An Awokening

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Why Aim for Greater Cultural Intelligence?

A series of experiences come to mind because I’ve read two articles today that make me uncomfortable -- my brilliant, openly queer friend Li Sian Goh’s essay and openly gay NYT columnist Frank Bruni’s op-ed:

An adorable Asian young man and I are talking with other lovely, mostly Asian people at the 31st birthday party of MJ Yap, my colleague and friend, several weeks ago. He tells me that he’s from Bhutan. He’s got the same complexion as many South Asian people I’ve met from India. He says, “They call me Baby. That’s my nickname.”

“There’s an amazing lesbian novel called Babyji that I loved – about a lesbian in India, who –“

“I’m not from –“

“I know you’re from Bhutan, not India, but in India, adding 'ji' to a name is an endearment –”

He doesn’t care, his expression tells me, he’s not lesbian and he’s not from India. Get me out of here, I’m thinking. I’m just trying to affiliate with this otherwise sweet guy and I’ve made a faux pas and want to disappear.

Earlier in the evening, I’m feeling awkward around three attractive Asian-American women and blurt nonsensically, “Do you ever feel invisible from an attraction standpoint because the older I get, the more invisible I feel.” One of them dignifies my comment with an answer, “No, but I do routinely have to deal with people cutting ahead of me in lines as if I’m not there. I think they think I won’t say anything.”

Which is better? For me to have avoided going to a birthday party, where I’m one of the only non-Asian and older people there or to go and make at least a couple of potentially alienating remarks? Li Sian has gently helped me see that this is not where my focus needs to be. Rather, it needs to be simply on apologizing for my microaggressions. I'll apologize here and then will also do so individually. I'm sorry for my cluelessness and will work on becoming less so.

Or what about the recent event that included a screening of “Moonlight” and a panel on the intersectionality of diversity and sexual orientation? Does it help or hurt for my gay white friend who is with me to hear one of the panelists, Andi, say that he could never call himself gay and chooses queer instead because gay is “a white men’s” term? (Scroll down for more discussion on this.)

Or how about when a friend who is visibly differently abled posts her despondency at being made fun of by strangers while walking down the street recently? And then clarifies for those of us who write outraged responses, saying that she isn’t looking for pity, just had needed to post about the indignity.

Or the heterosexual Indian friend who posts a 1995 photo of himself the other day with the caption that it was the day he was going to kill himself, but then didn’t? And then explains to friends who comment at how they wish they had known of his unhappiness and how glad they are that he is not dead, saying that he has deleted the original post because it was going in the wrong direction – that he was only trying to point out that things can be bad and then they can improve.

Or the sincere people who ask about Pat & me, “Who’s the husband?” And how I answer graciously and factually, “No one. We’re both women, so both of us are wives.”

Or the colleague when I worked in Schaumburg, Illinois, who wanted to know how I could have blue eyes since I’m Jewish? And who was thrilled when I gave her the ham I won in the company’s free, random Thanksgiving lottery? (I was not the only non-pork-eating employee there. Just ask my colleague Farooq.)

Frank Bruni’s is first, during my breakfast omelet, which Pat has made with love. The op-ed begins snidely, and even though I can tell that it is coming from hurt feelings, I can hardly stand to keep going: 

“I’m a white man, so you should listen to absolutely nothing I say, at least on matters of social justice.” Of course, he’s upset. No one likes to feel excluded or silenced or that his or her opinion doesn’t matter. That same white, gay friend who came to the “Moonlight” event has explained to me similarly over the years: I’ve never known from white male privilege because since boyhood, I was routinely beaten up and made fun of and did not feel part of that club. Yet Andi's experience is no less Andi's experience.

 

I’ve written about this before: I learned what “inclusion” meant when co-facilitator Steve Basile invited me to the United Auto Workers’ Diversity Conference in the late-90s; our topic covered how to be inclusive of gay and lesbian colleagues at work.

The first night, I went to the opening reception and even after Steve arrived, I was among the only non-Black people in the cavernous hall. I said to myself then, I know what the definition of Diversity is: Environments / teams / places qualify as diverse, as long as I’m included, whoever “I” is in that statement. (Ironically, in the late-90s, LGBT seminars, including ours, unfortunately, did not routinely include education on bi and trans people.)

