Introduction
In the wake of the volatile response to Elder Holland's recent BYU address, my friend, Melanie Parry-Winkle, shared the following compassionate invitation on Facebook.
I took Melanie up on her offer and reached out in a private message. We had a terrific conversation. With patience and gentle curiosity, she helped me articulate some of the tension I was experiencing. She also offered me a deeper appreciation for the experience of those who were feeling hurt and afraid for their safety after Elder Holland's address.
My thoughts then turned to how I could take a step closer to those with different perspectives instead of draw lines in defense of my own views. With her permission, I'll repeat the counsel she shared with me:
Excerpt from Our Facebook Conversation
Bryan: I've recently been feeling sensitive about my privilege. As a white, cis-gendered BYU grad trying to get a job in the valley, I'm working hard to uncover and publicly acknowledge my biases and be open to working with others. Any advice?
Mel: The first thing is to accept that you’re never going to arrive. This isn’t something we, the Privileged, can accomplish. We always have to be unlearning.
The next is to seek out and consume content from people who aren’t like you. It doesn’t even have to be about race, gender, sexuality, class, etc. Just consuming the stories of people who live different lives will expand your thinking in very important ways. [One way you could do this is to t]rain your social media algorithms to feed you diverse content. On TikTok you can search things like natural hair, black girl magic, native traditions, cultural dance, stuff like that. Then you consciously like, comment, and share those videos, and the algorithms start doing the work for you.
I think the most important though, is holding your fellow Privileged accountable for their bad behavior. If a male coworker makes a comment about a teenage girl’s body, let him know he’s gross. If you hear someone victim-blaming, speak up. We have to hold each other accountable, we can’t leave it to the victims of the bad behavior to make these changes.
And the last one for extra credit (and I think this can be the most emotionally heavy one) is to allow yourself to be the avatar for oppression when needed/appropriate. If a person of color calls you colonizer, let them. If someone says white people ruin everything, agree. We really have.
My Summary: 4 Ways to Practice Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging
- Stay humble and curious. Once you think you're "woke," you're not.
- Actively seek out and consume diverse stories. Yours isn't the only view in this big world of ours.
- Speak up to injustice. Silence perpetuates privilege.
- Avoid defensiveness in the face of someone else's genuine pain. Validate feelings. Validating is different than agreeing. You can still disagree while also respecting the other person’s thoughts and feelings. As you try to validate their feelings, you might realize that you see things more similarly than you originally thought.
Resources
- White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
- Bystander vs. Outstander, LinkedIn Learning Training by Catherine Mattice Zundel
- How to Disagree without Being Disagreeable by LDS psychotherapist, Nathan Acree
I learned something: I never saw the perspective of people possibly feeling 'hurt and afraid" after hearing Elder Hollands talk- I just thought it might be viewed as politically incorrect, aggressive or inappropriate. That was helpful. Also, the idea of consuming content from people who are different from me-I haven't done much of that and now see it as a great way of learning to walk in another's shoes and seeing things through different lenses.
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