The internet has made it easier than ever for peoples voices to be heard. With this speaking up, new narratives have emerged that might have been buried for a long time. suddenly, more that ever we are made to confront the fact that people around us exist as unique individuals, with different life experiences and histories that force us to radically rethink the structures that mediate relationships between us.
The internet has made it easier than ever for people’s voices to be heard. With this speaking up, new narratives have emerged that might have been buried for a long time. Suddenly, more than ever we are made to confront the fact that people around us exist as unique individuals, with different life experiences and histories that force us to radically rethink the structures that mediate relationships between us.
The intersections of race, class, and gender are being laid bare in discourse in a hitherto unprecedented way, and this presents a fantastic opportunity for listening, learning and growth. Yet what if we don’t like what we hear? Nobody likes to think of themselves as partial or biased, unconsciously or not, but the fact remains that many people have been forced to reckon with the uncomfortable acknowledgment of institutional privilege and their own positionality.
For many, the first reaction is to go on the defensive. Attempts to justify, to play-down, become knee jerk responses to a perceived threat, even among well intentioned people. However, taking the time to listen rather than react can reveal deeper truths about what is being identified. Much of the time, criticism that is mistaken for individual denouncement is actually aimed at a system; at the cultural, political, or economic forces that have constructed our society in ways that many people simply do not see. Acknowledgment of one’s own positionality is not an admission of ‘guilt’, but one of expansive understanding, broadening the mind’s eye to conceive the self in relation to the wider world.
Similarly, in challenging others to see with these new eyes we must act from a place of empathy rather than judgement. Judgement can be reserved for the social and economic structures themselves, yet if we want people to step into this new understanding, if we want change to actually happen, leading the conversation with love beckons others into change rather than pushing them away. To re-spect is to look again, to look more than once, at ourselves and others. Operating from a place of respect means working together as people on an even footing to challenge the structural and institutional pressures that drive us apart in the first place.