Posts
Transformative Processes
Re Evaluation Counseling (RC)
Hope all of you are having a blessing-filled, prosperous fall. The weather has finally started to turn and soon the leaves will begin falling. I just spent a beautiful and wonderful weekend at St. Columba, the Episcopal retreat center just outside Memphis, doing an RC fundamentals retreat.
After working my buns off for the last several weeks, every fiber of my tired body told me I did not need to go to this workshop. Remembering Paul Ferrini’s words about “resisting the lessons I need to learn the most” and my positive experiences with the folks from this group at WPC 9 & 10, I drove myself out to St. C. early Friday evening.
My primary motivation to attend was my long-term friendship with Randy Gamble, who has benefited tremendously from his practice of RC, and my relatively new and healing connection with Barbara Love, a longtime RC practitioner and leader. Barbara is, in my perception, one of the most loving spirits I have encountered and followed on my life journey so far. Rarely am I led astray when I trust people with whom I have worked to do healing work and form healthy relationships. My trust in these people and the process proved to be well placed.
For me, RC fits into a broader menu of Transformative Processes that range from 12-step work like AA and Al Anon to Restorative Justice. Simply stated, RC is a form of co-counseling in which two or more people engage in an exchange of compassionate listening. Each takes a turn being the “counselor” and then the “client” to create a safe, nonjudgmental space for each to allow the discharge, release, of distress, unhealed emotional wounds. The intention is to listen supportively with only a minimum of guiding commentary intended to promote the discharge, the experiencing of our feelings, and to remind the client that all beings, including the client, are inherently capable, competent, and good no matter our past behaviors.
My RC experience turned out to be rewarding beyond my initial resistance and even exceeded my most positive expectations. What I found myself surrounded by is one of the most authentic, congruent, diverse, and loving communities I have experienced in my life to date. The RC Community is one in which love and feelings are placed above almost all other aspects of human relationship.
My hope is to write more about this unique and valuable process. We are adding it to the growing menu of HEAL supported activities that are already creating healthy relationship in the world. Our belief is that these unique models, philosophies and practices can help and serve people looking to invite these ways of living and loving in their lives.
If you want to check out RC and see Barbara Love, she will be in Memphis speaking and presenting at the 2009 Gandhi King Conference later this month on October 23, 24, and 25th. There will be several introductory workshops to the RC process. Hope to see some of you at these powerful upcoming events.
Gratefully Seeking Harmony,
Stephan
Monday, October 5, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
September Reflections
The Power of I-Statements
There is a common process that runs through several of the most innovative areas of spiritual connection and growth in our lives today. Small circle groups, 12 step recovery meetings, Restorative Justice and Circles of Trust all have in common the healing power of sharing and listening to our personal stories in confidential, safe settings with other people.
Something miraculous and transformative can happen when we share our experiences without the intention to change, fix, heal or convert others. When people offer direct advice, the recipient can get an ouch despite the best intentions. I think this is because often subtle, frequently unconscious self messages about uninvited advice can be shameful or trigger other negative perceptions about not being good enough. Hearing another person’s struggle with their own situation allows me to take away what I need or can use from their experience.
An essential part of telling my story is to use I-statements. When I use words like you, us, we, our, one or other pronouns to describe something I experienced, a listener might confuse what I am saying about me as a generalization about them or others.
When I do not use I-statements the story sounds like...
me telling you about you.
When I do use I-statements my story sounds like...
me telling you about me.
We can make choices to develop and use this new awareness by integrating the healing energy of story telling and I-statements into our personal and interpersonal communication.
Or perhaps it would be more loving and supportive to own that I could invite the healing power of telling my personal story into my life by using I-statements in my personal and interpersonal communications.
Gratefully Seeking Harmony,
Stephan
There is a common process that runs through several of the most innovative areas of spiritual connection and growth in our lives today. Small circle groups, 12 step recovery meetings, Restorative Justice and Circles of Trust all have in common the healing power of sharing and listening to our personal stories in confidential, safe settings with other people.
Something miraculous and transformative can happen when we share our experiences without the intention to change, fix, heal or convert others. When people offer direct advice, the recipient can get an ouch despite the best intentions. I think this is because often subtle, frequently unconscious self messages about uninvited advice can be shameful or trigger other negative perceptions about not being good enough. Hearing another person’s struggle with their own situation allows me to take away what I need or can use from their experience.
