Dear Frank DeFord, meet your new friend, Pro Football Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor, accused of raping a 16-year-old girl.  Perhaps he knows your other friend Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, accused of sexually assaulting a 20 year-old girl, who you defended as just “boys being boys” in your editorial on NPR last week.

Okay, in fairness, Roethlisberger was cleared of all charges and DeFord didn’t literally say boys will be boys (read the full article here, and listener commentary here).  He questioned the logic of Roethlisberger’s suspension following the charge, saying “let the thugs play,” ultimately minimizing the ‘badness’ of his behavior by suggesting “at least he wasn’t packing a firearm.”

The point of DeFord’s commentary was that while these kinds of behaviors were reprehensible, the real problem was not with the actions of the athletes, but with fans who expected athletes to be good role models.  “To what earthly benefit is it to suspend Roethlisberger?  Does it teach little, impressionable children a lesson?”

I hope it teaches children that our society values all of its members, and that our cultural value system demands a 0% tolerance for violence against women.

DeFord is a decorated sportscaster, sportswriter, and author.  But, in the world of intercultural communications and inclusion, his tone hearkens of a Northern European, anglo, male sense of privilege that disregards the experience of anyone who falls outside of that ‘norm.’   

Take that disregard to an institutional level and you have college campuses that excuse illegal behavior from athletes and a legal justice system that blames the victim.

How ironic that the title of one of DeFord’s books is The Entitled.

What do you think?  How do our reactions to current events belie our values and unconscious biases?  Does it look pretty?

Photo credits:  Talyor, Chicago Tribune; DeFord and Roethlisberger, NPR

So from this ad am I to understand that if I chew Trident Wite I’m 35% more likely to get out of a speeding ticket?

Is that only true for beautiful white women?  What if I’m a black man?

Actually, according to KJ Novak in his article “Disparity and Racial Profiling in Traffic Enforcement,”    “Minorities are significantly less likely to receive formal sanction than majorities, suggesting officers are using traffic violations for pretextual stops.”  In other words, blacks may be less likely to get a ticket if pulled over, but that’s because statistics show that so many more blacks than whites are pulled over due to racial profiling.  (Hence the phrase DWB…Driving While Black.”)

I will not deny getting out of a few tickets in my day, but this ad seems poorly thought out–ultimately aimed at a narrow, privileged few, while potentially alienating many.

Am I wrong?  Would the ad below work too?

The photo above is from a 2006 article from the London Evening Standard  about an black man, Edmond Taylor, who was convicted for a traffic incident, even though the white culprit was caught on video.  Taylor was eventually cleared.  Maybe it would have been quicker if he was chewing Trident White?

What do you think?

I need to go take a shower.

I just caught myself talking to my husband’s kindly Indian colleague over the phone like he was an idiot, plus I read this article by Tim Wise “Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black,” and realized I am guilty. (This is a must read!)

One, because looking at actual numbers I had assumed the tea party was inconsequential, and two, because, between me, you, the lamppost and my conscience, I would have been scared last week when I had to walk through a dispersing crowd at a Tea Party rally in Spokane, had the group been black.

It was ironic that just next door to the Spokane Convention Center where the Tea Party Rally was held was the Doubletree Hotel, where the SIETAR USA conference was being held.  SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research was talking about living and working in an intercultural world (I was in town for the latter).

On my way to dinner I had to walk alone through the crowd of mostly older, white men and women, dressed in blue jeans and American flags, carrying signs condemning Obama and his policies.  My dramatic protest?  I said “no thank you” when offered their printed propaganda.  Ooohh, you are so brave!

Using the Peggy McIntosh model, White Privilege is questioning why moderate Muslim leaders don’t vocally condemn fanatical Muslims, while standing quietly aside and disassociating myself from radical White Christians.

But this is also a good “wake-up call.”  While I strive to be aware of my own cultural orientation, biases and communication style, it is said that when under stress we revert to those first learned.  

In other words, when faced with the day to day challenges of life (balancing work, family, health, economy, etc.) or events more dramatic, we might revert to our “natural” or first learned communication tendencies, and forget our intercultural yearnings.

Shwooh—I guess the good news is that I’ve realized all of this before leaving my house this morning.  Good thing I haven’t done anything stupid like publicizing my unconscious bias on a public blog or something.

Anything you want to come clean about?  How does recognizing your unconscious gut responses make you a better person?

