Dear friends,
I am thankful to everybody who has contributed with so much thought and
depth to this topic over the last weeks, since it is an important learning
area of mine. I was very much moved by Aleksandar who courageously
introduced the situation in the FRY as a learning situation for nations on
this string. I for one noticed a fear in myself to go more deeply into
this topic, since the pain around it is so visible for most of us on TV,
but in no comparison to the people who live there, and for Aleksandar who
lives in a city that has been hit especially hard by the bombing. Living
in the US, I can imagine that there is a lot of diverse ideas on this
string about how and where learning happens around situations like that. I
hope that over time we can hear him and others on how we as org-learners
can contribute to solutions that are less painful in the future.
My special thanks go to Dennis (Kia Ora) and At for speaking so personally
about their own learning in regard to what their nation is going through.
As a person who is new to this string, I found them to be inspiring role
models. Dennis writes in his last post
" Perhaps the subconscious thought patterns of a conquered race manifest
as a difficulty to articulate, and a barrier to the birth of increased
knowledge emerging in the people of that race."
In my view, this sentence is a key to working on these issues in a public
setting as well as in one's own personal life. Social psychology has long
studied and proven, that the effects of marginalisation of a particular
group - or person for that matter - create just the internal experience
that Dennis is talking about. If you are a member of a group which is
being overtly or subtly looked down upon by the mainstream, meaning either
discriminated against or patronized, you have to work double hard at
articulating your tacit knowledge. You have to go first over your own
personal barrier, e.g. in the case of New Zealand, like any white person
(Pakeha), and then you have to go over the racial barrier, meaning you
have to internally go against the subtle image that is being presented by
the white mainstream, that you as person of color (Maori) are not as
capable in doing that as the white mainstream. As I mentioned above, this
subtle message comes in many forms and exists in many communications and
is fed to you on a 24 hour basis. For example, to name some of the more
obvious: Prime time tv is showing a totally unproportional amount of role
models of people who are able to formulate tacit knowledge in terms of
race, the Maori culture is often shown in a romanticized version that
looks more like a tourist poster. The effects on a nation within the
nation through this dynamics can be studied for example in movies like
"Once we were warriors". In the discussion of this topic, we frequently
fall short of creating a learning environment, insofar that those of us
that belong to the white culture distance ourselves (again of subtly) from
being part of a system, that is responsible for this effect, because as
individuals we don't (or in the case of SA, - didn't) endorse it, even
might have fought against it ourselves. This is frequently seen as a
provocation on the other side, since the other side sees us whites as
anyhow profiting from it, for example by being more verbal or more at ease
with articulation, more self-confident for that matter, and they
understand that this is as much an effect of belonging to a particular
segment of the populationt as it is a result of our own personal growth.
It is my opinion hard work, and for me personally an ongoing struggle, to
learn about all the privileges that come to me as a result of my gender,
skin color, age, etc, and how they effect the learning atmosphere around
me. I believe, however, that awareness of these privileges can be central
on going forward on a path of mutual learning.
much love
Max
--Max Schupbach, Ph.D. 2049 NW Hoyt Street # 3,PORTLAND,OR,97209 Phone/Fax USA 503 223 6548 www.max-jytte.com email: max@max-jytte.com
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