An essential part of telling my story is to use I-statements. When I use words like you, us, we, our, one or other pronouns to describe something I experienced, a listener might confuse what I am saying about me as a generalization about them or others.
When I do not use I-statements the story sounds like...
me telling you about you.
When I do use I-statements my story sounds like...
me telling you about me.
We can make choices to develop and use this new awareness by integrating the healing energy of story telling and I-statements into our personal and interpersonal communication.
Or perhaps it would be more loving and supportive to own that I could invite the healing power of telling my personal story into my life by using I-statements in my personal and interpersonal communications.
Gratefully Seeking Harmony,
Stephan
Thursday, July 30, 2009
August Reflections
Seeking Reconciliation
To many people the recent incident involving the arrest of Professor Gates on the front porch of his own home by a Cambridge police officer is a blatant example of racial profiling and injustice. To others it is another example of an oversensitive, unappreciative minority reacting to a police officer trying to do his job. I do not know what happened.
What I do know is that here is another conflict and struggle that provides all of us with at least two unique opportunities. We could just take sides and seek to confirm our fears and judgments about each other. Or there is another more desirable possibility. We could choose to explore what else is happening below the surface of this incident in the hope that we might learn something we may not have known before this shared experience.
When I was growing up one of my history teachers had a little saying posted on his wall that read, “There are three sides to every story… yours, mine and the facts.” So on the news face of it, we have a battle of perspectives and opinions, and the facts will likely never be fully revealed or understood by all of us. The fight to be in the right about the facts could prove draining and counter productive as we put our energy into justifying our view and winning the debate.
A more significant fact that does not blame or shame anyone is that this incident is a learning opportunity. This was an incident that could potentially touch several ‘isms’ and even with all of its confusion and counterclaims, there is much to be learned from sharing our perspectives of what happened, and how people were impacted. Facts can be disputed and contradicted, but the deeper lessons do not call for victory but learning, healing and growth for the greater good of all. We can make progress if we are willing to sit with and process difficult and uncomfortable situations like this in non-blaming and non-shaming ways.
How could we possibly do this? By making different choices than the ones that keep us mired in separation, fear and judgment of each other. We could choose to create a safe place from which more of us could examine and discuss the intricate web of interactions that are involved here, the relationship between the Professor and the Officer, the longer term relationship between people who are not white and law enforcement, the relationship between white dominated institutions and people who are not white, and the historical relationship between blacks and whites for instance. The facts of this incident are relatively simple; it is the deeper components and impacts that are more complex.
This incident and the resulting conflict are having a real impact, which is old, painful, and frustrating for many people especially those on the hurt side of ‘isms.’ Most conflicts are due to factors that reach beyond the immediate circumstances into issues with much deeper mental, emotional and spiritual meaning and ramifications. By facing and dealing with our problems, we gain opportunities to break out of chronic, dysfunctional social patterns of behavior that continue to create the same old results.
Recently on the Charlie Rose Show, Rose discussed the Gates Incident and Race in America with Rev. Floyd Flake and two journalists, Raina Kelly and David Remnick. They talked about how President Obama is attempting to deal with the situation by calling for a discussion of this incident. He hopes to bring together all parties to talk about what really happened physically and at deeper level too.
The commentators hoped that in that process perhaps we can discover something about ourselves and each other that we would have other wise realized or that we have not yet leaned that is in every body’s best interest. Raina Kelly captured an essential aspect of race relations today with these comments on the need for seeking reconciliation:
“I think we will have to because reconciliation is not a concept we have seen a lot of, we have seen violence, we have seen heated words, rarely do we see two parties come together and say… and bend in some way shape or form. It is amazing Mr. Obama made that speech, we are so used to seeing people harden their positions over the course of a news cycle…The rhetoric gets built up and built up…and then when the American people say to themselves, please let this be over we move on to something else…
But all we really did was delay payment, delay reconciliation, we have been delaying dealing with our issues for years… for decades even, each time when there is a chance to come together, to have a discussion to learn something, it never happens.”
(Check out the discussion at charlierose.com.)
For those of us who have studied nonviolence and peacemaking this is a familiar pattern. Something happens, an incident, and instead of coming together to work it out, each side withdraws to deal with its wounds and weave a story about why they were unjustly attacked and hurt and why they are justified in retaliating. This is the pattern of a classical cycle of violence, not just physical violence but the emotional and spiritual wounding that leads up to and occurs in a situation like this. The lack of relationship and healthy connection around an incident leads to the rationalization of continued separation while laying the ground for the next incident.
