Re: Re group commitment Diversity, Inclusion, Bias | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Kathleen Lowry (kathleenlowrylpcclmft![]() |
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Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2023 13:11:21 -0800 (PST) |
Hello again. I am taking a facilitation course, and would very much appreciate 3 people willing to participate in a 20 minute zoom conversation, this week on Thursday evening, if possible, or any Thursday in the next 8 weeks. Friday mornings, 9 am Central time, are also an option, including this week. Please let me know if you would like to join and timeframes that work for you. This week I am presenting for the discussion, a short excerpt on *white supremacy and Individuality* out of the updated Okum Article, *White Supremacy, Still Here*. 2021. For the entire original article, please go to http://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/. We will be discussing, in a very structured format, for 20 minutes only, this excerpt from that article that talks about the white supremist culture characteristic of individualism, and it includes examples, and suggestions. Please join us! Kathleen "Individualism* and I’m the Only One" (Page 20) These characteristics look at our cultural assumption that individualism is our cultural story - that we make it on our own (or should), without help, while pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Our cultural attachment to individualism leads to a toxic denial of our essential interdependence and the reality that we are all in this, literally, together. Individualism shows up as: • for white people: seeing yourselves and/or demanding to be seen as an individual and not as part of the white group; • failure to acknowledge any of the ways dominant identities - gender, class, sexuality, religion, able-bodiedness, age, education to name a few - are informed by belonging to a dominant group that shapes cultural norms and behavior; • for BIPOC people: individualism forces the classic double bind when BIPOC people are accused of not being "team players" - in other words, punishment or repercussions for acting as an individual if and when doing so "threatens" the team; • for white people: a culturally supported focus on determining whether an individual is racist or not while ignoring cultural, institutional, and systemic racism; the strongly felt need by many if not most white people to claim they are "not racist" while their conditioning into racism is relentless and unavoidable; • for white people: a belief that you are responsible for and are qualified to solve problems on your own; • for BIPOC people: being blamed and shamed for acting to solve problems without checking in and asking for permission from white people; • little experience or comfort working as part of a team, which includes both failure to acknowledge the genius or creativity of others on the team and a willingness to sacrifice democratic and collaborative process in favor of efficiency; see double bind for BIPOC people above; • desire for individual recognition and credit; failure to acknowledge how what we know is informed by so many others; • isolation and loneliness; • valuing competition more highly than cooperation; where collaboration is valued, little time or resources are devoted to developing skills in how to collaborate and cooperate; • accountability, if any, goes up and down, not sideways to peers or to those the organization is set up to serve; • a lack of accountability, as the organization values those who can get things done on their own without needing supervision or guidance, unless and until doing things on "our" own threatens power; • very connected to "one right way," "perfectionism," "qualified," and "defensiveness and denial." I'm the only one shows up as: • an aspect of individualism, the belief that if something is going to get done "right," ‘I’ have to do it; • connected to the characteristic of "one right way," the belief that "I" can determine the right way, am entitled and/or qualified to do so, in isolation from and without accountability to those most impacted by how I define the right way; • little or no ability to delegate work to others, micro-management; White Supremacy Culture: Still Here | www.whitesupremacyculture.info | Page 21 • based in deep fear of loss of control, which requires an illusion of control; • putting charismatic leaders on pedestals (or positioning yourself as a charismatic leader on a pedestal); • romanticizing a leader (or yourself) as the center of a movement, idea, issue, campaign • hiding or covering up the flaws of a leader (or your flaws) in fear that the organization, movement, effort cannot survive; • defining leadership as those most in front and most vocal (thank you Cristina Rivera Chapman for these last four bullets). Antidotes to individualism and I'm the only one include: • seek to understand all the ways we are informed by our dominant identities and how our membership in dominant identity groups informs us both overtly and covertly (while realizing too that these identities do not have to define us); understand how membership in a dominant group (the white group, the male group, the hetero group, the wealthy group) extends psychic, spiritual, and emotional benefits as well as material benefits; • seek to understand how these benefits are, in reality, toxic, because our complicity with being positioned as both "better" and "normal" requires that we dehumanize all those designated as "less than" and "abnormal;" • acknowledge that all white people have internalized racist conditioning and that an anti- racist commitment is not about being "good" or "bad," it's about figuring out what we are going to do about our conditioning; • do our personal work while also bringing focus to cultural, institutional, and systemic manifestations of white supremacy and racism; • name teamwork and collaboration as an important personal and group value; acknowledge that teamwork and collaboration take more time, particularly at the front end and yield a better result with higher buy-in and higher ability to take shared risks; • make sure the group or organization is working towards shared goals that have been collaboratively developed and named; • reward people for collaborating; • evaluate the ability to work in a team as well as the ability to get things done; • honor process as much as product (honor how you do things as much as what you do or produce); • make sure that credit is given to all who participate in an effort, not just the leaders or most public person; make sure that when you are given credit, you distribute it to all those who helped you with whatever was accomplished; • create collective accountability (rather than individual accountability); • create a culture where people feel they can bring problems to the group; use meetings as a place to solve problems, not just a place to report activities; • hold ourselves accountable to the principle of collective thinking and action; • develop the ability to collaborate and delegate to others; • in workspaces or movement efforts, evaluate performance based on an ability to work as part of a team to accomplish shared goals; • hold ourselves and each