[Editor’s Note: Mr. Mirken is a San Francisco-based writer and media consultant, perhaps best known as the communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project. He wrote this two-part essay for the Greenlining Institute.]
[img]2774|right|Brian Mirken||no_popup[/img]I grew up in all-white suburbia. My grade school had zero African Americans, zero Latinos and zero Asian Americans. The only little dollop of diversity we had was a small Armenian community.
My high school wasn’t much different. Out of 2,000 students, we had two – count ‘em, two! – black kids and, to the best of my recollection, one Latino. We did have three dozen Asian students. That was it.
It wasn’t till I got to college that I had any meaningful contact with people of color. Like a lot of 18-year-olds, I thought I was pretty smart and worldly. I said and did things that make me cringe when I think back on them. I didn’t mean any harm. Just shot off my mouth when I should have been listening and learning.
I thought about that recently when members of Greenlining’s staff received presentations – one oral and one written draft report – from white-led groups seeking to sign us up as allies. These folks mean well and are really trying to do the right thing, so I’m not going to name them or criticize them directly – in both cases we’ve had followup discussions, and they’ve been useful. They reminded me a lot of my 18-year-old self. A surprising amount of what they said or wrote came across as condescending, stereotypical, or just wrong, based on assumptions they’d gleaned from a distance but never really delved into.
Really Colorblind?
With one of the organizations, the followup discussion turned up a surprise: Officials of this group, which devotes a lot of time and resources to researching opinions, beliefs and the psychology behind those beliefs, truly believe that their research is “colorblind” and that psychology itself “doesn’t see race.”
I’m not often at a loss for words, but I was that day. I did have one thought I could have articulated, but at the moment the only way I could think of to say it was so undiplomatic that it might have ended the conversation right there, which we didn’t want to do. Now that I’ve had a little time to process, I’ll put some thoughts into a followup post that will appear shortly.
For now, though, one closing thought: All of us, whatever our race or other demographic characteristics, need to think about how we operate in an increasingly diverse society, and that thought process needs to involve a lot more listening and a lot less talking. Don’t assume you understand what’s on the minds of folks of different races or ethnicities until you listen. If you’re a man, listen to women before you try to speak for or about them (in fact, be really cautious about thinking you can speak for anyone else). If you’re straight, listen to LGBTQ people before you presume to know what’s best for them.
When in doubt, just listen. You never know what you might learn.
(To be continued)
Mr. Mirken may be contacted at www.greenlining.org
