most assuredly did not deserve it, I got Top Writer status (HAHAHAHAHAHA remember THAT dinosaur?) on Blacklivesmatter topics.

If I may. I care about race because race defined how I grew up, it’s been part of my personal and professional life since I was born in ways that might be a little uncommon for other Boomers. I care about it enough to focus on it my entire life in just about every position I’ve had, and every angle of work I’ve taken on.

Race was, is and always will define my life, my work and in large part, what makes my world normal. A world without vast variety and color to me is not normal, which includes color and gender and culture and religion, as long as that religion skews away from extremism.

Photo by DISRUPTIVO on Unsplash

Part of the challenge of this is to be porous. This word came up during a very difficult conversation this year with a new Black friend, someone I met just before the George Floyd murder. Our connection was forged on that crucible. She has become one of my closest friends, an absolute treasure, and by every single measure available one of the single best things that has happened this year. We developed this connection because I am willing to hear, feel, try on different viewpoints, and to have what I think and feel and believe challenged.

Of course that’s uncomfortable. Growth is uncomfortable, by definition. This is one of my favorite personal development writing themes.

I like that discomfort because I am porous. By this I mean I can absorb other’s ideas, viewpoints, try them on, at least as best as I can, and give them the weight they deserve in order for me to at least, understand how someone reached their conclusions. I admit, without apology, that the most extreme viewpoints don’t qualify. I can extend sympathy, but I cannot embrace extreme hate or extreme anti-scientific views. Beyond there lie dragons. I can understand how someone got there (usually a pretty good mix of fear and ignorance) but there’s no point in wasting my time.

Here’s my point: today I read multiple different, and in some cases, rather wildly divergent articles on race:

Early this morning, this from Kahir Makhani, in the UK:

Blamed for being ill by white conservatives yet also tone policed by white liberals. This isn’t a both sides are the same argument, its more about impact than intent. Most white people claim to be well-meaning yet they engage in tone policing, micro-aggressions and other “unintentional” acts often born out of implicit bias. The reason for the quote marks around the word unintentional is due to how white liberals often become incandescent when you point out the nature of their behaviour and its impact upon you.

They are more likely to take offence at you feeling hurt than they are to ask what shook you. If you think about it, its why they’re quick to talk about burning buildings during riots than they are about the black bodies being subjected to such treatment. Why? Because the building is something they could have purchased, and slavery in that form at least, is still illegal. (author bolded)

We had an exchange about his choice of the word “incandescent,” which I thought was terrific. This brought up several times in the last few years where someone I considered a friend eviscerated me for asking that they not treat me badly. I had facts, they unsheathed machetes and hacked off my emotional head. His point has lots of implications around anyone who cannot deal with being challenged or who can’t countenance a differing viewpoint. This to me is the very definition of “fragility,” having everything to do with a lack of emotional maturity and going well beyond just issues of race.

Then this from my ex-pat Floridian friend and now Canadian Medium buddy Nicole Chardenet:

This is a difficult read, not just because Nicole points out some rough truths that apply to all of us (because we’re human, again, not just because we’re racist or anti-racist).

From her article:

Arguing one must be in the dominant group to be racist is accepting only the most egregious, worst example of racism, while ignoring the lower racism standards to which you exempt yourself. It’s trying to escape your own ‘original sin’, arguing that white people answer for all white people while non-whites don’t answer for all non-whites. Most racist non-whites fall closer to the lower end of the scale. With the exception of some groups like the racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ Nation of Islam, which preaches a hardcore black supremacist agenda, most non-white racists aren’t part of the ugliest massive tumor, but they’re still part of the problem. Everyone can be racist. Or prejudiced. Or bigoted. You can call it what you want, but it’s bad old-fashioned tribalism.

I don’t agree with everything Nicole writes, but I don’t have to in order to enjoy her articles, or to learn from them. Here’s what happens: those things she brings up that make me squirm are the very things I’m being invited to investigate. As I’ve written elsewhere, these are the grey areas where we grow. I may take a serious look, consider what I think or feel, and choose to agree or disagree. The point is to LOOK. To THINK critically. To consider what comes up for me. She pushes me. That’s precisely why I like her stuff. She gets in my face and makes me think. That kind of intellectual and emotional challenge forces me to consider what I think I know or believe.