The way to break out of this destructive spiral is to move toward reconciliation. If we really hope to move past race and discrimination, we could choose to come together, to find ways to say and hear these hurts and find ways to stay and bend. Healing and reconciliation can happen if we make the choices that invite these possibilities into our lives on many levels.
Gratefully Seeking Reconciliation and Harmony,
Stephan
To many people the recent incident involving the arrest of Professor Gates on the front porch of his own home by a Cambridge police officer is a blatant example of racial profiling and injustice. To others it is another example of an oversensitive, unappreciative minority reacting to a police officer trying to do his job. I do not know what happened.
What I do know is that here is another conflict and struggle that provides all of us with at least two unique opportunities. We could just take sides and seek to confirm our fears and judgments about each other. Or there is another more desirable possibility. We could choose to explore what else is happening below the surface of this incident in the hope that we might learn something we may not have known before this shared experience.
When I was growing up one of my history teachers had a little saying posted on his wall that read, “There are three sides to every story… yours, mine and the facts.” So on the news face of it, we have a battle of perspectives and opinions, and the facts will likely never be fully revealed or understood by all of us. The fight to be in the right about the facts could prove draining and counter productive as we put our energy into justifying our view and winning the debate.
A more significant fact that does not blame or shame anyone is that this incident is a learning opportunity. This was an incident that could potentially touch several ‘isms’ and even with all of its confusion and counterclaims, there is much to be learned from sharing our perspectives of what happened, and how people were impacted. Facts can be disputed and contradicted, but the deeper lessons do not call for victory but learning, healing and growth for the greater good of all. We can make progress if we are willing to sit with and process difficult and uncomfortable situations like this in non-blaming and non-shaming ways.
How could we possibly do this? By making different choices than the ones that keep us mired in separation, fear and judgment of each other. We could choose to create a safe place from which more of us could examine and discuss the intricate web of interactions that are involved here, the relationship between the Professor and the Officer, the longer term relationship between people who are not white and law enforcement, the relationship between white dominated institutions and people who are not white, and the historical relationship between blacks and whites for instance. The facts of this incident are relatively simple; it is the deeper components and impacts that are more complex.
This incident and the resulting conflict are having a real impact, which is old, painful, and frustrating for many people especially those on the hurt side of ‘isms.’ Most conflicts are due to factors that reach beyond the immediate circumstances into issues with much deeper mental, emotional and spiritual meaning and ramifications. By facing and dealing with our problems, we gain opportunities to break out of chronic, dysfunctional social patterns of behavior that continue to create the same old results.
Recently on the Charlie Rose Show, Rose discussed the Gates Incident and Race in America with Rev. Floyd Flake and two journalists, Raina Kelly and David Remnick. They talked about how President Obama is attempting to deal with the situation by calling for a discussion of this incident. He hopes to bring together all parties to talk about what really happened physically and at deeper level too.
The commentators hoped that in that process perhaps we can discover something about ourselves and each other that we would have other wise realized or that we have not yet leaned that is in every body’s best interest. Raina Kelly captured an essential aspect of race relations today with these comments on the need for seeking reconciliation:
“I think we will have to because reconciliation is not a concept we have seen a lot of, we have seen violence, we have seen heated words, rarely do we see two parties come together and say… and bend in some way shape or form. It is amazing Mr. Obama made that speech, we are so used to seeing people harden their positions over the course of a news cycle…The rhetoric gets built up and built up…and then when the American people say to themselves, please let this be over we move on to something else…
But all we really did was delay payment, delay reconciliation, we have been delaying dealing with our issues for years… for decades even, each time when there is a chance to come together, to have a discussion to learn something, it never happens.”
(Check out the discussion at charlierose.com.)
For those of us who have studied nonviolence and peacemaking this is a familiar pattern. Something happens, an incident, and instead of coming together to work it out, each side withdraws to deal with its wounds and weave a story about why they were unjustly attacked and hurt and why they are justified in retaliating. This is the pattern of a classical cycle of violence, not just physical violence but the emotional and spiritual wounding that leads up to and occurs in a situation like this. The lack of relationship and healthy connection around an incident leads to the rationalization of continued separation while laying the ground for the next incident.
The way to break out of this destructive spiral is to move toward reconciliation. If we really hope to move past race and discrimination, we could choose to come together, to find ways to say and hear these hurts and find ways to stay and bend. Healing and reconciliation can happen if we make the choices that invite these possibilities into our lives on many levels.
