a discussion board for cultural and diversity issues by Thomas Kochman and Jean Mavrelis
By Tatyana Fertelmeyster - 04.23.2012
I am in Paradise. I was officially welcomed to Paradise as soon as I got off my plane in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Actually, I am in a double Paradise considering that I am staying at a beautiful beach resort.
In a day or so this place will get busy with my colleagues who are getting together for the inaugural conference of the International Society for Diversity and Inclusion Professionals. And for a few days we will have passionate conversations about very important topics and rush to swimming pools at the end of the day to cool off and enjoy.
Swimming pools.
There is one right next to my building. I went there as soon as I dropped my bags in the room. I asked for a towel and got an uncomfortable explanation from a friendly young man at the counter that towels were only for red-level guests.
Red-level guests? It took a moment to compute.
A few minutes prior when I was checking in at the front desk a clerk put a blue bracelet on my wrist. It looks like something you get at the hospital or at the amusement park. This bracelet means that I am a guest at the resort. It means that I belong. I had no problem being marked as a part of the in group.
Now – here I am ready to jump into this enticingly turquoise water and being told that towels that are rightfully mine are at the main pool and that walking there along the beach will take me no time.
I am not “us” anymore. I am now “them” or at least not “us enough”.
That does not feel right. I am about to get all righteous about it but my logical brain starts its boring reasoning with me. Read more »
By Jean Mavrelis - 04.20.2012
Last night I watched CNN as Anderson Cooper conducted live phone conversations with Aretha Franklin and Little Richard.
They kept saying he was a nice man, and he understood the industry, but there was no gushing. They paid respect to the moment and the man.
Anderson Cooper missed the story behind the story.
What wasn’t said was that American Bandstand was not initially an integrated show.
Come on, we’re talking about the 1950’s. I want to assume Dick Clark evolved like all the rest of us white folks who remember American Bandstand.
I googled Dick Clark on racism and found a reference to a time when, on the Pyramid game show, he offered a clue for things that are whipped: “Slaves that are disobedient” –then Clark added – “Of course, that was appropriate in a different era”.
It was a classic example of offensive statements that whites, often unthinkingly, make about blacks.
It’s not unlike the first line supervisor I heard of recently who wanted to compliment his line of workers, many of whom were African American, and sent them a “good job” card with a monkey on the front clapping symbols together. Most everybody agreed the first line supervisor was a “naïve offender”. Maybe that expression fits for Dick Clark as well. Read more »
By Jean Mavrelis - 04.17.2012
I was preparing for Easter brunch a little while back.
Flowers for my patio were delivered, and the macho delivery guy said, “I used to garden with my Mom.”
When I stopped at Fannie May, to buy Easter candy, a woman said, “When I was young, my great aunt was becoming senile, and we found out she only ate chocolate. Now I understand her.”
Seems like everybody reminisces at holiday time. For me, Easter has its own vibe of reminiscences that has to do not only with relatives past, but also my family’s religious evolution.
My daughter is celebrating Passover. My son is celebrating the Rite of Spring.
When I was a young Catholic kid, holy week was solemn. We went to the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, and I was so sad about each image of suffering. I would get a powerful feeling in my soul at 3 in the afternoon – the time we believed Jesus died.
I don’t know what Easter means to me any more. Growing up Catholic, it seemed Lent was sooooo long compared to the one day of celebrating Jesus’ resurrection. Catholics aren’t so much a salvation people as a people who know how to suffer and offer up the suffering for the poor souls in Purgatory.
Easter Sunday meant I could once again eat candy. Man, how I gorged with that Easter basket. Now that I’m grown, it’s hard to celebrate the end of suffering – when you grow up there’s always another suffering around the corner.
Life has such sweetness for me right now, that I can’t help but dwell on the fact that it will end. I miss the old Easter.
Maybe I’ll become a Buddhist and realize and accept that life is suffering, so you might as well eat the strawberry.
By Thomas Kochman - 04.11.2012
I remember a sign in a store in the ski resort town of Vail, Colorado, which asked customers to remove their ski mask when entering the store.
Behind that request, no doubt, was the association of robberies with “people who wear ski masks” and an attempt to forestall the public alarm and fear that a covered face would otherwise create.
We can now add to the ski mask, the “hoodie”, made infamous now by the role it played in the killing of Trayvon Martin.
The issue there –apart from who wears it—is that it denies access to the face, which people often use to determine whether someone is “up to something or not.”
Because of racism, if the person wearing the hoodie is an African American male, what starts out as a general suspicion, ends up in specific certainty.
The public requirement that people present themselves with an “open face”, at times, goes even further.
