you
[Music]
I speak fluent white people my black
people is pretty good but I’m not fluent
I learned white people on army bases
when my father was a military officer
I learned black people at home a little
bit of high school I went to an
all-black college but it’s never been my
native tongue of course having fluency
in one language and a skilled
proficiency in the other did not mean
that I fit in to either world I was
about 14 in Morgantown West Virginia I
was in junior high school when a white
male classmate called me nigga my
fluency in language was completely
immaterial to him
I had no space and no place in his world
he was happy to let me know years
earlier I lived in Institute West
Virginia and I went there the elementary
school there was a small school that was
placed on a college campus it was my
first all-black school experience one
day a friend and I were walking home
from school and then we got into a
quarrel my friend was too light-skinned
kind of a cafe au lait with a lot of lay
I was as you kind of see me now a walnut
colored maybe pecan anyway I don’t
remember why we quarreled but I remember
her face contorted and anger as she
looked at me and said you are black and
ugly
this was the mid-1960s before black had
been changed into a self-affirmation a
common as self-affirmation and pride at
that time it was probably one of the
worst things that one Negro could say to
another I ran home sobbing when my
classmate had called me nigger it had
been painful it had been unnecessary but
it wasn’t a surprise I mean my world had
somewhat prepared me for that but when
my friend when my friend called me black
and ugly
I had no armor to protect me against
that it took my mother’s arms and a poem
written by my great grandmother to kind
of calm me down my favorite lines of the
poem are I speak of the charms of the
gentle brown arms and the eyes that
reflect the sunlight as a little black
girl those words were the first other
than things that I had heard within my
family they were the first to assure me
that what I was mattered who I was
mattered they assured me still
in retrospect I learn from those
experiences and others like them that
regardless of what people assumed when
they saw me or when they heard me I did
not belong in either the black or the
white world I also learned that words
can change and shape reality what those
kids said to me not only had an impact
on how I understood myself but also on
my ability to navigate my environment
regardless of whether or not I believed
their characterization of me I still had
to maneuver around their perspectives
and the impact those perspectives had on
my life words have power they impact how
we think and act and sometimes words
take us down a path where we really
don’t want to go
inclusion is one of those words the
latest in a long line of descriptors
that help people to think about how to
interact with folks who frankly are not
like us inclusion is the descendant of
words such as affirmative action equal
opportunity tolerance diversity and it
seems to suggest the state it seems to
promise a state with those who are not
included finally get to come into the
club the problem is that it doesn’t
deliver on what it promises when
we were writing our book leading in
black and white my co-author keith caver
and i talked to many organizations and
talked to those organizations and many
of them talked about the wonder and
power of inclusion at the same time they
were tightly monitoring the behaviors of
those who are different we had a they
would watch black managers and those
managers those black managers hired
mostly black employees we’re typically
viewed with suspicion and their higher
EES were often assumed to be less
qualified well white managers who hired
mostly white employees we’re typically
viewed as being well completely
unremarkable the thing is that
inclusions suggests an openness to
difference that doesn’t really exist and
that’s because the gatekeepers have the
power to choose who gets to be included
and to come in how long they get to stay
and if maybe they need to put at B put
how they get to shape the behaviors of
those they have included and that’s
because they set the norms and the norms
are typically set for the people who the
standard of the include errs and not
from the standard of those being
included that’s why when I hear
organizations and people talk about
inclusion frankly I cringe as Maxine
green said in 1993 I keep pondering the
meaning of inclusion and wondering how
it can occur without the kind of
normalization that whites out difference
four sees me forcing them to be
repressed to become
matters of shame rather than pride now
this is not just a theoretical concept
some years ago there was an internet
meme that was going around that said
that if the Voting Rights Act was not
renewed african-americans would lose the
right to vote okay now this was
laughably incorrect
it was the Fifteenth Amendment not the
Voting Rights Act that gave black people
the right to vote but the fact that this
mean connected with people that they
were concerned suggests that their
notion is somewhat similar to mine and
it’s not just about african-americans
for example I have some very dear
friends who recently got married it’s a
gay couple who lives in Washington DC
and soon after they got married the
political climate changed and then soon
after they had been included into this
institution it suddenly began to feel
more fragile one of them said to me I’m
afraid that they’re going to annul our
marriage those of us who are different
live with the knowledge that gains made
may not be permanent we we learn the
rules and and and and we we follow them
but we’re often concerned that if we
bend them too much or break we will be
put out of the club think for a moment a
former First Lady Michelle Obama
how do you think she would have been
received if she wore her hair
something like mine I think my hair is
neat it doesn’t muster fuss and you can
wear it in formal and in informal
occasions but the mind kind of boggles
at the idea of a first lady who wore her
hair naturally or this short or think of
a Jewish president turning on the lights
of the menorah or a Muslim president who
observed daily prayers and wore hijab of
course the question is why does this
matter why does any of this matter it
matters because the nation and the world
are changing and the changes are so fast
vast and so huge that it will require
all of us all of us to think differently
last year Pew Research put out a study