Gratefully Seeking Reconciliation and Harmony,
Stephan
Thursday, July 9, 2009
July Reflections
Creating More Healthy Global Community Relationships
President Obama has recently given a series of very mindful and considerate speeches setting out a new and very different vision for relations with other countries and people.
Recently in Prague he put forth his ideas for a world free of nuclear weapons. His speech in Cairo a few weeks ago reached out not just to the leaders but to all Muslims in an attempt to establish a new intention by America to form better, stronger relationships with them and to work to address our differences and problems in constructive ways. Today, he spoke in Russia hoping to “reset” our strained relations with our longtime rival by setting aside old views and embracing new possibilities. Here is a small excerpt from that speech.
“There is the 20th Century view that the US and Russia are destined to be antagonists. And that a strong Russia or a strong America can only assert themselves in opposition to one another. And there is a 19th Century view that we are destined to vie for spheres of influence and that great powers must forge competing blocks to balance one another.
These assumptions are wrong. In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries.
It is difficult to forge a lasting partnership between former adversaries. It is hard to change habits that have been engrained in our governments and bureaucracies for decades. But I believe that on the fundamental issues that will shape this century, Americans and Russians share common interests that form a basis for cooperation. It is not for me to define Russia’s national interests, but I can tell you about America’s national interest, and I believe you will see that we share common ground.”
Many pundits and experts are straining to explain Obama’s words as right or wrong in terms of established foreign relations or political science knowledge. In terms of human relationship wisdom his choices appear to indicate an intentional choice on his part to transcend these older, accepted ways of relating to our “enemies” or conflict partners, thereby breaking out of chronic cycles of competition, violence or dysfunction and moving toward reconciliation and collaboration.
This approach is very different from the vengeful, aggressive, and violent response the US Administrations have pursued since 9/11. Reaching out in positive ways, establishing our intent to be friendly and constructive, pursuing mutually beneficial goals through mutually respectful and considerate processes are all actions that help promote taking that fork in the road away from fear and destruction toward hope and reconciliation and ultimately shared community.
If we are uncertain or confused by these developments, an important question to ask at this transitional moment is how well are our old methods of relating globally working? Do we have real safety, security and collaboration, and not just with our historic friends and allies but with those we fear and distrust? Can we change these old patterns? Is the cost of our current approach sustainable, especially in these challenging times? How much justice, equality, trust and friendship could we stimulate if even some of the resources we now have tied up in “necessary defensive and offensive capabilities” could be redirected to creating new allies? How much could we save if we could worry less about defending ourselves from an attack?
I do not believe President Obama is a demon or a savior; I hope and believe he is an intelligent, hardworking, practical leader with an understanding and willingness to pursue a new approach to old problems that persist despite our good intentions and best, sometimes heroic efforts.
Yes, this approach involves risk, perhaps great risk, but no greater and certain than the risk of pursuing unhealthy, codependent and dysfunctional relationships with our global neighbors and other members of the Greater Human Family.
Being open, vulnerable and willing to focus on protecting our national interests through unforced or uncoerced cooperation and collaboration even with old enemies promotes real community and fosters authentic safety in all dimensions of relationship.
Hate and Fear out.
Love and Peace in.
Gratefully Seeking Harmony,
Stephan
President Obama has recently given a series of very mindful and considerate speeches setting out a new and very different vision for relations with other countries and people.
Recently in Prague he put forth his ideas for a world free of nuclear weapons. His speech in Cairo a few weeks ago reached out not just to the leaders but to all Muslims in an attempt to establish a new intention by America to form better, stronger relationships with them and to work to address our differences and problems in constructive ways. Today, he spoke in Russia hoping to “reset” our strained relations with our longtime rival by setting aside old views and embracing new possibilities. Here is a small excerpt from that speech.
“There is the 20th Century view that the US and Russia are destined to be antagonists. And that a strong Russia or a strong America can only assert themselves in opposition to one another. And there is a 19th Century view that we are destined to vie for spheres of influence and that great powers must forge competing blocks to balance one another.
These assumptions are wrong. In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries.
It is difficult to forge a lasting partnership between former adversaries. It is hard to change habits that have been engrained in our governments and bureaucracies for decades. But I believe that on the fundamental issues that will shape this century, Americans and Russians share common interests that form a basis for cooperation. It is not for me to define Russia’s national interests, but I can tell you about America’s national interest, and I believe you will see that we share common ground.”