Mainstream US culture also asks that people “look them in the eye” when addressing them and especially when learning is required, as in US classrooms.
Not doing so means, “you’re not listening”, or “not paying attention”, either of which, adds up to disrespect.
This takes on additional meaning in the context of a subordinate being chastised by a teacher or adult.
In Mainstream US culture, for example, it means accepting the punishment that is being meted out to you, whether you agree with it or not.
Looking away or down is seen as being evasive and cowardly, making whatever you did that got you into trouble, even worse.
In other cultures, by way of contrast, looking an adult or superior directly in the eye when being addressed or criticized is a sign of rebellion or defiance, and taken as gross disrespect of that person’s authority and position — the opposite of what it means in U.S. mainstream culture.
Add to face and eyes the matter of touch.
A recent article by Mark L. Keam highlights the problems that happen cross-culturally when Korean store owners or their staff in black communities interact with their African American customers.
As Keam points out, “In some Asian cultures, it is considered rude to look at a stranger directly in the eye or to physically touch a stranger in an intentional way. So when a recent immigrant from Asia who is working as a cashier in a small grocery store refuses to look at his African American customer in the eye or to place the change directly in the hands of the customer, it is not because the immigrant wants to be rude. Instead, the Asian immigrant is actually showing respect to the customer. “
From the African American perspective, however, a store owner not looking at them directly, and perhaps especially, avoiding touch, such as not putting money in their hands when returning change, conjures up the experience that Blacks had in the South of being “untouchable” and, therefore, also the image of being less than fully human.
So how can we move forward in getting and setting things right?
From our perspective, it starts with having a conversation. Not just any conversation, mind you, but one that deals with topics and issues that are difficult, and up to now, mostly impossible to discuss.
Things that make us who we really are.
Especially things that make us different.
By Alan J. Caldwell (Awaesaeh Enaniew) - 02.15.2012
In Shawano County, Wisconsin a 7th grader was punished for speaking her native language at school.
The Sacred Heart Catholic School student, 12-year-old Miranda Washinawatok, was not allowed to play in a basketball game as punishment for speaking the Menominee language in class to a classmate.
When the story first broke my first thought was, “Here’s a first year or new teacher who over reacted, did not attempt to ask the student what she was saying, nor asked any questions about the
language that was being spoken, and then moved to punish the child because she spoke differently, with the student doing no more than using a language she learned from her parents and grandmother, who also happens to be one of our original Menominee language instructors.”
I thought, “Would the teacher have done this if the girl was speaking French or Spanish or Hmong –we have families in Shawano who speak these languages– or because it was something she did not
understand and made no attempt to find out”.
Then the school administrator claims in his apology and statements to the press that he suspended the Menominee girl from her basketball game that evening for having an “attitude,…”
Yet, he also did not notify the girl’s mother or family of his action.
He later claims that his action was due to miscommunication and a lack of knowing the facts surrounding the classroom incident and the teacher’s actions.
Richie Plass is working with the family and has offered to assist the school with setting up some cultural programs and sensitivity training for school staff.
I have told him I would be willing to assist in any way that I can.
By Angela Byars-Winston - 01.16.2012
On December 9th, the White House honored twelve individuals as Champions of Change in America.
They were recognized for their efforts to recruit and retain women and girls in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
I am humbled to be selected as one of those twelve individuals and share this honor with numerous mentors and colleagues with whom I have had the tremendous opportunity to collaborate on research.
Two years ago, President Obama’s Educate to Innovate campaign was launched to improve the nation’s participation in STEM, particularly for youth.
Among the three pillars of this campaign is the commitment to “expand STEM education and career opportunities for underrepresented groups, including women and girls.”
My scholarship supports this third pillar by contributing research evidence to the STEM discourse on the impact of cultural factors on academic and career outcomes…. Read more »
By Thomas Kochman - 12.02.2011
We’re all familiar with stories of black motorists being targeted for special attention by law enforcement agencies, airlines and government agencies.
Stories of racial profiling of whites by blacks, however, also occur, especially in sports –the truism or stereotype being that black athletes are superior to white athletes.
This was made much of in “White Men Can’t Jump” and was the basis of a “con”, or “hustle”, perpetrated by the characters played by Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson in the movie.
Green Bay quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, brought this matter up on his talk show recently as a possible reason why wide receiver Jordy Nelson –who is white—continues to get one-on-one coverage compared to Packer black wide receivers.
As is customary when the topic of “race” is offered as a theory or explanation of why something happens, it immediately and automatically gets downplayed, as either being false –it’s dismissively called “playing the race card” by whites at work when blacks bring it up—or, as shown in subsequent media coverage on Rodger’s comment, too provocative to discuss, reflecting the U.S. mainstream cultural orientation that puts “peace before truth”.
