Cultural IQ

A New Measure of Character

 

PHILADELPHIA — Every now and then, there comes a time in an adult's life where a child opens our eyes so we can see the world's wonders far more clearly.

My moment arrived more than 15 years ago, as I was standing on a street corner in a West Dallas housing project waiting for the bus to arrive and take the children to their elegant elementary school in tony North Dallas. I, the well-educated reporter, was there to report on them, the poor, disadvantaged kids from the inner city who rode buses to affluent schools in an effort to achieve educational parity.

I wasn't there more than two minutes before our roles as adult and child switched. An obnoxious drunk began pestering me, and making lewd comments. I ignored him and cast my eyes away. A wary group of 6- to 8-year-olds watched the drama unfold. Finally, one of the boys walked up to me, tugged on my jacket and asked, "Lady, is that man bothering you?

 I looked into the eyes of a 6-year-old. "Yes," I said.

The child wandered over to the man, quietly reasoned with him, and my tormentor stumbled away. The children looked at me kindly, the way a rich child might reach out to a child who has no food. I could read the message on their faces, "We hope this woman will be able to make it through the rest of our day."

That experience dramatically changed my life – because it made me reconsider the labels I so freely used to define "other" people, especially those who fell short of societal standards. No doubt there was a disadvantaged person on the street corner that day, but it was the woman with the bachelor's degree and not the children from the projects.

Never again as a journalist would I refer to these students as "poor" or "disadvantaged" because I truly saw the injustice in describing only what they lacked, but never what they had gained.

It took a child to teach a journalist that even those who live in poverty have resiliency, survival skills, wits, intelligence, and abilities that give them distinct advantages, at times, over their better-educated peers.

The terror swirling around the sniper shootings in the affluent communities in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia made me think about these children and their advantages a lot lately.

News shows raced to educate parents on helping sons and daughters cope with fear. Schools closed their doors or locked students inside. Recess and football games were cancelled. People stayed home from work, and the economy dipped as malls, restaurants, and movie theaters lost customers to a competitor with whom they could not compete: fear.

Meanwhile, in urban areas like Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and Houston, where violence and fear are in permanent residence, children continued to play outdoors and, on occasion, even take a standagainst evil.

In Philadelphia in September, an 11-year-old walked into a police station to report a terrible crime. The boy said his father made him sell bags of marijuana on street corners, and when he cried that he didn't want to do it anymore, he had been beaten unmercifully. Fed up, he took it upon himself to turn his father in. Strangers called him a "hero."

Who among us wouldn't desire our children to be so brave, so self-reliant, and so principled? Or to have the heart of Carnell Dawson Sr. and his wife, Angela, of Baltimore who were killed along with five children in an arson fire that police said was set in retaliation for the family's efforts to rid their neighborhood of drugs? The Dawsons were freedom-fighters. If we measured people by character instead of assets, they'd be considered wealthy folk.

My point is that every person and every group is advantaged and disadvantaged in some way.

So, when we use labels, let's use them with care. We have to stop and consider whose yardstick we use to measure others. When we measure others using our yardstick, they tend to come up short. When they measure us with their yardstick, it is we who may end up looking feeble.

Every human being has strengths and weaknesses. That is a lesson we can learn from children if only we take a moment to see the world through eyes of innocence.

• Linda S. Wallace, a former journalist, is a Philadelphia-based cultural coaching consultant and author of the advice column 'The Cultural Coach.'

Dear Texas: Diversity Isn't Going Anywhere

 

 Somewhere along its winding journey, diversity got a bad reputation. It began when folks began to equate diversity with problems, rather than solutions: Be careful what you say because people might get offended. Don’t tell people how you truly feel because it will make them mad.  Hire diverse employees so you don’t get into trouble.

The smart companies and insightful people never took this detour down frustration lane. Rather the healthcare companies and medical profession moved over to a street called cultural competence, which is a skill set that enables you to work effectively across racial, religious, and generational fault lines.

