“Have any of you experienced prejudice?”
Seems like a harmless enough question as we begin a conversation around culture and leadership. How does leadership respond, determine, engage with culture? What role does leadership play in culture? As a result of globalization, what role does leadership play in creating a multi-cultural environment free from ethnocentrism and prejudice?
Plenty to go around here and unfortunately we spent less than 2 or 3 minutes on the topic as an eager student jumped on the question offered by our professor, “Have any of you experienced prejudice?” Her response was justified in it’s truth - she felt that she could never say or claim to have experienced prejudice when she was a born in America to a white middle-class family and has been given opportunities many others on the planet will never have purely because of where they were born.
Pause.
And then she repeats herself, stressing the point on how she could never claim to experience prejudice. This moment is the perfect example on the importance of delivery and knowing your audience. The comment was certainly a poignant one to make, however what could have been expressed with humility and self-awareness was brimming with intensity and attitude, silencing any other voices in the room of primarily first-gen, white, middle-class students who have now been spoken for. While aiming to stand up for others, this student shut everyone else down, replacing any momentary flash of vulnerability with shame. There was a brief and meaningful pause after the professor posed the question where we were all reflecting on our own experiences, quickly filing through moments to identify prejudice. For myself, I had to remind myself of the definition of prejudice and use this for a lens back through my memory.
While aiming to stand up for others, this student shut everyone else down, replacing any momentary flash of vulnerability with shame.
The disappointing moment for me was the sinking feeling in the room as she continued to make her point where you could feel the shoulders sag and faces fall of fellow classmates who in the effort of participation, immediately felt ashamed that they thought they might have experienced their own type of prejudice in their life. With one swift statement, she stole away any sense of self, authenticity, respect, and love from those who were braving the space to share their story. I know I did. And guess what, I’m also white. Female. Born into a middle-class family and have had all sorts of opportunities many will never get including reading Brene Brown and engaging in thoughtful conversations with thought leaders to better understand human dynamics and how to act or respond in varying moments.
This is one of them. I didn’t manage to respond in class because I struggled to get past the statement and how it shut down what could have been a really engaging conversation and experience. I considered offering the perspective shared here but it felt combative. Earlier this year in Global Leadership the professor told me that all of our stories are valid. They are real experiences unique for each of us, and they matter. They make up the narrative of humanity and are worth sharing. My classmates comment was valid and worthy of sharing. The point of the question was to get us thinking about our own experiences and learning from each other how to see something from someone else’s perspective - I can see hers. I would have loved to also see my other classmates.
If someone has felt judgement, was misunderstood, or experienced a generalization based on a fixed attitude of the onlooker, they experienced prejudice. The context does not matter. It’s all subjective to the individual experience. When we start judging each other and assigning value to experiences, we’re getting to what feels like a Hunger Games dictatorship and in the complete opposite direction of empathy. Empathy is feeling with people. Empathy is seeing the emotion and being willing to sit in the emotion with them. It is perspective taking. A response that objectifies the experience and assigns a value, is not empathy.
Empathy fuels connection.
If you feel that you experienced prejudice, I’m sorry. That sucks. I hope it doesn’t happen again. If you feel so grateful for your own life and how lucky you are to have been born in the family that you did, in the place that you did, I see you. It is amazing. We are so lucky. I said that to my husband as we watched a less fortunate family experience war on tv. As we continue to have opportunities to share our stories with excitement, let’s pause to consider who may be in the room, who’s story we’re missing. And not to keep from expressing an opinion, but to do so with grace and mutual respect for all mankind.