and was really talking about change for
example they talked about how the family
is changing but we have more blended
families more people are cohabitating
they’re more divorces than there have
been there are more women leaders around
the world not enough but more they also
said that by 2050 five there will be no
majority ethnic or religious groups in
this country already we know that there
are more biracial and multiracial
marriages the percentage of multiracial
children being born is currently higher
than the percentage of
no ethnic children being born today now
to some this new reality is almost
unthinkable because it is a
transgression against the rules of
inclusion the rules that demand like a
velvet hammer that we conform to certain
behaviors around look and language and
love and appearance
many of these standards which many of us
had no part in creating it is time to
change to a new language to think beyond
the language of inclusion to find words
that help us to create a new mindset so
that we can build a new reality instead
of inclusion let’s consider mutuality
mutuality means that we all walk forward
together
nobody needs to be included because by
definition we are already part of the
group mutuality means that we accept
difference glory in it expect it learn
from it all without fear it means that
we create our norms together that we
choose the ones that we think are best
for us and that we do it
along with allowing variation and that
we don’t punish people and spoken and
unspoken ways if they don’t fit into our
little kind of bubble here
so
let’s begin to think then about the
power of ideas and first I would say
that as we consider this idea of
mutuality it does not dismiss or take
away from the problems and issues of our
shared past but what it does try to do
is to give us an equal playing field
where we can talk about those issues
together I know that this is an idea but
ideas are powerful things a few years
ago I was in Johannesburg South Africa
and there with some colleagues we went
to Gandhi Square and we stood under the
shadow of the great man statue talking
about the power of an idea Gandhi came
up with the power of non-violent protest
out of the pain of apartheid and he he
took that idea and he took it home to
India where he applied it and where he
had some success and then Martin Luther
King came some years later and took the
idea and brought it to the states where
he had some success and then Nelson
Mandela took that idea and brought it
back home
where he had some success
Gandhi’s idea literally went around the
world and changed old realities into new
ones let’s talk about mutuality let’s
chew on it
let’s bring people in the conversations
let’s let it haunt our thoughts let us
question ourselves ruthlessly answer
ourselves honestly and be willing to see
what can be rather than what is this
idea is just being born and it will take
all of us all of us to be midwives all
of us to be there at its creation all of
us to put in our hopes and our
perspectives all of us to challenge and
push each other this is not going to be
easy in fact it’s going to be really
hard but when we are done we will have
created something that is ours something
that we did mutually
you
[Music]
I speak fluent white people my black
people is pretty good but I’m not fluent
I learned white people on army bases
when my father was a military officer
I learned black people at home a little
bit of high school I went to an
all-black college but it’s never been my
native tongue of course having fluency
in one language and a skilled
proficiency in the other did not mean
that I fit in to either world I was
about 14 in Morgantown West Virginia I
was in junior high school when a white
male classmate called me nigga my
fluency in language was completely
immaterial to him
I had no space and no place in his world
he was happy to let me know years
earlier I lived in Institute West
Virginia and I went there the elementary
school there was a small school that was
placed on a college campus it was my
first all-black school experience one
day a friend and I were walking home
from school and then we got into a
quarrel my friend was too light-skinned
kind of a cafe au lait with a lot of lay
I was as you kind of see me now a walnut
colored maybe pecan anyway I don’t
remember why we quarreled but I remember
her face contorted and anger as she
looked at me and said you are black and
ugly
this was the mid-1960s before black had
been changed into a self-affirmation a
common as self-affirmation and pride at
that time it was probably one of the
worst things that one Negro could say to
another I ran home sobbing when my
classmate had called me nigger it had
been painful it had been unnecessary but
it wasn’t a surprise I mean my world had
somewhat prepared me for that but when
my friend when my friend called me black
and ugly
I had no armor to protect me against
that it took my mother’s arms and a poem
written by my great grandmother to kind
of calm me down my favorite lines of the
poem are I speak of the charms of the
gentle brown arms and the eyes that
reflect the sunlight as a little black
girl those words were the first other
than things that I had heard within my
family they were the first to assure me
that what I was mattered who I was
mattered they assured me still
in retrospect I learn from those
experiences and others like them that
regardless of what people assumed when
they saw me or when they heard me I did
not belong in either the black or the
white world I also learned that words
can change and shape reality what those
kids said to me not only had an impact
on how I understood myself but also on
my ability to navigate my environment
regardless of whether or not I believed
their characterization of me I still had
to maneuver around their perspectives
and the impact those perspectives had on
my life words have power they impact how
we think and act and sometimes words
take us down a path where we really
don’t want to go
inclusion is one of those words the
latest in a long line of descriptors
that help people to think about how to
interact with folks who frankly are not
like us inclusion is the descendant of
words such as affirmative action equal
opportunity tolerance diversity and it
seems to suggest the state it seems to
promise a state with those who are not
included finally get to come into the
club the problem is that it doesn’t
deliver on what it promises when
we were writing our book leading in
black and white my co-author keith caver