Many pundits and experts are straining to explain Obama’s words as right or wrong in terms of established foreign relations or political science knowledge. In terms of human relationship wisdom his choices appear to indicate an intentional choice on his part to transcend these older, accepted ways of relating to our “enemies” or conflict partners, thereby breaking out of chronic cycles of competition, violence or dysfunction and moving toward reconciliation and collaboration.
This approach is very different from the vengeful, aggressive, and violent response the US Administrations have pursued since 9/11. Reaching out in positive ways, establishing our intent to be friendly and constructive, pursuing mutually beneficial goals through mutually respectful and considerate processes are all actions that help promote taking that fork in the road away from fear and destruction toward hope and reconciliation and ultimately shared community.
If we are uncertain or confused by these developments, an important question to ask at this transitional moment is how well are our old methods of relating globally working? Do we have real safety, security and collaboration, and not just with our historic friends and allies but with those we fear and distrust? Can we change these old patterns? Is the cost of our current approach sustainable, especially in these challenging times? How much justice, equality, trust and friendship could we stimulate if even some of the resources we now have tied up in “necessary defensive and offensive capabilities” could be redirected to creating new allies? How much could we save if we could worry less about defending ourselves from an attack?
I do not believe President Obama is a demon or a savior; I hope and believe he is an intelligent, hardworking, practical leader with an understanding and willingness to pursue a new approach to old problems that persist despite our good intentions and best, sometimes heroic efforts.
Yes, this approach involves risk, perhaps great risk, but no greater and certain than the risk of pursuing unhealthy, codependent and dysfunctional relationships with our global neighbors and other members of the Greater Human Family.
Being open, vulnerable and willing to focus on protecting our national interests through unforced or uncoerced cooperation and collaboration even with old enemies promotes real community and fosters authentic safety in all dimensions of relationship.
Hate and Fear out.
Love and Peace in.
Gratefully Seeking Harmony,
Stephan
Monday, June 8, 2009
June Reflections
Ultimately it’s still about healthy relationship…
For those who have been interested in HEAL and our healthy relationship work, you may have wondered why in the world I have spent so much of my time and our resources working on and writing about racism and white privilege. In fact, there have been many times over the last couple of years when I have asked myself the same question.
If my passion and purpose are to promote healthy relationship, then why am I spending so much of my time doing what to some might appear as work around unrelated issues. The answer is simple…working on white privilege, diversity, multiculturalism, and racism or any of the ‘isms’ ultimately is about healing old wounds and ‘less than-ness’ and creating healthy relationship.
Discrimination, racism, and unearned privilege are just other old examples of how unhealthy relationships exist in our group, cultural, social, and international relationships. There are many different names for these behaviors but at the core they are each about less than loving nurturing relationship choices between people that have the potential to create deep, lasting physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual harm.
These unhealthy behaviors are examples of just some of the old and new ways we find to separate and diminish ourselves and others by maintaining or expanding systematic, socialized, institutionalized, or other established patterns of unhealthy behavior. Equality and a reduction or elimination of hierarchy, are essential to promoting healthy relationship. Any choices we make to treat someone in less than loving and nurturing ways based on gender, skin color, economic factors, age, sexual orientation or other differences is to engage in behaviors that corrupt and undermine healthy relationship.
More awareness of each of these areas as old, even ancient, problems or examples of unhealthy relationship, is the beginning of their undoing. Like our other healthy relationship ‘practices’, we can choose to take on an intention and determination to better understand and counteract old less healthy choices with new more healthy choices. We can then be open to feedback on the impact and usefulness of our new choices and adjust and learn from our failures and successes. Much more on what these ‘practices’ are in future writings.
Have a good June.
Gratefully Seeking Harmony,
Stephan
To view our newsletter online, visit our website.
For those who have been interested in HEAL and our healthy relationship work, you may have wondered why in the world I have spent so much of my time and our resources working on and writing about racism and white privilege. In fact, there have been many times over the last couple of years when I have asked myself the same question.
If my passion and purpose are to promote healthy relationship, then why am I spending so much of my time doing what to some might appear as work around unrelated issues. The answer is simple…working on white privilege, diversity, multiculturalism, and racism or any of the ‘isms’ ultimately is about healing old wounds and ‘less than-ness’ and creating healthy relationship.
