Day 2 of Conflict Resolution Practicum

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

Wishing to Form New Neural Pathways

Today, I played the father of Ana Delgado, a star student, who was made to quit high school, so she could work as a server in my restaurant...like the rest of the family.

The scenario was an extension of "Stand and Deliver," a film based on a true story, which I haven't yet seen, other than two short clips during class, where the Calculus teacher, Jaime Escalante, confronts two ETS reps, and also Ana's father.

"Why should Ana stay in school?" I argued, "Look around you [at my successful restaurant]. I achieved all of this with a 7th grade education." (We were allowed to take poetic license; I didn't know Mr. Delgado's education level.)

By the end of the negotiation, the teacher asked whether my wife and I would be willing to join his wife and him for dinner, to get to know each other better, since both of us wanted to see the barrio thrive.

I agreed that that would be nice.

Minority on Minority Fighting

Both scenes that I saw from the movie seemed to pit one Latino against another -- or that's how they ended up behaving in any case. I think that that's so common.

When a Jew assassinated Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, I felt that way, and the other day, when I expressed fury at the Orthodox Jewish mother for bringing her over-age son into the Women's locker room, I felt that way again.

During lunch in the park at the end of 120th Street, I told the locker room story to a Swiss, Catholic classmate and felt embarrassed to be telling her what bugged me about the experience most -- that I was visiting my rage on this woman because her ultra-modest physical appearance reminded me of how, in my experience, some Orthodox Jews feel like every other sort of Jew is less of a Jew, since we are not strictly observant.

"Maybe she thought she could compromise my modesty because I wasn't even Jewish in her eyes, and so my modesty didn't count." Ugh, how could this make sense to someone who was not a member of my historically underrepresented group?

Tomorrow afternoon, I will have the chance, perhaps, to play the part of the Orthodox Jewish woman while someone else plays my part, and someone else observes.

A Girl Named Izzy

For comic relief that had a bit of an unhappy ending, in the middle of this discussion, a three-year-old, blond, ringleted little girl, Izzy, short for Isadora, we learned, rolled over to us on her tricycle and I marveled that Razor had expanded its product-line. She wanted to be part of our conversation.

My classmate asked her if she was hungry.

"No, I had my lunch."

"What did you have?" I asked.

"Tomatoes," she said.

"I like your Razor," I said.

"I don't have a razor," she said, "Daddy has a razor."

"Ah, right, I meant, what you're riding."

She just looked at me impatiently.

"OK, Izzy, time to go. Come with me, so that we can walk while the little man still says we can."

"No."

"Now, Izzy, let's go."

"No," and she fell off her trike and didn't hurt herself at all, it seemed, but she began to wail.

"Probably, she's tired," said my classmate to the distraught mother.

"Yeah, Izzy, maybe you'd like a nap," I suggested.

"No nap! No nap!" she insisted through her tears as her mother carried the tricycle and her away.

I don't know how that conflict ultimately was resolved.

Conflict Non-resolution

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

Wishing For An Alternate Outcome, But How?

This afternoon, I wrote this for the Conflict Resolution course I'm taking this semester; it happened earlier today:

Recently, my partner and I were returning to the women’s locker-room from swimming laps at our YMHA pool. The YMHA, which is the Jewish version of the YMCA, has strict rules designed to protect women’s modesty – for those who want the protection – including designated hours for women-only swims and a posted rule, stating that boys over the age of five are not allowed in the women’s locker-room.

Heading to the showers, we opened the door and as a small family of a mother, daughter and son were heading out of it. Dripping in our bathing-suits, I stopped nonetheless and said, looking at the boy, “This is not OK. I don’t want my tsniut (the religious, Hebrew term for modesty, which I knew she would understand) compromised by him.” He looked ashamed and afraid of my anger, and in parallel, way too old/tall, to be present in the women’s locker-room.

The woman herself was wearing a head-cover that concealed all of her hair and a floor-length skirt and long-sleeved blouse – all indicators of her Orthodoxy. She looked completely caught off-guard and asked, “What?”

“My tsniut. It’s OK for yours to be respected, but not mine?”

“It’s family-swim now.”

“Yeah, but it’s not family-shower,” said my partner, and then, “How old is he?”

“Yeah, I’m going to be naked in a minute,” I said, “and I don’t want him in the locker-room when I am.”

She didn’t answer Pat’s question and instead looked at me and asked, “What am I supposed to do?”

“Ask the lifeguard,” I said angrily and let them pass.