Race-based Mistakes I Have Made & Weekly Listening About Racism
I am told brave transparency is my gift. So I am going to be transparent about race-based mistakes I have made with the hope it bolsters your courage.
I was inspired by Adam Kol and his anti-racism educator, Ask Alexis, who is inviting folks to talk openly about race-based mistakes they have made to embolden others to do the same. Thank you Adam and Alexis!
A disclaimer about racism around the world: I am currently living in Germany. My sons shared last week that at their large school of international students, racism is seen as an American only problem. In many settings globally, however, whiteness is still seen as the “norm” and everything else is “other”. And foreign policy around Covid suggests racism is not just an American problem.
Let’s keep stretching beyond stereotypes.
Sidewalk Talk is a global organization. The great potential is what happens when we move in close to people’s stories and get beyond assumptions. You will see how listening unearthed big blinds spots for me and helped me work beyond them. I hope you will join us in practicing listening online in our online listening groups.
I am starting a new online listening group on Wednesdays where you can practice listening around race. This group will only be available to folks who have taken the online listening training and will be a place to practice listening. Sign Up Here.
Take it from me, listening at Sidewalk Talk for five years has been the most important practice in my own development as a person who strives for equity in a way that is not trying to “be a good white girl” or “act out my trauma vis a vis” injustice.
I am more centered every day in how I show up.
Today I give about 50% fewer fucks about people’s assumptions about me, my way of handling things, and I listen 95% more than just a year ago. I am still a long time anxiety and depression sufferer so must take care of me in earnest because mental health is a key ingredient for me showing up effectively.
Ready for mistakes? Ready to grow your courage?
Mistake #1: The Dirty Language Debacle
Five years ago I was called out by a black colleague because I used my usual “dirty” language that was “shocking” and very much my family’s style. (Notice the f-bomb above). She didn’t appreciate my crass and informal way of talking. She shared that, as a black woman, she would never be allowed to speak the way I was speaking, and get respected. She was offended. She wanted me to change my behavior out of respect for her.
I got defensive, wanted to protect my right to speak the way I did, and assumed something was wrong with her. It never occurred to me to listen. What occurred to me, instead, was protecting my privilege to speak how I wanted.
What I learned:
HEAR others from heart: When someone takes the time to be angry with me I have a bazillion tools now to help my defensiveness and shame fade into the background. I can stay curious in a heart-centered way. I may not be able to change how I show up in the world all the time (that whole unconscious, conditioned, human brain thing) but I can always listen, understand, and mitigate the impact.
Talk with white folks with a lot of knowledge about injustice: I shared with a swath of white colleagues. Some judged me and unfriended me for how blind I was. Others walked with me and pointed me on a new path of unlearning white supremacist thinking. I joined groups. Took trainings. And I kept learning from white friends who had read way more. I joined them in regular conversations.
Make changes and mitigate impact: I got to indict where my own “shocking” “attention seeking” behavior comes from. I got to learn its impact on marginalized groups. I still use it but with more thought of the space I am in and if it is an internal defensive maneuver. I learned this overused defensiveness was a reaction to my fundamentalist religious training and internalized sexism. Unlearning is on me. Mitigating my impact is on me. Doing it perfectly is impossible.
Mistake #2: The White Spaces Debacle
Three years ago a black Sidewalk Talk listener attended a well-known event we were all presenting at. After, they shared that many of the white attendees were rude and inappropriate with event staff and with her. I challenged her. I did not want to believe it. She was being too sensitive. She had a bad case of confirmation bias. I mean, Tarana Burke presented. How can this be true?
Thankfully, Sidewalk Talk training helped me slow down and listen, in real-time.
What I learned:
Work with my discomfort: I held this event and people dear. I knew, my nature is to speak up, and if I took her experience as truth, I was going to have to speak up and that was going to be super uncomfortable. I didn’t want to. I wanted to remain cozy. But as I worked with my discomfort I could take in my colleague’s words and hear their lived experience more fully.
Take time with effective analysis: I have learned now, after many mistakes, that if I want to have an impact I need to do an effective analysis of the situation. White folks jump in too fast to fix and solve and save. We really muck things up. Slowing down is now my jam. I also asked for help analyzing the right way to approach the leaders of the conference from folks with more experience.