And, as a result, I find that some of what I believe is based on bullshit, childhood and cultural messaging. This is how we grow, by admitting that perhaps we don’t know.

Which is why I am a fan of Marley K., whose articles I read regularly. This is her latest:

Marley speaks with a searing truth, and if you’re a regular reader of hers, you’ll also notice that she’s a most adept observer. Folks of color have to be, to be fair, for to exist while Black (or Brown or Red or Yellow, kindly) is to be at risk 24/7. To not understand this is to not be paying attention. I read Marley for the same reasons I read Nicole: I don’t have to agree with them to learn, to expand my world view, my understanding and in every regard my appreciation for other’s experiences and ways of being.

From her article:

There is no place for Black people to hide from anti-Blackness and White Supremacy. Their tentacles are long, their reach is deep, and the side-effects from them are everlasting. Which leads me back to shame, and why the lack of White people having any is problematic. Their lack of emotional intelligence is the reason for their lack of shame. The lack of emotional intelligence also highlights why they cannot change. Changes and discussions of changes are happening everywhere, and half of White American cannot deal with the societal changes because it doesn’t include them.

That’s the whole point. Agreeing isn’t the point. Understanding is. And with understanding, there are ways to move forward. With mindless disregard for the veracity of others’ experiences in the world, the wrongs of patriarchy and supremacy are perpetuated.

Another article which I saw this morning is from another favorite writer of mine on Illumination: Rebecca Stevens A.:

Rebecca is a calm, steady, even voice of her truth. Like other Black writers she is a in biracial marriage with biracial kids, MarleyK’s grandkids are biracial, and they are navigating that world, and doing their best to help these kids navigate that world, which is decidedly unfriendly and stacked against them because of color.

From her article:

In most of today’s corporate world, hiring or promoting someone because of their belonging to a specific ethnic, gender, religious or sexual orientation is commonplace and this is actually doing a disservice to that person. It can lead to burnout, depression, and a host of other mental health issues. In this type of environment, being hired because one is black is not at all a privilege, much the opposite.

From my Fortune 100 corporate experience, she’s spot-on. I’ve sent more than one of her articles to various execs.

Reading people whose ideas do not precisely align with mine is one of the key ways I grow my world view, expand my understanding and grasp part of the extraordinary kaleidoscope of human experience that is my life. My world is vast, and it is vast because there is space for others to hold opposing, alternative and differing views.

To that, and with thanks to another writer whose very well-timed article landed just a sec ago, here is Rachael Hope with a very smart piece on porosity, but using different terms:

From her article:

There’s a huge difference between asking for special consideration or to be handled with kid gloves and asking for basic decency and respect from other people. Having feelings does not make someone weak. It makes them human. Being unwilling to just lie there and take it when someone is saying something mean doesn’t make someone a sensitive wuss. In fact, I’d say that finding the balls to talk back shows a certain kind of strength.

I love this. Because she points out what I’m referring to here: calling folks snowflakes for having a different point of view, or for having feelings, is the very definition, to my mind of being “fragile,” because the accuser cannot countenance “other.”

THAT’s the whole point. Being able to clear a space for other ways of seeing, feeling, believing is a form of vulnerability. THAT kind of vulnerability is what builds strength, flexibility, understanding, true personal power.

For my part, reading these kinds of articles is precisely the kind of education that’s required, at least to my mind, in a world made hard by echo chambers. I read ZORA and GEN and LEVEL because I am exposed to things I might otherwise never read or hear. Those are gifts. Because they help me see, perceive and understand.

You may not agree. Fine by me. But these writers are, if I can use Kahir’s term above in its more positive way, what make incandescent lights in my ignorance. For I am ignorant. We all are ignorant in some ways, many ways. That is what makes life so very interesting; we are constantly being given opportunities to learn and expand.

The greatest value for me us the discomfort. If I have the courage to be wrong about what I think, how I perceive and what my beliefs may be built upon, perhaps I might grow. And in growing, be more thoughtful, more broad in my thinking, and more understanding of other’s viewpoints.

This is how we change lives. We write our truths, as these people did for me today. I attend, as best I can, and I sit with my discomfort. Ask why I believe what I believe. How that serves me. And how any belief I might harbor hurts someone else. This is real work.

Accepting that, embracing that, and being willing to be educated about how others see and perceive helps make us wise.