Discrimination, racism, and unearned privilege are just other old examples of how unhealthy relationships exist in our group, cultural, social, and international relationships. There are many different names for these behaviors but at the core they are each about less than loving nurturing relationship choices between people that have the potential to create deep, lasting physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual harm.
These unhealthy behaviors are examples of just some of the old and new ways we find to separate and diminish ourselves and others by maintaining or expanding systematic, socialized, institutionalized, or other established patterns of unhealthy behavior. Equality and a reduction or elimination of hierarchy, are essential to promoting healthy relationship. Any choices we make to treat someone in less than loving and nurturing ways based on gender, skin color, economic factors, age, sexual orientation or other differences is to engage in behaviors that corrupt and undermine healthy relationship.
More awareness of each of these areas as old, even ancient, problems or examples of unhealthy relationship, is the beginning of their undoing. Like our other healthy relationship ‘practices’, we can choose to take on an intention and determination to better understand and counteract old less healthy choices with new more healthy choices. We can then be open to feedback on the impact and usefulness of our new choices and adjust and learn from our failures and successes. Much more on what these ‘practices’ are in future writings.
Have a good June.
Gratefully Seeking Harmony,
Stephan
To view our newsletter online, visit our website.
Monday, May 4, 2009
May Reflections
Letter to the Editor from Stephan McLaughlin. Edited version appeared in the Commercial Appeal on April 19.
Re: My White Privilege Conference 10 Experience,
As a great grandson of E. H. Crump, I was probably one of the most politically, economically, white, male privileged babies born in Memphis in 1953. If anyone in town could have been a poster boy for the White Privilege Conference held here recently, it was me. Despite the fear invoked by a conference so directly named for a challenging subject, I have embraced the idea of privilege as a reality worthy of my attention and vulnerability. So I attended the 10th Annual White Privilege Conference held here last week, the first time it has come to the South.
Admittedly, there were certain parts of my conference experience that I found very difficult, but none that were not worthy of the effort. After years of healthy relationship work, I have come to realize that my greatest learning often comes from the lessons that I resist the most. In the case of white privilege, it appears to be another, deeper piece of the racism puzzle. For me, this hidden layer must be uncovered and to some extent undone, if I hope to be the person I aspire to be and to help create the kind of community in which I want to live and to bring up my family.
So what is white privilege? My current understanding is that, simply stated, it is the unearned benefits, advantages, and choices I receive as a result of my skin color being white. Tim Wise, author, speaker and guide for white people trying to understand this concept, reminds us that “White privilege is not about white people, it is about whiteness.”
It is about a system, in which white people, who are not negatively impacted by the system, have trouble actually seeing the system itself and their role in it. White privilege is like a comfort zone bubble in which white people can live without realizing how the bubble protects and maintains their privilege. My experience is that this blindness is a form of ‘denial,’ and for me, required a ‘spiritual awakening’ and a certain grace to see, so I could begin to make different choices in my life.
The conference was an excellent place for me to gain a better understanding of the meaning of unearned privilege, and how it causes many forms of suffering in those people who do not have it. There was plenty of quantitative evidence to support the belief that people who are not white have a different experience of my white America than I do. The average value of household assets, the low numbers of African Americans, women and other people of color that hold various positions of responsibility and power in business and government, or the number of nonwhite faces on our money are all indicators that the disparities exist and continue.
Ultimately, as a straight, white, economically, and male privileged person, for me White Privilege is more opportunity than problem. As a lifelong learner and someone who aspires to live a more spiritually centered life, seeking to understand all destructive ‘isms’ and their constructive counterparts is not a new path for me. This path is consistent with my journey as a Christian, an Episcopalian, a Memphian, a Southerner, and yes, as a white man.
The conference and the work of understanding and undoing white privilege and all ‘isms’ is the way to a different, better world where community is something that is created by awareness of difficult issues and a willingness to deal with them openly and honestly. This is a path to Dr. King’s vision of ‘Beloved Community’ where we as a people can strive to bridge our differences with integrity and to communicate with authenticity. This progress is that foundation on which Memphis as a city can continue its growth as a place where many people value, welcome and affirm diversity and continue to try to relate to each other with love and respect.
Stephan McLaughlin Jr.
HEAL
Mankind Project
Re: My White Privilege Conference 10 Experience,
As a great grandson of E. H. Crump, I was probably one of the most politically, economically, white, male privileged babies born in Memphis in 1953. If anyone in town could have been a poster boy for the White Privilege Conference held here recently, it was me. Despite the fear invoked by a conference so directly named for a challenging subject, I have embraced the idea of privilege as a reality worthy of my attention and vulnerability. So I attended the 10th Annual White Privilege Conference held here last week, the first time it has come to the South.