Li Sian’s essay also is difficult for me to read. Li Sian is writing about the racism of the novel, Jane Eyre.  Somehow, I wasn’t required to read it in high school and I’ve never done so. The essay is difficult because it also challenges privileged people who feel proud of reading books by authors from the margins, and by extension, for feeling pleased whenever they make an effort to stretch themselves beyond their social cocoon.

As a relatively well-educated, employed and solvent American-Jewish lesbian, I am more and less privileged than others. I want to be proud of the times I extend myself to gain some cultural intelligence because if I can’t celebrate my bravery and encourage myself to keep extending myself, then I just want to burrow in and stick with apparently my own people exclusively. That's my experience, and Li Sian's is hers, just as Andi's is his, and the Bhutanian's is his, and the Asian woman's from the party is hers, and my differently abled friend's is hers, and my heterosexual, Indian friend's is his, and Frank Bruni's is his, and my white gay friend's is his, and my Muslim colleague Farooq's is his and Pat & mine is ours.

After reading these articles today, I’m on high alert:

I turn to the last page of “The New York Times”, where I am annoyed by the headline and story, “Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism”. Why Non-Lesbian Women Had Better Sex … is what the reporter means, I confirm by reading the article. More lesbian invisibility. Get me out of here – this is the phrase that springs to mind whether I’ve embarrassed myself through my own cultural ignorance or someone has irked me with his or hers.

What would “getting out of here” achieve, though? I prefer to transform indignities into art, whereas escaping just allows me to escape the particular situation, but the unhappy feelings come with me. Getting out of here does not foster art or connection with people. Acknowledging their experience, and my own, does.

Culture Mashups...

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...Make Life More Special

Culture mashups can be so powerful, I'm reminded by the rock band, Toto's, and R&B star, Cheryl Lynn,'s Georgy Porgy." And by the biracial son of a friend who has his choice of Yale or Harvard for college next year; both of his parents could have been brilliant and of the same race, but they were brilliant and not, and I think that contributed to my friend's son, being a special and extraordinarily brilliant person. And by a heterosexual wakeboarding enthusiast, who is among my colleagues and who is close to his two gay brothers -- and a visible ally of the gay, lesbian, bi and trans community, just by his active love for his brothers. For all I know, my colleague's gay brothers could be wakeboarding enthusiasts as well, but the sexual orientation aspect of my colleague's and his brothers' cultural backgrounds will always be divergent, and yet they love one another in all their humanity.

I've said this before, probably here, too: As amazing a city as I found Shanghai to be during my relatively brief visit in 2005, I was less compelled by it than by New York City, since the streets were filled with people who appeared to be mostly of a common cultural background; NYC is filled with so many people from so many different cultures and I think that's the secret to its vibrancy.

When I get together with my mother and her friend Harriet, it's another sort of culture mashup: a cross-generational one. I'm amazed by our different experiences, and how interesting it seems for all of us to be together -- more interesting than it is, often, for me to be with contemporaries.

Same goes for talking with my 17-year-old nephew, in the other direction; I'm always the beneficiary of his native wisdom. The other day, we were discussing small-group dynamics for school-projects. We agreed that we're always among the ones who do most of the work in the group. I said, "Usually, instead of confronting the shirkers, I just go ahead and do the work."

"Well, since I'm doing so much of the project already," Zach said, "I figure I have the right to do some delegating, and so usually, I'll say, 'I'll do this and this.' And then I'll turn to the other person and say, 'And what will you do?'"

Probably among the biggest culture-mashups from which I've learned the most has been our adopting and co-parenting two tabby-cat sisters. We will never learn each other's spoken language, and yet we can communicate with one another, and I love them deeply, and feel affection from them sometimes, too....

My human nature, though, leads me -- initially -- to seek people and places that seem familiar. The paradox is that often, the people/creatures and places that are most remote from my experience end up feeling most comforting to me; for example, our home is finally a fully-sweet home, since we invited the cats into it two years ago. Fortunately, while I naturally seek sameness, God puts difference in my path continually.