other accountable to a shared definition of leadership that assumes a collaborative and collective approach; • hold ourselves and leaders accountable for mistakes without assuming that we need to be perfect to lead; develop collaborative and collective strategies for how to respond to mistakes that encourage learning from the mistakes, appropriate boundary setting, and restorative approaches; • realize that leadership is dynamic and does not rest in one individual; we are called upon to lead at different times in different circumstances and called upon to follow or take a back seat when we are learning or making room for new leadership to emerge. Kathleen Lowry MA, LPCC, LMFT 952-270-1654 kathl <kathleenlowryLPCCLMFT [at] gmail.com>eenlowryLPCCLMFT [at] gmail.com <kathleenlowryLPCCLMFT [at] gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 3:17 PM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L < cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote: > > On Feb 27, 2023, at 11:59 AM, Kathleen Lowry < > kathleenlowrylpcclmft [at] gmail.com> wrote: > > > > I am wondering about an online book club on anti racism. Anyone > interested? > > We did this during the pandemic using Zoom and it worked very well in > terms of discussion. It didn’t continue beyond the reading and discussion > of Ibram X Kendi’s "How to be an antiracist” which we read chapter by > chapter. One reason is that a group needs a moderator/facilitator (like > Fred) who keeps the group going and on pointe. A leader/supporter who > manages the mechanical issues as well. > > This workshop in 2021 was where/when I realized how completely different > our life experiences are. That in 2021, so many people had not had any > personal experience with friends of another culture or ethnicity. One > person was just becoming aware through her church’s program of sheltering > the homeless during the hot summer weather of the realities of being > homeless. Part of the surprise was that these were cohousers, not founders > but people who had lived here a number of years but had so little breadth > of social exposure. > > Several of us continued reading the new titles in the area of antiracism > and shared them with each other. The website Jude Foster posted a link to > is incredibly thoughtful and complete. I hadn’t known of it before. It’s an > example of a person, Tema Okun, working over 20 years to perfect the > expression and presentation of a subject. It’s incredible how intensive the > central essay is — how much it contains of assembled wisdom on poor > thinking presented in a format that makes it an easy reminder to consult. > The attitudes and behaviors are presented as characteristics of White > Supremacy Culture, but they are the typical stumbling blocks of all > thinking about cultures — or in simpler words: daily living. > > https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/ > > I particularly appreciated the “antidotes.” After defining the > characteristics of a particular characteristic of supremacism — either/or > thinking, progress defined as “bigger”, worship of the written word, etc. — > she includes ways to behave to counter/reverse/dilute/overcome these values > and judgments. Things each of us can do moment to moment to redirect the > flow in better directions. A stunning compilation from many sources. > > In reference to reading about racism, a book I want to mention because it > was such a surprise to me is “The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America’s > Forgotten Black Pioneers & the Struggle for Equality” by Anna-Lisa Cox of > Harvard’s Center for African American research. It is a remarkable work of > detailed accounts of the many, many Black farmers who owned large-scale > plantations and businesses in the 18th and 19th centuries. The scale of > their work did not protect them from the atrocities of racism but the fact > that it had existed is not discussed anywhere else to the extent that the > atrocities are. > > I’m not saying that “life wasn't all that bad” but only to focus on the > dehumanization is to miss the history of human strength, resourcefulness, > ingenuity, and accomplishment. You see traces of it when reading histories > of notable Black leaders with mentions of several generations of > landowners, doctors, etc., but Cox's work includes maps, numbers, and > original sources which make it more tangible and fodder for more reading. > She also discusses the daily social life of the enslaved families which > included visits from one plantation to another on Sundays and holidays to > keep in touch with those who had been sold away and to find companionship. > > “Bone and Sinew" isn’t a whitewash of the lives of formerly enslaved > people. If anything the extent of brutality against those who had achieved > success on the "white man's standards” is even more appalling. It was a > damned if you do and damned if you don’t culture they were living in. > > One thing I have to say as a writer is that the book is not as readable as > the works of many contemporary books on Black history. What I heard myself > saying as I read was “The author was told by her editors that she had to > write the book in stories of individual farmers and their families or no > one would read it.” But she isn’t really a storyteller so some of the > biography-based stories lack the kind of detail that lends personality to > history. > > It also means that the endnotes are unusually rich in information and are > well worth reading. To someone who likes reading history the good stuff has > been relegated to the 50+ pages of closely printed endnotes. It isn’t a > long book but is filled with information that provides a stronger image of > Black culture in the 18th and 19th centuries than many do. > > Endorsements by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ibram X Kendi, Peter H Wood, and > Paul Gardullo. > > (PS: This post gives evidence of several attitudes and behaviors that > Okun identifies as characteristics of the white dominant culture: > supporting the idea of one central leader, praise of something as > "superior," personal pride in my own judgment of something as superior, > references to numbers as proof of value, a personal evaluation of an > editor’s skill with no professional credentials to back it up, calling up > endorsements to support my own conclusions. I’m sure there are others.) > > Sharon > ---- > Sharon Villines > Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC > http://www.takomavillage.org > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: > http://L.cohousing.org/info > > > >
- Re: Diversity, Inclusion, Bias, (continued)
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Re: Diversity, Inclusion, Bias Lisa Kuntz, February 27 2023
- Re: Diversity, Inclusion, Bias Kathleen Lowry, February 27 2023
- Re group commitment Diversity, Inclusion, Bias Kathleen Lowry, February 27 2023
- Re: Re group commitment Diversity, Inclusion, Bias Sharon Villines, February 27 2023
- Re: Re group commitment Diversity, Inclusion, Bias Kathleen Lowry, February 27 2023
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Re: Diversity, Inclusion, Bias Lisa Kuntz, February 27 2023
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