Context >>> Content
Context >>> Content
In graduate school at the Rollins School of Public Health, I took a directed study, learning how to do participatory research. It was a rich and deeply impactful course.
We got practical experience learning how to center and engage with communities. And do so in a way that allows us to get firsthand insight into the local context. With this data, we could more effectively discern how our contextual lenses and knowing could be helpful (or not).
The course and subsequent experiences in learning participatory methods serve me to this day. My DEI practice revolves around engaging with as large a group of people as possible to capture the many embodied perspectives and experiences of organizational life that exist.
While that learning has been invaluable, the richest and most impactful experience of the course was the people I had the privilege to take the course with. I had two classmates. A Jewish, admittedly and proudly Zionist woman, New York City native, age 23. And a Palestinian woman, Christian, born and raised in Chicago, also 23 years of age.
My Jewish colleague was always cordial and respectful. We didn’t have the space and time to develop a friendship. As I recall, she and her fiancé were planning their wedding.
She often referred to the Jewish Holocaust, sharing stories about her ancestors and their suffering. On many occasions, the refrain of “Never forget” was brought forth.
Conversely, my Palestinian colleague was open, curious, and warm. She also shared stories of her ancestors and conveyed conviction about how her family left Palestine due to religion and the situation on the ground.
While the three of us worked together, neither openly expressed anger or blame from my limited context. However, as I got to know my Palestinian colleague as a friend (a friendship that extends to today), I realized that another layer of dialogue transpiring between them was out of scope for me.
I couldn’t see the embodiment of their respective history, tensions, and implicit preferences at play. Even after my Palestinian friend explained this to me, my lack of “skin in the game” (that they each possessed) didn’t let me empathize with the emotionality they possess.
About two months before our course commenced, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an ultra-conservative law student during a rally with two opposing parties protesting the Oslo peace process.
The student strongly believed that Rabin had violated Talmudic Law by supporting what came to be known as the Oslo Accords.
Before his death, Rabin said in his speech at the rally, "I always believed that most of the people want peace and are ready to take a risk for it.” In his case, he risked his life.
Over the years, when another block is revealed (or disintegrated) in the predicament that is Israel and Palestine, I am reminded of the time we spent during that semester and the subsequent thoughtful dialogues with my Palestinian friend over the years. It calibrates my perspective.
The dynamics that lead to a Jewish state go back to the time of one of the most famous Jews, Moses. The history and timeline of the creation of the Israeli state extend back to the 19th century.
The contentiousness of Israel’s formation has been a story of humanistic aspirations for peace, then tension, then conflict, and heartbreaking violence, dehumanization, assassinations, destruction, and more death. To say the history of the situation is complex is cliche. And, it is.
And, awareness of the complexity has not stopped people from being compelled to needle others into “taking a stand” and doing so definitively themselves. It is a limited notion. As Bayo Akomolafe says:
. . .one might say morality is a temporary arrangement of ethical flows. Like an ice cube is a temporary arrangement of watery flows.
One of the implications of reframing morality this way – and of decentering humans from their perch as valedictorians of a morally predetermined world – is that the language of ‘stands’ begins to feel less secure, less monumental, more slippery, slushier, and beyond human.
Yes, it seems 'standing' is always troubled by the quantum inclinations that ripple through our claims to stable and resolute positionality. The rectilinearity assumed in the mathematical precision of a stand hides from us the ways we might be participating in and sustaining the very conditions we would like to rectify. The ways we are already moved.
So, our “stands,” stated or not, are in motion before, during, and after their inception. While some of the most influential (i.e., in the LinkedIn-iverse and Twittersphere) people committed to this idea we call Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are calling for people to speak up and take a stand for Israel; or to stand for Palestinian sovereignty (mostly the latter), such stands don’t necessarily say more than those who remain in contemplation, repentant prayer, and tears.
Standing for, against, both/and is not a fixed testament. We are not getting away from this situation “apart from”. There is no individual or collective “other” as much as we desperately seek out who is right. (Rightness has never transformed anything.)
In whatever form we conceptualize them in our inevitably interdependent existence, “stands” are not “right.” They are the temporary positionality that will change independent of our desire to shift with them as they must do.
It is as challenging today as 25 years ago for me to see and realize the full embodiment of centuries of history my graduate school colleagues were exchanging in their presencing and energetic exchanges with one another. And, I am certain that it is not a difficulty I possess alone.
Thus, I pray that we recognize the inherent motion in our stands.
Think back 25 years ago, given you have that far in this lifetime to think back.
If not, think back five, ten, or even two years and contemplate your “stands” then.
Even if your stand occurs as unchanged, know that a resolute stand in the midst of the perpetual shift will (consciously or subconsciously) perplex.
Believe that humanity shifts.
Have grace in our perplexion.
I hope this was helpful. . . Make it a great day! ✌🏿
In the latest episode of the ‘Reconstructing Inclusion’ podcast, Amri chats with Dr. David Livermore, founder of the Cultural Intelligence Center, and author of the book, Digital, Diverse & Divided: How to Talk to Racists, Compete With Robots, and Overcome Polarization. He shared insights into the profound importance of cultural intelligence (CQ) in our increasingly diverse and digitized world.