Speak Up: My “be a nice girl” training has had the hardest time with this. I have found my voice more and more. And my boundaries are so much more nuanced, contextual, and relational. In this instance I formed a white affinity group of conference attendees. Together we amassed a list of action steps we were willing to take to support conference organizers in creating a safer more inclusive space. I sent the kind, supportive, and prescriptive document off on behalf of 20 ready helping hands to the white male conference organizer. We were never invited back to the conference. I still consider this one in my mind. How to relate more so the impact would have made it through. The following year this organizer was “called out” publically from the audience at his own conference. Now it appears they are making some strides. (I am now adept at approaching conference organizers - several to great success and this kind of activism, behind the scenes, feels more legit than “performing”).
Mistake #3: The White Savior Debacle
In my efforts to create an equitable workplace I hired a black colleague and over gave, didn’t set boundaries, and allowed resentment to build. My frustration and disappointment grew to a point that I acted out my resentment. I paid this person more than anyone, gave them my car, paid their phone bills, and did not foster an effective collaboration around work output and deliverables. Ugh, did I really think this was the right way to lead? Apparently!
Side note: Listening on sidewalks never had saviorism in it for me, personally. But I know it does for many folks who listen with Sidewalk Talk which is why we say “no fixing or advice-giving”.
What I learned:
I gotta work with white supremacy in the workplace: Throw out many of the leadership books. They are built on patriarchal, white supremacist, capitalist thinking. Leading with equity is not about saviorism and white guilt, it is about co creating values, listening a lot, eradicating type A overwork, eradicating perfectionism, eradicating hiring elitism based on education etc, and being clear with each person what they need out of the role and what the organization needs from them. It means taking care to support people to fully step into their power who have a hard time knowing how to own their power. It has to do with creating a culture of power with rather than power over.
Working with my white shame: In Internal Family Systems there is a notion that we have “exiles” or parts of self we can’t look at. We protect from seeing or feeling them all day. My exiled parts that show up in justice work are “I am a bad person” and “I am a racist”. My manager protector parts (this is all IFS lingo) will go around being a “good white girl” and my firefighter protector part is masterful at “shaming me” so I perform more or better. I have had to do some work with parts of myself and my nervous system so I can move from deep integrity rather than performative shame.
Courage to not be liked by everyone: Moving from clarity after all the parts work above, however, still means I won’t please everyone. But my “pleasing others” is not the goal for me. That, to me, are the old tools of supremacy. Working from high-integrity relationality and center that includes unlearning, psychological and contextual analysis, and the courage to be “displeasing” and own mistakes is key. I am still learning this one. Expressing my needs or checking out my assumptions sooner with all humans has been key. (Some old gender training still makes this super hard). But end of day, my narcissistic need to be a “social media influencer”, “good”, “be adored by everyone” or “be a good white girl” or whatever society says I should do has improved about 70% year over year.
Brene Brown has a line I have stolen: “I want to get it right, I don’t want to be right”. I live by that.
It is about you and our relationship, not my status. And sometimes, relationships don’t work out too.
There is hope. A success.
A few weeks ago a black woman I was listening to online said “Oh my god, I love that I could say that to you. How come you don’t get defensive like every white person I know? I feel safe talking to you Traci.”
Beaming with pride, I scratched my head with humility at the same time. I said to her “I love myself so much that I don’t burden you with having to do that for me.” I still have a ridiculous amount of blind spots. I am just beginning in my education around ableism, sexism, and heterosexism. And I am more resilient than I have ever been to listen when it is hard and am a committed unlearner of my prejudices.
Now the dialogues with other white folks about the “right way” to do justice work I am still a work in progress around. There is just so darn much in what makes humans assume, project, and play out all kinds of psychodramas together.
My mistakes, however, have created massive and helpful humility in me. At the same time, humility requires I know my limits and state them with less fear of being “called bad” or “wrong” because I am just both. I am racist. I am anti-racist. I am good. I am bad. I lead well. I lead poorly. I am fragile. I am resilient.
Locating and loving all of me, helps me listen because any criticism someone lobs my way, I usually say “Yeah, that is true. How can I make it right with you now?”
And sometimes I can’t ever make it right and owning that so people are empowered to choose something different is also justice work.
Join me in two weeks as we talk about the role of assumptions, stereotypes, and projection on the blog and how it shapes how we listen across differences. And share in the comments mistakes you have made and what you have learned.