Intracultural Intelligence - Excerpted from My Internal IBM Blog

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies.

Comment in the LotusLive meeting chat:

Sarah Siegel (IBM) to All - I think this is so marvelous because individuals from historically-underrepresented groups sometimes grow weary of having to educate people. This, though, is vibrant, poignant education that re-inspires me, for one, to be generous in helping educate -- because the cultural piece of helping people understand really is gripping.

We met in LotusLive to listen to Mr. Lonnie Bunch deliver a lecture [internal link, not accessible beyond the IBM firewall] on the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) as the first in IBM’s U.S. Black History Month series, on Habitual Giving and Better Living, including giving to our:

* Families
* Teams
* Communities
* Selves.

My LotusLive chat-comment referred to my own occasional weariness at having to explain my female or Jewish or lesbian perspective to the larger community. Really, when I thought about it generally, everyone had a unique story, no matter how prevalent their people; it was just that when they were prevalent, fewer of the prevalent people seemed curious about one another’s story, as they assumed that they already knew it, since on the surface, they came from a similar background.

Mr. Bunch’s remarks reminded me of the power of each of us telling our story, and of the power in listening to one another.

As we prepare for the 2010 Cultural Intelligence Summit, I'm even more hyper-alert to cultural differences and commonalities, whether compared with other countries, or with other cultures within my own country. After swimming at my local Jewish Community Center the other day, I walked toward the exit, thinking, So many of us are always searching for common ground with one another when the much more interesting learning opportunity is to notice the differences and actively expose ourselves to them.

Probably, the perfect balance of familiarity and disorientation made for optimal learning conditions...in any situation, and particularly with intercultural learning.

For example, I loved seeing a screen-shot of IBMers' memories that were posted on the NMAAHC web site, as it reminded me of the exhibit that my mom and my partner Pat and I attended a few years ago, at the emerging National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, called "Forshpeis," which was Yiddish for "appetizer." As part of the exhibit, there were metal boxes filled with index-cards, where visitors could add memories of growing up in Jewish kitchens. Also, just as Mr. Bunch referred to the future site of the NMAAHC, being, "...right next to the Washington Monument, in the shadow of the White House," , according to its web site, the National Museum of American Jewish History is, "...steps from the Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.” Mr. Bunch’s story felt familiar then…

Until he re-told a story that made me feel guilty/disoriented and validated at once; it was captured by StoryCorps, and featured a grandfather, talking with his grandson. The grandfather was relating how he arrived in D.C. from overseas, having served his country with distinction in World War II, and how he headed to a movie theater after touring around D.C. landmarks during the day. The ticket-taker would not admit him because he was Black.

Listening to the story, I felt guilty, as I am White and my dad of blessed memory was a D.C. native and also a WWII Navy veteran, having been a radar technician on the USS Alabama. My father told us of how the Black sailors lived in the lowest part of the ship due to the still-discriminatory nature of the U.S. Military then. And then as a lesbian in the United States in 2010, I felt validated, since the news lately, has covered whether or not the U.S. Government will enable openly gay and lesbian soldiers to serve their country in the U.S. Military.

How could we have treated Black people so sub-humanly for so long, and even still, it is happening? And then I thought of how GLBT people sometimes still were treated like pariahs in the United States, for example, in this week's "New Yorker" magazine, I read an article about a popular Gospel singer, Tonex, who has been shunned by a number of the Black Gospel community, since becoming open about his homosexuality. I hadn't heard of him prior, and so I went to find a sample on YouTube. I found "Fail U." I'm not Christian and it stirred me. Music with a strong beat was my favorite kind, which this featured, and I felt sad that Tonex's talent was taking a nearly mortal hit for his openness around his sexual orientation.

This week, too, I experienced a couple of reality-checks about how the month of February appeared not to be on the radar of certain groups in relation to U.S. Black History. For instance, in the United Kingdom, February has been declared Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans (LGBT) History Month, probably to bring attention to the Community’s capacity for love during the same month that included Valentine's Day. Surprising, perhaps, was how a U.S. small town, Elk River, Minnesota, declared this February as "Random Acts of Kindness Month," without acknowledging it, also, as U.S. Black History Month.

