A couple of months ago, I had the privilege to talk about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (D.E.I) on the Self Awareness Journey podcast with my cousin, Melissa Albers, and J.J. Parker. One of the questions they asked me was, "how can we approach these conversations surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion?" I thought this was a very legitimate question, mainly because topics such as D.E.I. is a difficult conversation for many people. Many people try to avoid these conversations because they believe that it does not apply to them, or they are afraid of saying the wrong thing and offending someone else and being called racist. These conversations are challenging, but they are also critical—such issues as D.E.I. Impact our lives and how we relate to one another, our workspaces, systemic issues, and our world.
Moreover, the question was how can we approach the conversation? I told them the best way to approach the conversation surrounding D.E.I. is to embrace your humanity. When we learn how to embrace our humanity, we know how to humble ourselves, see each other from a human perspective, develop empathy and establish common ground.
I. To embrace our humanity, we must humble ourselves.
What does it mean to humble yourself? I believe the best definition of being humble comes from Romans 12:3 in the bible, which tells us to not think of ourselves as highly as we ought to think." Being humble means being sober-minded, meaning we should not think too highly or lowly of ourselves. Naturally, we all may not think of ourselves in a way that we believe is better than anyone else. We do not think of ourselves as being racist or mean to anyone. We like to think of ourselves as being kind, well-mannered people. Although I do believe most people do not view themselves as superior to others, we must understand that we have been trained by a society that viewed whites as superior to brown and black people. There was a time when blacks were seen as less than human beings. Because of the systemic way we have been taught, we have naturally developed implicit and explicit biases without even knowing it.
Moreover, when we learn to humble ourselves, we know how to develop a more approachable attitude. I like to say that your attitude can either be a fragrance or repellent. It is either going to attract or repel people. Have you ever been around someone who has a bad attitude? Have you ever noticed how one person's attitude affected the mood in the room?
On the contrary, have you ever been around someone who always had a good attitude? Have you ever noticed that their positive attitude was more attractive and made it easier for people to be around them and work with them? When approaching conversations around D.E.I., we must humble ourselves and approach the discussion with the right attitude. When we approach difficult conversations such as D.E.I. with a good attitude that embraces our humanity, it is easier to see each other from a human perspective and have a healthy conversation.
II. See each other from a human perspective.
The beautiful thing about a healthy conversation is it allows us to see each other from a human perspective. Many people and companies have not gone about things the right way in these conversations. They have designated their one non-white friend or employee as the spokesperson for people of color and said, "tell us what it is like to be black." If I am the one person telling you how it is to be a person of color, we are not having a conversation; it's a lecture. An actual conversation allows us to see into each other's world and see that we have real feelings, desires, and needs.
In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed in his paper entitled "A Theory Of Human Motivation" that every human being has a hierarchy of needs. Here he demonstrates how every human being requires esteem, love and social belonging, safety, and physiological conditions.
Moreover, our mindset and attitude determine how we go about those needs. The bottom line is we all have needs, and when we see each other from a human perspective, we can recognize that we all desire much of the same thing. This allows us to develop empathy and establish some common ground.
III. Develop empathy and common ground.
What is empathy? How does having empathy empower us to create common ground? According to the Merriam-websters dictionary, the word empathy is "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner." What empathy does is allow two parties to create a bond. It allows us to identify or share each other's pain and create some common ground. We may not be able to identify directly with each other's stories, but when we develop empathy, we can imagine how they have felt and what has caused them to view things in such a way.
Simply put, empathy allows us to sit in each other's shoes. When we learn to sit in each other's shoes, we can discover common ground. The truth is, many of us are not so different than each other. We have many things in common, and we do not recognize them because of how we were trained to think.
Finally, we can approach difficult conversations such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion by embracing our humanity. When we learn how to embrace our humanity, we know how to humble ourselves, see each other from a human perspective, develop empathy and establish common ground. It is by doing these things that we can not only approach, but have constructive conversations surrounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
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