#7 Naming What Stands Between Us
I remember being thrilled--and nervous--about the lunch date. I was finding my way as a board member; she was the bright star on the staff. I liked her so much. Would the race thing keep us apart? At one point the conversation touched on a (white) staffer’s mishandling of an (all black) group, and I made some comment about the need to be aware of racial dynamics. She was openly relieved that this was in my world view, part of my working vocabulary. It was as if now we could really talk. I realized that the white staffer’s very determination to not focus on race--probably for the most well-intentioned reasons--had somehow left it standing there as an enormous unnamed issue between them.
Years later I am still puzzling over the paradox that conversation illuminated. In the deepest sense, all the differences that separate us have no reality. Our common humanity arches over all. If we focus on those differences as what’s real, we separate ourselves. Yet if we refuse to acknowledge their reality, that refusal ends up creating barriers that may be just as profound.
Some people are fine with separation--the segregationists, religious fundamentalists, extreme nationalists, supporters of eugenics, those who belong to all-male clubs or live in gated communities--though their lives are diminished by that distancing from those they define as “other”. Some of those “other” respond by separating into their own communities--avoiding the pain, but also the potential, of connection.
Others don’t address difference because they just don’t see. Particularly among members of groups with more social/economic power (whites, men, middle class, USers), unawareness is rampant. It is uncannily easy to assume that our experience is the norm, and that everyone else would be fine if they just “got with the program”.
Then there are those who are aware, but would choose to focus only on our commonality. “Let us not name issues that divide us, let us avoid topics that are loaded with emotion and pain. Rather, let us try to be decent individuals in individual interactions, relating on the basis of what we have in common.” This choice is profoundly attractive to those of us who hate conflict and would wish away oppression. Yet it still keeps us separate by excluding from the conversation all of our experience of racial, ethnic, class, and religious identity and interaction. If we don’t name those things, others cannot be sure we know they exist, cannot be sure they are being fully seen.
There is an enormous need to learn how to address our differences as a step towards being more fully together. But we are not very good at this. We can easily slip into blame, guilt-tripping and name calling. Or we can end up feeling so acutely aware of difference that the separation seems too great to be bridged, and we start second-guessing our natural tendency toward contact.
I recently participated in an exercise with child care workers exploring the differences that race, class, and educational opportunity make in the field. As we got physically more separated from each other it was painful for everybody, both those left farther and farther behind, and those who were told not to look back. I was struck by how none of us had chosen to be in that relation to each other. None of us wanted that separation, and we didn’t quite know what to do with the pain of looking straight at how wrong it was.
We need to look straight, and feel that pain--all of us. By the very process of naming and knowing, we begin to take away the power of what separates us. But if we stop there we lose. Our focus needs to stay on the prize--not on the “truth” of difference or the “truth” of commonality, but the chance to have each other for real.
Pamela Haines
Philadelphia
1/03
Reflections on columns #4 and #5:
How do you avoid a scarcity complex (“When More is Less”)? The answer was found in “Circles and Light”: take whatever it is and share it with all the boundless love, caring, and creativity one can muster. Scarcity is as much about a POSE as it is about what's out there. If you take what you have and share it with love -- it stops being scarce.
Daniel Hunter
Years later I am still puzzling over the paradox that conversation illuminated. In the deepest sense, all the differences that separate us have no reality. Our common humanity arches over all. If we focus on those differences as what’s real, we separate ourselves. Yet if we refuse to acknowledge their reality, that refusal ends up creating barriers that may be just as profound.
Some people are fine with separation--the segregationists, religious fundamentalists, extreme nationalists, supporters of eugenics, those who belong to all-male clubs or live in gated communities--though their lives are diminished by that distancing from those they define as “other”. Some of those “other” respond by separating into their own communities--avoiding the pain, but also the potential, of connection.
Others don’t address difference because they just don’t see. Particularly among members of groups with more social/economic power (whites, men, middle class, USers), unawareness is rampant. It is uncannily easy to assume that our experience is the norm, and that everyone else would be fine if they just “got with the program”.
Then there are those who are aware, but would choose to focus only on our commonality. “Let us not name issues that divide us, let us avoid topics that are loaded with emotion and pain. Rather, let us try to be decent individuals in individual interactions, relating on the basis of what we have in common.” This choice is profoundly attractive to those of us who hate conflict and would wish away oppression. Yet it still keeps us separate by excluding from the conversation all of our experience of racial, ethnic, class, and religious identity and interaction. If we don’t name those things, others cannot be sure we know they exist, cannot be sure they are being fully seen.
There is an enormous need to learn how to address our differences as a step towards being more fully together. But we are not very good at this. We can easily slip into blame, guilt-tripping and name calling. Or we can end up feeling so acutely aware of difference that the separation seems too great to be bridged, and we start second-guessing our natural tendency toward contact.
I recently participated in an exercise with child care workers exploring the differences that race, class, and educational opportunity make in the field. As we got physically more separated from each other it was painful for everybody, both those left farther and farther behind, and those who were told not to look back. I was struck by how none of us had chosen to be in that relation to each other. None of us wanted that separation, and we didn’t quite know what to do with the pain of looking straight at how wrong it was.
We need to look straight, and feel that pain--all of us. By the very process of naming and knowing, we begin to take away the power of what separates us. But if we stop there we lose. Our focus needs to stay on the prize--not on the “truth” of difference or the “truth” of commonality, but the chance to have each other for real.
Pamela Haines
Philadelphia
1/03
Reflections on columns #4 and #5:
How do you avoid a scarcity complex (“When More is Less”)? The answer was found in “Circles and Light”: take whatever it is and share it with all the boundless love, caring, and creativity one can muster. Scarcity is as much about a POSE as it is about what's out there. If you take what you have and share it with love -- it stops being scarce.
Daniel Hunter
posted by Pamela Haines | 3:20 PM
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