Such an absence made me want to understand the demographics of the community, so I looked at a "quality of life" video, which showed only White people and referred only to welcoming churches (as opposed to welcoming churches, mosques, synagogues...). When I read the mayor's proclamation, though, it embodied a fundamental goal of the Cultural Intelligence Summit (and world peace): "I urge all citizens and city employees to practice acts of random kindness for family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers, and to live their lives in keeping with this attitude every day." Without kindness and openness to everyone, including strangers, we could not be culturally-intelligent.

Cultural intelligence, though, may have come more easily to people who already felt bicultural, e.g., immigrants, people with disabilities, GLBT people, really, anyone from an historically-underrepresented group, depending on where they lived. I didn't want to generalize about Elk River, but at a glance, it certainly didn't seem to have as high a proportion of bicultural people as, say, Toronto.

Look how sophisticated I tried to be just now in my stereotyping and prejudice! I did not know anyone’s story from Elk River, Minnesota and had never been there, but pronounced its ignorance of U.S. Black History Month….And this was why cultural intelligence was such a priority. Until we could suspend our judgment of other cultures and even immerse ourselves in them physically or at least virtually, how could we know their people and culture?

The role and goal of the Museum, according to Mr. Bunch, were primarily U.S.-oriented, but the specifics got at the universal goals of cultural intelligence:

To help America remember. To find ways to help America explore our tortured and contested racial past. It needs to help us wrestle with slavery and segregation and also must be a place that celebrates the joy of Duke Ellington or Aretha Franklin, or humor. It has to be a place that helps us all. A national museum has to use African American culture as a lens to help Americans understand what it means to be American....

It needs to tell a story that all Americans can embrace. It also has to help us understand that we are in an international context...to make America better, to help us grapple with the great divide of race….We look to the virtual world to help us expand our audience and expand our reach.

The goal of living, let alone of any one museum or even of cultural intelligence, was to remember and wrestle and celebrate and gain support…and to be willing to educate, and be educated.

How Much Unity?

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

How Much Diversity?

On my birthday morning, my partner Pat told me what she learned about John McCain's and Barak Obama's particular sort of left-handedness. She heard that the way they write, with their hands in a hooked fashion, indicates that they're not concerned with belonging. "That's how you write, too, [as a lefty]," Pat said.

"I'm very concerned with belonging," I protested.

"Then why are you always telling everyone you're a lesbian? That sets you apart from a lot of people" she countered.

Just now, I listened to the report myself and the message was that they were unconcerned with "...blending in," not that they were unconcerned with "...belonging." Either way, Pat had a point. I thought about it all morning at my Conflict Resolution practicum at Teachers College.

We/Me

How much did I want to stand out? Did individualism trump my need to blend in or belong? Why did I set myself apart from people by so often asserting my Jewish and/or lesbian identity?

At lunch, while waiting for the microwave to finish heating my meal, I told a classmate about my exchange with Pat. The classmate was from another country and said that she related to my dilemma; often she didn't know how X -- where "X" = the adjective for her country -- to be. She wanted to fit in, but felt that one of her most interesting features was missed when she kept her national origin low-key.

On the way home from class, I spoke with my sister Kathy about it and she said, "It's a classic dilemma: unity vs. diversity. It was just in this week's parsha (Torah portion) -- the struggle to be different, yet still to participate in the world."

"That's like 'Al tifrosh meen hatsibur ['Don't isolate yourself from the community,'],'" I said.

"No, that's from Pirkei Avot, and different," Kathy said. Kathy's right. It is different, i.e., it's about not avoiding the larger community, rather than about asserting one's difference from others in the community.

Cultural Intelligence Training

Today at work, our whole team participated in Day 1 of a cultural intelligence training program. The instructor asked what each of us hoped to get out of the course. I said, "I don't think this can happen in the scope of our time together, but I wish I could become totally sophisticated around when to name my difference and when not to do so."

So far, I gleaned one saying from the course that is somehow especially helpful: "Assume difference unless similarity is proven."