{"id":36537,"date":"2024-03-09T13:14:36","date_gmt":"2024-03-09T21:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36537"},"modified":"2024-03-09T13:14:36","modified_gmt":"2024-03-09T21:14:36","slug":"the-power-of-authentic-relationships-of-depth-across-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-power-of-authentic-relationships-of-depth-across-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Authentic Relationships of Depth Across Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Years ago I was a part of an Intentional Living Community. We came together around our commitment to both God and social justice. To live in the house required us to share a set of core values while also adhere to certain rules and community norms that included things like splitting house chores, rotating who cooked our shared meal each week, as a well as regularly scheduled house meetings where we\u2019d check in with one other. We even had spiritual directors meet with us collectively once a month. I\u2019ll never forget one of our most heated house meetings. Things had gotten so tense that we ended up having to bring in our spiritual directors to mediate.<\/span><\/p>\n

It all started a couple weeks earlier on one of our housemates’ birthdays. To celebrate, she decided to throw a party at our house. Not only did every housemate give her a thumbs up to host the party at our home, but also\u00a0 shared how excited they were to join. The day of the party arrives and guests start flowing in. I was helping to set up the space and welcome people in. The house was full but none of the roommates were there. One texted to say they were running late but on their way, however no word from the others.\u00a0 Soon, one walks in with her boyfriend, sees all the people in the living room and her eyes get wide. She looks stunned as she stares at a sea of brown faces and nervously says \u201cooh, this is a party, party\u201d before quickly retrieving to her room upstairs where she remains for the duration of the event.\u00a0 About an hour later another comes in.\u00a0 Says a quick hi and then also scurries away to her room. The night goes on and towards the end of the event the one roommate who texted about running late shows up. He greets the entire room,\u00a0 sees that we\u2019re about to do a bit of an open mic and runs to grab his guitar before joining in.\u00a0 There were six of us in total who lived in the house, four happened to be White, while the birthday girl and I were not. Immediately after the last person left we saw the fifth roommate peek his head over the staircase to ensure no one else was there, then make his way down to the kitchen. We were surprised to learn he was home the entire time because he never messaged nor joined the party. Needless to say, the birthday girl was extremely hurt that not only did three of the five roommates flake out but they intentionally choose to be in their rooms rather than with everyone else.\u00a0 Days ago they were all excited to join, so what had changed? The only thing she could think of was that they must have not expected to see so many people of color, felt uncomfortable and rather than lean into that discomfort and engage it, they chose to avoid it by running off to their rooms.\u00a0 I too couldn’t help but feel the same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While this incident clearly had an impact, no one was talking about it until the tension got so thick that you could cut it with a knife, so we called a house meeting and asked for our Spiritual Directors to support. Upon sharing the impact of what occurred, the man who stayed in his room the entire time\u00a0 flipped out saying \u201c I’m not racist. I don’t see color so this had nothing to do with race, I just wasn’t feeling good\u201d while the first girl who came home looking visibly nervous upon seeing the group responded saying \u201cI don’t think this was what was happening, but maybe\u2026\u201d\u00a0 She went on to share how she did remember feeling nervous when she walked into the room but wasn’t sure why, then apologized for the impact of her actions,\u00a0 thanking us for sharing, thus offering something for her to further reflect on. \u00a0 Their responses felt like night and day.\u00a0 One stirred more anger, shutting down conversation and creating a rift that was never able to heal while the other stirred a sliver of hope, providing room for ongoing dialogue and reconciliation. The first roomates response was <\/span>automatic and impulsive whereas the other roomates response was more conscious, aware and considerate. A great example of <\/span>\u00a0Daniel Kahneman\u2019s System One and System Two thinking at play[1], but also an experience that fled to my mind as I began enagging thoughts around what Yascha Mounk calls the \u201cIdentity Trap.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In his book, <\/span>\u201cThe Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time,\u201d<\/span> Mounk <\/span>seeks to address <\/span>a problem we\u2019re faced with in todays\u2019 society that has to do with <\/span>division between different groups around the concept of social justice and equality.\u00a0 He makes a few core\u00a0 arguments: 1) universal humanist values are what best will serve a goal of true equality in our world, 2) an appreciation for the culture and heritage of minority groups has turned into a counterproductive obsession with group identity in all its forms, and 3 ) the pendulum has swung too far when trying to address oppression, in that we are creating division by not adopting a more humanist view and thus <\/span>the ideas of the \u201cidentity synthesis\u201d are damaging to a healthy functioning society.<\/span> [2]\u00a0 He brings in a varity of examples to highlight the origins of these new identity politics, while suggesting the ways in which adopting \u201cwokeness\u201d has gotten things wrong, citing cases of <\/span>\u201cstrategic essentialism\u201d to support his thoughts. While Mounk acknowledges that \u201c<\/span>identity synthesis advocates<\/span> are driven by a noble ambition\u2026[to] remedy historic injustices\u201d[3] and that the injustices we see today are very real and remain real, he feels that in order for true equality a \u201cmore radical break with the status quo is needed\u201d because ultimately \u201cthese ideas will fail to deliver on their promises, undermining progress toward genuine equality among members of different groups\u201d thus making it a \u201ctrap.\u201d [4]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I think about what a radical solution to creating \u201ca society of genuine equals\u201d[5] entails I can\u2019t help but think back to what went down at this house meeting years ago. Being willing to pause, listen, hear, reflect, and question onesselves with openness and curiosity is extremely powerful. It created space for restoration of a fracture that wasnt only interpersonal but which was indicative of the much large fracture Mousk invites us to explore in his book.\u00a0 What sticks out to me is that when we try to fight our injuistices by simply fighting for or against ideas we its easy to loose sight on what truly matters, which is the person at the core of it. If we can focus on fostering authentic relationships of depth across difference, not from a place of tokenship but from a place of true love and respect where we can name that which feels unnameable, explore the impact of unconscious bias,\u00a0 acknowledge what injustices have and still do plague our society, and then choose to work through our discomfort regarding differences, we open the door for what I believe will be the beginning of sustainable change towards a more equitable world. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] Kahneman, Daniel. <\/span>Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/span><\/i>. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2] Mounk, Yascha. <\/span>The Identity Trap<\/span><\/i>. London, UK: Penguin, 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n

[3] \u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cWhere the New Identity Politics Went Wrong.\u201d The Atlantic. The Atlantic, September 26, 2023. <\/span>https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2023\/09\/woke-ideology-history-origins-flaws\/675454\/<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4]lbid<\/span><\/p>\n

[5]lbid<\/span><\/p>\n




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Years ago I was a part of an Intentional Living Community. We came together around our commitment to both God and social justice. To live in the house required us to share a set of core values while also adhere to certain rules and community norms that included things like splitting house chores, rotating who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2957,2967],"class_list":["post-36537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mounk","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36538,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36537\/revisions\/36538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}