This, in contrast to the more forthright African American cultural orientation that puts “truth before peace”, to which our black colleague often adds, “Without truth there can be no peace.”
One could also add, that without “truth” there can also be no further discussion of the topic –a form of putting one’s head in the sand– a rule of public social etiquette that disallows, by fiat, any opportunity to explore further what’s “out there,” and “really going on”. Read more »
By Jean Mavrelis - 11.24.2011
It’s harvest time. Harvest celebrations have been going on as long as there have been people to recognize and ritualize seasons of growth and hibernation of the earth.
In the U.S. we have created a myth of pilgrims and Indians coming together to share a feast.
It’s a myth that allows Americans to feel good about themselves coming to settle indigenous land.
I prefer to celebrate this holiday in a more basic way. For me, it’s a holiday that celebrates eating. I am thankful for food and the ability to smell and taste and eat it.
I have hanging in my kitchen a framed saying I picked up at an antique fair that says: “Some ha’e meat that canna eat, And some wad eat that want (need)it; But we ha’e meat, an’ we can eat, so let the Lord be thankit.”
I remember a thanksgiving when my Dad found a way to taste food. While battling cancer he had the roof of his mouth, part of his tongue, and a section of his jaw bone removed, along with his epiglottal nerve, which allows you to swallow.
He refused to have a permanent food tube inserted through his nose, which would allow him to pour cans of liquid food into his stomach.
Amazing man, my father, he had been a medic during WWII and wasn’t one to be squeamish.
Instead, he fashioned a contraption out of a douche bag with a thin tube attached. He would blenderize whatever delicious food my Mom or he cooked, and then would run the tube connected to the bag under warm water, and put it through his nose into his throat.
Then he’d pour in the food. He’d pat his stomach and say, “mmmm, that was delicious.”
One thanksgiving day he was determined to taste. He filled a cup with borscht, sour cream, and onions. He poured it back and forth from cup to cup to get any air bubbles out. Then he tipped back his head and poured. Down it went.
With tears streaming down his face, he literally fell to his knees. After that, he would have his daily draught of dark beer after pouring the contents from glass to glass to remove the bubbles.
My Dad, Barney Goldstein, had a tavern. People would come from far and wide to meet him, because he would never let life get him down. He’d point a finger and say, “Life is Good”.
So, this Thanksgiving, instead of imagining the myth of pilgrims and Indians, I suggest we all respectfully deal with the truth – whatever that means for each of us.
Dad always said, “The key to life is acceptance”. It helps to remember that, as life changes, and we sometimes long for an idyllic past.
And if you can, take the time to really taste the food you are enjoying!
By Thomas Kochman - 09.05.2011
Ethnic cultural differences within families can be a source of friction, frustration or fun.
They usually start out as friction, like deciding upon what time to leave for the airport.
My German Jewish side can’t stand being five minutes late.
My wife’s position—I’m not sure if this is Irish or just her—can’t stand being five minutes early.
Each of us conjures up different worst case scenarios in support of our position.
My worst case scenario is fraught with anxiety–that something will happen that we didn’t plan for or expect that will cause us to miss our plane.
Her worst case scenario is that we’ll leave too early and get to the airport too soon with nothing worthwhile to do.
At issue, also, is our different comfort level around waiting while doing nothing.
I’m like the camel. I can turn my motor off.
My wife can’t.
At best, her motor is at “idle”: running but not moving.
For a sand piper (her kind of animal) that is a clear UGH! Read more »
By Soumaya Khalifa - 08.02.2011
As the world received the horrific news of the Norway shootings, my heart was heavy and thinking about the victims and their families.
The tragedy and senseless killings in Norway reminded me of the horrific acts of September 11 and how that point in our history changed our country and our lives.
Extremism and hatred are human sicknesses. Sometimes people with such sickness put a label of religion, political ideology or the likes to give themselves legitimacy.
However, as other sicknesses, extremism and hatred need to be eradicated, as we have done with polio.
The terrorist in this case, Mr. Anders Behring Breivikhad had hatred towards Muslims, multiculturalists, feminist women and immigrants.
Unfortunately, we also find out that the killer was “inspired” by American bloggers who are anti immigration, anti Muslims, etc. As an American, I would like to see us instead export the American values of pluralism, equality, and sacredness of lives.
To build a stronger America and world, we need to learn about each other as human beings, to appreciate our differences and build stronger communities utilizing our differences and similarities.
As we work towards educating and building understanding, I am praying for love and peace around the world.
