The thing about racism and sexism is that until we discuss it

• in a real way,
• from multiple angles,
• from every perspective,
• within the most diverse and least diverse areas of our circles,
• in safe spaces where everyone can be heard,
• with other people who care about us as individuals,
• with people of different backgrounds who WE care about as individuals,

…. it’s all theoretical.  Our stories might as well be on a reality TV show or the nightly news, until we start talking about our experiences in an ever-expanding community of people of different backgrounds, that we care about. Social media is part of what can take this conversation global.

I remember when we were supposed to be having a national conversation on race in the Clinton era.  But somewhere it was forgotten that a conversation is when two or more people can sit down and have a two-way dialogue or even debate on an issue where every viewpoint is heard. We can even disagree if we can make a pact to agree NOT to be disagreeable.

Instead, with Barack Obama’s election, we paid for our leap forward with a leap backwards. And the conversation about race became a series of one-way soliloquies.

Why?

I don’t have all the answers. I just observe, think and share my view. And my first view was that as each soliloquy threw me into shock, I could not respond to the notions being thrown about, they were so incredulous.

The first: “Now that’s there’s a black president, there’s no more racism.”

I was relieved to see reflections in some parts of pop culture, such as the Office, used satire to show how ridiculous this idea is.

(The Stress Relief episode, Season 5, #13. Aired 01.01.09 after the Super Bowl, and is by far my favorite episode. Have a listen to Michael’s answer when Stanley says he wants chocolate ice cream. : MP3)

But by and large, the fringes are not the issue, though they are a problem.

You’re never going to change their minds alone, and you kind of just accept it. There are organizations better equipped with resources and ideas (some very innovative) on how to confront the extreme groups that we can all join and work with, and make a difference as a team. But they’re on the bleeding edge, and when acting as individuals, you want to focus your energy on where you can affect change on your own.

Just makes more sense.

And it’s in that middle, the people who want to understand, and feel empathy, but eventually come across some kind of logic wall they can’t cross. Like how they’ve heard the same people who say that gender shouldn’t matter also say that gender differences should be celebrated.

I put myself in their shoes sometimes, and think of how confusing the world must be to them.

But I also don’t feel heard by that same group at times. And I realized that it’s partly because they haven’t heard my stories from me.

It’s one thing to see something like Katrina or September 11 happen on television and be affected on a real, deep level, and it’s quite another to have family and friends who were directly impacted by the tragedy. Still another to actually BE one of the people who missed dying because they went to get a cup of coffee, or changed their flight plans at the last minute.

And it’s a whole other level to be a person who was actually there.

In that same way, though the magnitude and reach of the tragedy is far smaller, it’s such a different experience for someone to know about racism and sexism through things they hear on the news than it is for a person to hear a first-hand account from a friend or family member. Hearing your mother talk about sexism isn’t the same as hearing that women still don’t get equal pay as men for the same job.

If you know me, and you care about me, and/or you can look in my eyes when I tell you about the time I was standing at a bus stop in Las Vegas on Flamingo and Boulder Highway one evening, after dark, and someone hurled a baseball at my chest as they yelled “Nigger!” – almost knocking me over…. and that this happened in 2002….

…that puts a different spin on hearing that a company has a diversity initiative. You’re more likely to understand why when you hear that story. Of course, logically, the white male counterparts that I work with get it. They grew up in the era of hip-hop, just like I did, and something about the music and culture unites us. We experience the same nostalgic emotion when someone kicks Passin Me By .

But I truly believe that without being adjacent to the emotional experience of how racism manifests, the policies are out of context. I mean, I didn’t start telling those stories to my white friends until a few years ago – did you?

I had another white male colleague that I have a lot of respect for confide that he was told he was the wrong color and gender for a scholarship. This was in the context of a conversation about what to do when they couldn’t find a way to increase diversity on certain types of speaker panels. IE- in these specialized fields where they aren’t aware of who the top women and non-white experts are, how do they be more inclusive? Especially when diversity is assigned to them as an afterthought.

I could feel his frustration, and understand it. But here’s the thing – I understand it because I’ve been there so often, probably a lot more often than him. He presented that point of view as if it were an anomaly. Meanwhile that sort of thing happens to me so often I see it as the norm and take it in stride. I’ve lost my outrage over being passed over or not included due to race or gender or sometimes the fact that my parents are African rather than African American.

It’s been such a constant in my life that I  don’t seek permission or wait for opportunities. I create them. I trail-blaze. I could wait for someone to give me an award or I could start giving them out, you know?

And without my friends/ peers/ colleagues hearing this, knowing this, FEELING this, I get where the idea that the white male is the new minority comes from. I get the fear that due to the fact that affirmative action in practice manifested partly in quotas on the government level that some people believe that a tie-breaker in getting a job is race or gender. I see why they feel like they don’t know whether they’re supposed to be colorblind or celebrate diversity.

What I believe is missing is the human element to the discussion. It’s all theoretical, all of it, until we’re willing to get real and vulnerable about the conversation.