Smudging the Lines
Allowing for radical collaborations and reducing "othering" in our community.
As I dive deeper into my quest to love where I am, I am distracted by the constant drive from others to create teams, bad guys, or just "othering." I realize that is the game in the larger sphere. We see it in politics, sports, and even weird celebrity-fake fights online. It's not just something that happens; it's the plan. If you can make the other guy out to be awful, maybe you will vote for the candidate. If you make the whole state red or blue, we can blame our problems on them.
Here's the thing. That "othering" that we see on the national scene has trickled down with the same force in our small communities and has created a wedge between people, organizations, systems, and ideas.
I understand that there is also systemic "othering." It's what misogynists, homophobic, and racists do and have been doing for centuries. I also know that it is deeply embedded into our nation's founding and what we inherently did to the Native populations. But I want to, just for right now, put those significant systemic issues to the side (not forever because they are probably the root of all of this.)
I want to talk about how we are doing this in our communities. Even more granularly, within the groups we work with in those communities.
Have you ever sat in a meeting and someone said, "oh, they won't work with us" or "we don't want to work with them"? That is the othering I want to dig into. I have sat in many meetings, especially in the last six years, where that kind of line-in-the-sand thinking has stopped courageous collaboration. Instead of exploring with people who might be a little different, edgy, or ambivalent, the declarative statements stop all possibilities. It even stops groups from working with those who might actually help them the most or have the best resources.
Worse is when the subsequent sentences are a litany of why they won't or don't want to work with that group or person, which further creates a divide. One that is almost impossible to jump over in most circumstances. It's very hard for anyone sitting around the table to ask that person or group to work with them if they think they are going against what was said in the meeting.
Let’s get personal about this idea. A few weeks ago, my therapist said that my wound (they love to talk about wounds - it just means where I am most hurt) was my independence, and the healing was building and finding community. It was a bit of a mind-blowing moment because I always valued my freedom, but it is a defense in that context. Joining and belonging are some of my greatest fears - that I won't be accepted or wanted, so my defense mechanism is my fierce independence.
Why does that matter in this context? Because that fear, the fear of not being accepted, is universal. Some people push away others before they can be hurt by them. So what is all of this othering? Partially, I've seen in my community that instead of taking the risk of partnership, collaboration, and union and risking failure, rejection, and hurt, they push others away first. And the way that they do that is to make the other person the bad guy.
I have been running an experiment in the last several weeks around this idea of how we other and how we can change it. I have been going directly to the people that the group(s) are saying won't work with them or that they don't want to work with and asking open-ended questions. For the most part, the pre-rejected folks (really, that is what it is) are more than happy to participate. They just want to be asked formally and with clarity.
The trouble I've caused is that the pre-rejectors are irritated that the lines they have drawn are getting smudged. It's good trouble.
I'm not here to say that you will want to work with everyone. I know I don't. There are people I have worked with that I would prefer to have minimal contact with in the future. If one of those folks were the right person to make something happen, I would either step out of the way or focus solely on my role. I'm not the most critical person on every project and understanding that in the context of community building is also liberating. What I can do as a leader is not "pre-reject" someone or create a storyline that disables them from participating in any possible way. And when I am the problem, I can get out of the way.
We must find our commonalities and work with folks aligned with our missions or at the very least interested in getting something done. We have to accept that people will work differently than we do and yet add something to the whole. We have to encourage communication. We must stop saying that "they won't work with us" if we have never asked them if they will.
Here's what I know deeply, we have to smudge the lines. We have to have radical collaborations if we are going to heal our world, and this has to happen in the smallest of groups to trickle out into the wider world. It is awkward. It is uncomfortable. But it is also magic because you never know what might happen.