Photo credit flickr Rachid Lamzah

My colleague was conducting a training during a “train the trainer” session this week on Intent and Impact, the idea being that in communications, sometimes our Intent does not equal the Impact we intended.  For example:

 “That sweater you’re wearing is really interesting” (intended as compliment).  Unexpected impact:  “You hate it don’t you?” (Spontaneous reaction:  heard as a catty, back-handed insult.)

The idea in that case to help maneuver out of that moment of discomfort is to assume positive intent on the part of the speaker, and use it as an opportunity to ask for clarification before jumping to conclusions.

Sarita, who is a brilliant, vivacious woman of Philippine and Pakistani descent, then went on to share an example of when she had used this approach.

“I was traveling back to LA after conducting an out of town training, and I had been upgraded to First Class.  I was sitting next to a businessman, who was Caucasian, and we started chatting.  He asked me if I traveled in First Class often….”

She continued, saying they talked about what she did (intercultural communications training), were discussing business and getting along famously when he said, “You know, if I close my eyes and just listen to you I don’t even know you’re a minority.”

Sarita started to break it down for the train the trainer group, and explain how she chose to try to diffuse this, but the rest of the group stopped her.  We couldn’t justify under any condition that this gentleman had ‘positive intent.’

That said, I do believe this gentleman thought he was paying Sarita a compliment.  Unfortunately he was doing it through an ethnocentric, privileged lens.  In essence he was saying “people of color can’t achieve success in their own right, only in how well they do something compared to how a white person would do it.”

Ignorance may have been bliss 50 years ago, but not anymore.  Want to keep up in a global, multicultural world?  Better brush up (or get started) on knowing your own culture is just an option.  An option among a plethora of successful, thriving cultures around the world. 

 Perhaps Sarita could have responded by politely giving him a copy of Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege:  Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”, with the added point: “I can, if I choose to, sit in First Class without being asked how I got there.”

 What do you think?  Have you been on either end of this conversation?  How have you responded?

Photo Credit:  Simpliflying

Yes, I stayed nearby to make sure he didn’t get burned on the stove, but that isn’t the point of the story.

The point does tie into his problem with math, and the need to learn his multiplication tables.  And all of this ties into teaching children good intercultural skills.

Did you catch that word?  It was teach.  Dillon was able to cook his own meal because I have involved him in the process of cooking for years now.  He has stood side-by-side, helped mix, been allowed to dig his thumbs all the way through the eggs and get mess on the floor before mastering cracking them into a bowl. 

And, he’ll learn his multiplication tables when he studies his flashcards and memorizes them.

None of this is an accident, and none of it is by osmosis.  It’s a combination of setting an example, but mostly  by explicitly giving lessons and teaching.

I was reminded this by reading the article “Bigotry, Blindness and Basketball” by Kristin Howerton that was cross-posted on loveisntenough (formerly Anti-Racist Parent).

In the post, Howerton talks about taking her kids, who are black, to a basketball program where another child, who is white,  said out loud that he didn’t want to hold her son’s hand because he was black.  Luckily her sons didn’t hear this, and had a great time at practice.

When Howerton approached her, the mom of the other child became defensive, saying she didn’t believe her child would say that, because they had taught him to be colorblind.  And that there was the problem.  In teaching one to be colorblind, we in essence are saying “Don’t talk about race.  It’s bad to notice.”

I  could be wrong, but I bet you will never hear a parent of color say “I raise my children to be color blind, to not see the color of a person’s skin.”  For someone of color, living in a majority white culture, I imagine it’s impossible not to be reminded constantly of your color.  It’s the privilege of someone white, against which much of US society is normed, to say “I don’t notice color.”  Well, of course not, if all discourse is normed around you (aka me)!

So setting an example and teaching about intercultural communications with our children is critical.  Just as a child can learn to cook and do his math equations, he can learn language and reflection on social justice. 

Our children may mortify us by what they say at times, but look at how to use it to open an dialogue.  If a child doesn’t want to hold hands with someone who is different and you swear you didn’t teach him that, know that he/she got it from somewhere.  And if you don’t like what he/she has learned, then provide the language that you hope will guide his/her ideas as he/she grows.

Dillon’s pick this week is the ad above for “Confederate Family Insurance.

It was so offensive, that we realized it couldn’t possibly be true.  Indeed, it is from Spike Lee’s faux documentary “Confederate States of America,” that looks at the US as thought the South had won the Civil War.

It’s extreme representations, however, provide perfect fodder for a budding multiculturalist-Dillon is 8-to hone his skills in recognizing inequities in advertising.

So, Dillon, what is wrong with this ad?

