Leaning into Conflict

At the risk of going a bit down the road of making a colorblind racist argument, I'm thinking more and more about how the crux of the ongoing issues around race centers around our lack of skill dealing with and successfully navigating through and negotiating conflict.

I remember when I was interviewing for a scholarship before beginning college, and someone asked me if I had hope that men and women would ever resolve their differences. I remember saying that it's a miracle that any of us can relate to anyone else, and gender differences just complicate things further. 30 years later, I would just add that race, class, urban/rural, liberal/conservative, democrat/republican, formally educated/life educated, and on and on add to the complexity and potential for miscommunication, misunderstanding, false assumptions, implicit bias, discrimination, prejudice and on and on.

A common trope is to say the life skill that should be taught from kindergarten up. Taking turns? Check. Saying sorry when you make a mistake? Check. But what about examining why you make mistakes more often when someone seems different from you? Not so much. Maybe Sesame Street? But only in a "we're all different, and that's ok!" kind of way. Not "You're different from me, and my first instinct is fear, but I need to lean into that and realize I just have something to learn - and you have something to each me!" And please, lord, teach us early and often how to work through conflict using nonviolent communication: "When you [observable behavior], I felt [real emotion, not a phrase beginning with "that"]. In the future, I would prefer [action the person can take or not take]."

I made the off-hand comment to a friend that no one likes conflict. We all avoid it. And that's clearly not true. The worst bullies among us LOVE picking fights. And every Karen among us thinks she has every right to make anyone else feel uncomfortable if she's got any want, need, or complaint. But most of us are in the not-so-sweet spot between the poles of "I have every right to ask for anything I want/need" (i.e. entitled arrogance / arrogant entitlement) and "I have no right to ask for anything I want or need" (i.e. no self esteem / underfunctioning / invisibility).And we're terrified to say anything out loud lest we be asking too much. Am I worth it? What if they say no? Is the request worth the conflict?  

Instead of this win/lose polarity, we need healthy boundaries and ... ugh ... balance. Like the new thing people use as ground rule at meetings: Take space / Make space (the adjustment to replace the less inclusive "Move up / move back"). This comes with 2 acronyms to think about:

• W.A.I.T. = Why Am I Talking? 
• S.P.E.A.K. = Share Perspectives / Engage Another Knowledge-base

There are 3 stickies on my desk that I stare at all day long:

• What does it mean to undo harm?
• What would being silent exacerbate?
• Diversity does not equal racial justice

What would my life be like if I asked myself (and everyone else did the same) these questions in every interaction when we notice difference (and we should continually be learning to notice difference more) interfering with our communication and/or relationships?