and i talked to many organizations and
talked to those organizations and many
of them talked about the wonder and
power of inclusion at the same time they
were tightly monitoring the behaviors of
those who are different we had a they
would watch black managers and those
managers those black managers hired
mostly black employees we’re typically
viewed with suspicion and their higher
EES were often assumed to be less
qualified well white managers who hired
mostly white employees we’re typically
viewed as being well completely
unremarkable the thing is that
inclusions suggests an openness to
difference that doesn’t really exist and
that’s because the gatekeepers have the
power to choose who gets to be included
and to come in how long they get to stay
and if maybe they need to put at B put
how they get to shape the behaviors of
those they have included and that’s
because they set the norms and the norms
are typically set for the people who the
standard of the include errs and not
from the standard of those being
included that’s why when I hear
organizations and people talk about
inclusion frankly I cringe as Maxine
green said in 1993 I keep pondering the
meaning of inclusion and wondering how
it can occur without the kind of
normalization that whites out difference
four sees me forcing them to be
repressed to become
matters of shame rather than pride now
this is not just a theoretical concept
some years ago there was an internet
meme that was going around that said
that if the Voting Rights Act was not
renewed african-americans would lose the
right to vote okay now this was
laughably incorrect
it was the Fifteenth Amendment not the
Voting Rights Act that gave black people
the right to vote but the fact that this
mean connected with people that they
were concerned suggests that their
notion is somewhat similar to mine and
it’s not just about african-americans
for example I have some very dear
friends who recently got married it’s a
gay couple who lives in Washington DC
and soon after they got married the
political climate changed and then soon
after they had been included into this
institution it suddenly began to feel
more fragile one of them said to me I’m
afraid that they’re going to annul our
marriage those of us who are different
live with the knowledge that gains made
may not be permanent we we learn the
rules and and and and we we follow them
but we’re often concerned that if we
bend them too much or break we will be
put out of the club think for a moment a
former First Lady Michelle Obama
how do you think she would have been
received if she wore her hair
something like mine I think my hair is
neat it doesn’t muster fuss and you can
wear it in formal and in informal
occasions but the mind kind of boggles
at the idea of a first lady who wore her
hair naturally or this short or think of
a Jewish president turning on the lights
of the menorah or a Muslim president who
observed daily prayers and wore hijab of
course the question is why does this
matter why does any of this matter it
matters because the nation and the world
are changing and the changes are so fast
vast and so huge that it will require
all of us all of us to think differently
last year Pew Research put out a study
and was really talking about change for
example they talked about how the family
is changing but we have more blended
families more people are cohabitating
they’re more divorces than there have
been there are more women leaders around
the world not enough but more they also
said that by 2050 five there will be no
majority ethnic or religious groups in
this country already we know that there
are more biracial and multiracial
marriages the percentage of multiracial
children being born is currently higher
than the percentage of
no ethnic children being born today now
to some this new reality is almost
unthinkable because it is a
transgression against the rules of
inclusion the rules that demand like a
velvet hammer that we conform to certain
behaviors around look and language and
love and appearance
many of these standards which many of us
had no part in creating it is time to
change to a new language to think beyond
the language of inclusion to find words
that help us to create a new mindset so
that we can build a new reality instead
of inclusion let’s consider mutuality
mutuality means that we all walk forward
together
nobody needs to be included because by
definition we are already part of the
group mutuality means that we accept
difference glory in it expect it learn
from it all without fear it means that
we create our norms together that we
choose the ones that we think are best
for us and that we do it
along with allowing variation and that
we don’t punish people and spoken and
unspoken ways if they don’t fit into our
little kind of bubble here
so
let’s begin to think then about the
power of ideas and first I would say
that as we consider this idea of
mutuality it does not dismiss or take
away from the problems and issues of our
shared past but what it does try to do
is to give us an equal playing field
where we can talk about those issues
together I know that this is an idea but
ideas are powerful things a few years
ago I was in Johannesburg South Africa
and there with some colleagues we went
to Gandhi Square and we stood under the
shadow of the great man statue talking
about the power of an idea Gandhi came
up with the power of non-violent protest
out of the pain of apartheid and he he
took that idea and he took it home to
India where he applied it and where he
had some success and then Martin Luther
King came some years later and took the
idea and brought it to the states where
he had some success and then Nelson
Mandela took that idea and brought it
back home
where he had some success
Gandhi’s idea literally went around the
world and changed old realities into new
ones let’s talk about mutuality let’s
chew on it
let’s bring people in the conversations
let’s let it haunt our thoughts let us
question ourselves ruthlessly answer
ourselves honestly and be willing to see
what can be rather than what is this
idea is just being born and it will take
all of us all of us to be midwives all
of us to be there at its creation all of
us to put in our hopes and our
perspectives all of us to challenge and
push each other this is not going to be
easy in fact it’s going to be really
hard but when we are done we will have
created something that is ours something
that we did mutually
you
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