Admittedly, there were certain parts of my conference experience that I found very difficult, but none that were not worthy of the effort. After years of healthy relationship work, I have come to realize that my greatest learning often comes from the lessons that I resist the most. In the case of white privilege, it appears to be another, deeper piece of the racism puzzle. For me, this hidden layer must be uncovered and to some extent undone, if I hope to be the person I aspire to be and to help create the kind of community in which I want to live and to bring up my family.
So what is white privilege? My current understanding is that, simply stated, it is the unearned benefits, advantages, and choices I receive as a result of my skin color being white. Tim Wise, author, speaker and guide for white people trying to understand this concept, reminds us that “White privilege is not about white people, it is about whiteness.”
It is about a system, in which white people, who are not negatively impacted by the system, have trouble actually seeing the system itself and their role in it. White privilege is like a comfort zone bubble in which white people can live without realizing how the bubble protects and maintains their privilege. My experience is that this blindness is a form of ‘denial,’ and for me, required a ‘spiritual awakening’ and a certain grace to see, so I could begin to make different choices in my life.
The conference was an excellent place for me to gain a better understanding of the meaning of unearned privilege, and how it causes many forms of suffering in those people who do not have it. There was plenty of quantitative evidence to support the belief that people who are not white have a different experience of my white America than I do. The average value of household assets, the low numbers of African Americans, women and other people of color that hold various positions of responsibility and power in business and government, or the number of nonwhite faces on our money are all indicators that the disparities exist and continue.
Ultimately, as a straight, white, economically, and male privileged person, for me White Privilege is more opportunity than problem. As a lifelong learner and someone who aspires to live a more spiritually centered life, seeking to understand all destructive ‘isms’ and their constructive counterparts is not a new path for me. This path is consistent with my journey as a Christian, an Episcopalian, a Memphian, a Southerner, and yes, as a white man.
The conference and the work of understanding and undoing white privilege and all ‘isms’ is the way to a different, better world where community is something that is created by awareness of difficult issues and a willingness to deal with them openly and honestly. This is a path to Dr. King’s vision of ‘Beloved Community’ where we as a people can strive to bridge our differences with integrity and to communicate with authenticity. This progress is that foundation on which Memphis as a city can continue its growth as a place where many people value, welcome and affirm diversity and continue to try to relate to each other with love and respect.
Stephan McLaughlin Jr.
HEAL
Mankind Project
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
April Reflections
Last Call for WPC 10, A Once in a Life Time Experience
This week the 10th Annual White Privilege Conference will be held in Memphis, Tennessee, for the first and possibly the last time in our hometown.
Dr. Martin Luther King will not be there!
And hundreds of people filled with his spirit, passion and commitment to his dream of beloved community will be!
The learning, healing, and growth at this unique gathering will transform each of us now and forever.
Come join us as we come together to change our world for good!
From one spiritual being walking a human path to another,
gratefully seeking harmony,
Stephan
Conference location:
Hilton Hotel, I-240 and Poplar Ave.
939 Ridge Lake Boulevard
Memphis, TN
901.684.6664
Register on site:
Institutes: Wednesday, April 1, 8-9:30am
Conference (no partial prices): Thursday, April 2, 7-11am
For more details visit: http://www.uccs.edu/~wpc/ or contact Daryl Miller at dmiller4@uccs.edu or 719. 255.4764
This week the 10th Annual White Privilege Conference will be held in Memphis, Tennessee, for the first and possibly the last time in our hometown.
Dr. Martin Luther King will not be there!
And hundreds of people filled with his spirit, passion and commitment to his dream of beloved community will be!
The learning, healing, and growth at this unique gathering will transform each of us now and forever.
Come join us as we come together to change our world for good!
From one spiritual being walking a human path to another,
gratefully seeking harmony,
Stephan
Conference location:
Hilton Hotel, I-240 and Poplar Ave.
939 Ridge Lake Boulevard
Memphis, TN
901.684.6664
Register on site:
Institutes: Wednesday, April 1, 8-9:30am
Conference (no partial prices): Thursday, April 2, 7-11am
For more details visit: http://www.uccs.edu/~wpc/ or contact Daryl Miller at dmiller4@uccs.edu or 719. 255.4764
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)