When we lack cultural competence, we might look at the situation unfolding in Gaza and decide either 1) Israel is completely wrong or 2) the Palestinians are completely wrong.  As is true with most controversies, neither side owns right or wrong. You need to understand and acknowledge all viewpoints to find answers - no matter how much you hurt. 

Most of us, however, see only what we want to see, and hear only what we want to hear.

A newspaper without diversity on staff will not understand the cultural nuisances in its communities well enough to explain local issues.  A marketing department without diversity cannot develop advertisements that resonate with stakeholders who see the world differently. A group of problem solvers will not be able to delve deep enough into assumptions and beliefs to find solutions and compromises.

When elected officials shut down diversity programs, as they have done in Texas, we have to wonder. I can understand shutting down programs that promote one cultural group or a specific set of beliefs over another. I am against discrimination, and believe we all need to understand the cultures of whites, African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans. If Blacks can celebrate their heritage, European Americans should be able to tell us about their ancestors and customs too.

When you threaten to take diversity out of the equation,  however, you are endangering your future. The diversity will continue but it will move forward unmanaged, and without leadership.

In environments lacking diversity, you shut down your capacity to find the best solution, identify compromises, and communicate your messages to the broadest audience. Texas, where is the advantage in doing that?

Be the best Texas you can be by letting each person be the best they can be. It's that simple.

 

 

 

What Comes First: Stereotypes or Bad Behaviors?

The labels people pin on you are among the worst part about getting old: Dearie, Dear, and, of course, old man or old lady.

So how might we address strangers, especially those with whom we may wish to bond or show respect? In the African American culture, young people often refer to elders by their first names. At work, more people call me, “Miss Linda” than Linda. A man would be addressed in similar fashion:  "Good morning, Mr. Donte."

On a recent flight, I sat next to a gentleman who appeared to be around my age. He appeared agitated from the moment he stepped onto the Southwest plane in St. Louis.  Later he confided that he was on his way to Las Vegas to care for his ailing 91-year-old father.  He and his brother had been taking turns caring for their dad, and he was flying into the city for his six-week stint.

Because he traveled frequently, he had to sacrifice some comforts that were important to him:  for example, pets, and a garden.

I admired him for the sacrifices he had chosen to make. 

As the long flight delay continued, and, as the plane sat on the tarmac,  my seatmate grew angrier. The pilot had told us we needed to have the wings de-iced because they had iced up during the previous leg of the flight. When my seatmate checked his phone, it showed the ground temperature outside was 41 degrees.

Obviously, he had not heard, or he had forgotten, the pilot's explanation. He began yelling in a loud voice to no one in particular : " It is 41 degrees outside. Why the delay? You don't need to de-ice planes in 41 degree weather."

 A flight attendant came over and made matters worse by asking the man if he was a pilot, and if he had his pilot’s license? “Let’s let the pilot fly the plane,” she suggested. Of course, that encounter made his madder. (Why not just repeat the pilot's explanation?)

Eventually, the flight crew kicked the guy off the plane. Afterward, passengers around me jumped on their phones to gossip: “They kicked this crazy old man off the plane,” I heard more than a few people say. Imagine how every old person on the plane felt right then. How many of those people would have said, "They kicked this crazy young guy off the plane?" 

Here’s what I saw: A stressed out man,  caring for his dad, who probably had reached the point where he needed someone to care for him. What I saw was a guy who possibly was in the early stages of dementia. One of the most common symptoms: Forgetting recently learned information i.e. the pilots explanation. Yelling things to no one in particular could be another symptom.

Are flight crews trained to tell the difference between bad behavior and dementia?

Later on, while serving drinks, the same flight attendant smiled at me sweetly and compounded her sins by asking: “What can I get you, dear?”

You see, that's the thing about stereotypes. Once our cultural shades come on and our stereotypes about people, groups or religions take hold, we have blind spots. We are far more likely to do or say the wrong thing. 

Here is my truth: Stereotyping people makes them act badly.

What comes first, the stereotype or the bad behavior?  That's a question we could ask about regions in Africa, the Middle East, and Russia- Ukraine - all ravaged by war and violence.