Um, at first they called him “master of the house.”  And in the beginning, a servant came to bring him his drink.  He looked at his wife and child as property, and everything revolved around him.  The gardener in the end was African American–but they were showing him really just to show it.  Plus his house looked like a plantation.

Many a parent will bemoan the stereotypic representations in children’s movies, TV, and commercials (Videos are so rife with issues we don’t even go there!), but how do you talk about them with your children?  For Dillon, he recognizes when something is sexist or racist, but sometimes doesn’t know why. 

The tricky part is when he asks me what I think–so that I allow him to form his own opinions, without potentially passing along my own biases.  But at least we are talking and forming language, and that is a great place to start.

What did you talk about with your kids at breakfast this morning?

Have you ever been in a position at work where you are working your tail off and all you hear is criticism from those around you?  As explained by a sympathetic friend to me once, “it’s like the idea of a moving target.  If everyone else is sitting around doing nothing, you running by gives everyone something to talk about.”

 I’m not saying there’s a direct correlation here, but I was surprised by the intensity and vitriol in the conversation surrounding Robin Wiszowaty and her book My Maasai Life in a disucssion on Sociological Images.  Wiszowaty left her US privileged life and was adopted by a village family in Kenya, where she lived for a year or so, wrote a book about the experience and now is on the speaking circuit.

The criticism has to do with a sense that she has romanticized the culture and avoided acknowledging the real hardships of the country (that the privileged framework of her travel allowed) and thereby ultimately did a disservice to the local culture and its people.

For a full disclaimer regarding my willingness to state an opinion about that of which I know not, I never heard of Robin Wiszowaty until my fried updated her Facebook page yesterday with a link to the discussion on Sociological Images (and suggested that it might make good fodder for Intercultural Talk.)

That said, here goes.  The power of being a multiculturalist is the hypersensitivity to multiple perspectives.  You begin to imagine how your words will be received or interpreted by others.

On the good side, it’s accepting that your orientation is not the norm but an option, and using that lens to frame thinking before you speak…thinking through the implications and power of your words.

One the flip side, if there’s a fear of always offending or belying your own privilege with your words and actions you can become paralyzed into inaction.

Immersing yourself in another culture is a fantastic first step of becoming attuned to your own biases, particularly if you are of the majority culture.   It’s the idea of being “the other”…moving yourself into a situation that allows you to see yourself through the eyes of others.  

What’s wrong this time?  Maybe a naivety—it’s true that you probably need a certain degree of privilege to make the choices Robin is talking about.  And, no matter how long you live in another culture (or even your own) I’m always wary of anyone who tries to describe “a people” as being a certain way.

My friend frames it this way:

YES, step out of our individual lives to a greater world community… but how do we white folks do this in a way that results in the greatest good, and acknowledges that access to opportunity is not equal to all peoples. How do we affect the world AT HOME? We don’t have to travel although there is much to LEARN FROM THESE WORLDS AWAY.  How do we explore cultures different from our own without limiting the richness of these cultures by romanticizing? Turn up the sensitivity of your vision to see and share the complexity , not “the simple life” as it fits it into a box of your limited perception.

But I say you have to start by acting.  Robin’s language and depth of understanding hopefully will evolve overtime.  At a bare minimum, her actions have inspired the discussion and that alone brings value.

What do you think?

Thanks to Ingrid of Earthly Sites for the link.

Hey you racist, why did you mention only Serena Williams race in last week’s post about the Mother Nature/Tampax ad?

Luckily that comment didn’t come in, but as I was riding the train (or the “L” as we call it in Chicago) downtown yesterday, I realized I did mention Serena’s race, but not “Mother Nature’s”.  Why?

As for Serena, the point was that supposed to be that while she happened to be African-American, it was her star power that shined.  Her celebrity drove her selection for the ad, over racial identity.

But for Mother Nature, who is white, there is a hint (or a clobber on the head) of unconscious bias.  Isn’t it just understood that Mother Nature is white, just like Jesus, and Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy?

Save the extreme racial ignorance that accompanied Harry Reid’s recently revealed words during the 2008 election campaign, there is a parallel here:   the underlying assumption/bias that White is the norm.  In Reid’s case, he then gauges Obama’s appeal against that norm.

The white majority has the option of not perceiving themselves in a racial manner.  But only in embracing one’s identity as white, as distinct from other possible identities can you remove yourself from the center of the circle and look out as one of many identities on equal par, with equal value to offer.

How do you describe your racial identity? 

Photo credits, Jesus by mike52ad, Santa Claus by Hollywood Roadster, Tooth Fairy at Buy Costumes