Conflict, conversation, and being uncomfortable, with Amena Chaudhry

I didn't get into this to piss people off. I didn't get into this to build barriers or to make divisions. In fact, the very opposite. I got into this world of politics, marketing -  I developed my membership and I developed this podcast to help people have better conversations, even if they disagreed with each other.

I got into this to build connections, to break down barriers. And also to highlight the fact that, while we're separated, it is a hundred times more difficult to make any progress to move towards a time when the world is a safer place for everybody.  Until we can have these conversations, rather than running for our block buttons, the sooner we can get to that safer world.  And so I wanted to bring Amena Chaudhry onto the podcast again.

Amena has been really vocal on LinkedIn, about her views on the Israel-Gaza crisis. 
And she has faced pushback for it.  I've heard her voice her frustration about how others are handling it and about the atmosphere that is building up, and I wanted to talk about that with her.

But I also wanted to explore how we can make things better.  How we can build the muscles that we need to build in order to become more connected , and not more separated. And we spend some of our conversation talking about that.

We also talk about why the moment that emergency strikes is not the time to build your tough conversation muscles.
The need for a long, medium, and short-term response with the long-term conversation being tied up with intentionally building those muscles.

When you should be blocking people, and when you should be trying to keep your chamber less echoey.

And we discuss how insulating ourselves from other people's fear and grief is separating ourselves from this common experience. And we've been socialized to cut relationships right away instead of engaging with the difference, and trying to preserve those relationships while we do that. 

We touched on how crises like Israel and Gaza are symptoms showing us that there is a deeper problem - Our disconnection. 

And we talk about the importance of understanding the systems that we live within and how that impacts our response to crisis like this.

Things we mentioned:
Amena on LinkedIn
AIR Training: https://facilitatoronfire.net/
Assessment Package: https://linktr.ee/zarafaconsulting (the first link)

Dr. Ahmed Afzaal's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Twilight-Meaning-Education-Collapse/dp/166673599X/ref=pd_ci_mcx_mh_mcx_views_0
His website: https://ahmedafzaal.com/

The Wake Up by Michelle M Kim.

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Transcript

I didn't get into this to piss people off. I didn't get into this too.  Build barriers or to make divisions. In fact, the very opposite. I got in to this. World of politics, marketing.  I developed my membership and I developed this podcast too. Help people have better conversations, even if they disagreed with each other. I got into this too.  Builds connections to break down barriers. And also to highlight the fact that.  While we are, they're separated. It is a hundred times more difficult to make any progress to move towards. Um, a time. Where the world is a safer place for everybody.  Until we can have these conversations.  Rather than running for our block buttons. Um, The sooner we can get to that safer world.  And so I wanted to bring, I'm going to Chaudhry. On to the podcast again. Um, she was brilliant last time, , wise  And discerning and, uh, had some really great comments ,  about her episode.  

she has been really vocal on LinkedIn.  About her views on the Israel Gaza crisis.  

And she has faced pushback for it.  I've heard a voice on full of frustration about how others are handling it and about the.  . ANd about the atmosphere that is building up. Um, and I wanted to talk about that. With her,  but I also wanted to explore how we can make things. Better.  How we can build the muscles that we need to build in order to become more connected. , and not more separated. , and we spend some of our conversation. Talking about that.  We also talk about kind of why the moment that emergency strikes is not the time to build your tough conversation muscles. Um, the need for a long, medium, and short-term response with a long-term conversation being tied up with intentionally building those muscles. When you should be blocking people, um, when you should be trying to keep your chamber less. 

Uh, we discuss how insulating ourselves from other people's fear and grief. Is separating ourselves from this common experience. Um, and we've been socialized to cut relationships right away instead of engaging with the difference. And. Trying to preserve those relationships while we do that.  

We touched on how crises like Israel, Gaza symptoms showing us that there is a deeper problem. 

Our disconnection.  

And we talk about the importance of understanding the systems that we live within and how that impacts our response to crisis like this. 

 Amina, thank you so much for joining me again and bringing your wisdom and experience to this topic. 

Thank you so much for having me on, Peta. I really appreciate it and I will try my best to bring some wisdom,  um, hopefully that  maybe different nuggets, different pieces of wisdom that different listeners can take away little pieces here and there. Thank you.

Thank you. So for those of you who are listening to this a little bit later,  um, we are recording this podcast episode on the 30th  of October. So, um, it has been around about three weeks  since, um, the events in Israel and Gaza kind of, well, unfolded, exploded.  Um, and the world suddenly started talking about a topic that probably they should have been talking about before, but, um, it has become.

Kind of the main issue on everybody's social media feeds has become the main issue on everybody's news channels and in podcasts.  Um, and I have spent, um, the last three weeks watching arguments unfold, watching people not be able to speak to each other, not be able to connect with each other because they have decided that they find themselves on different sides of,  um, an argument.

Essentially,  um, but we are also at the point now that, um, there is  essentially a genocide happening in Gaza and, um,  a lot of,  a lot of individuals on LinkedIn, a lot of leaders, a lot of, um, a lot of celebrities, a lot of, um,  kind of people with large and small followings,  um, have,  have made.  I've annoyed some of their audiences and made the rest of their audiences happy for whatever viewpoint is that they are talking about.

But basically, we don't seem to be able to have conversations  without  hating each other.  Um, and  Amina is an expert on  helping people, um,  build those muscles. Those emotional resilience muscles, those, um, muscles that help us hold on to our humanity whilst we are dealing with, um, topics that we find polarizing. 

And that's why I wanted to bring 

Thank you for having me. Yeah, I mean, I think, like, you have described it. So, I think this is day 24 of the, um, uh, unfolding of the genocide in  Gaza.  And you're describing, like,  yes. So, one of the things that, um, is my, uh,  What I do, my niche, is I help people build the muscles you need to have conversations across difference, not for the sake of having those conversations, because  yes, we need to have conversations, but like what the purpose of having those conversations is, we need to strategize and figure out how to collectively change the systems that we grow up in.  Um, if you are in the global north, you grow up. You, we, we are raised in the US and Canada especially, um, the uk We are raised in systems that by design, produce inequity and exclusion.  And what that means is that we are raised in sys  particular socialization. We internalize particular belief systems.  We internalize a very particular orientation to difference.  Um, because that's how the systems of oppression thrive and survive from generation to generation. There are very key tenets of  oppression that have to be passed down that people need to feel super comfortable living in. Otherwise they're not going to get reproduced, right? Um, so the point of being socialized in these systems means that we are super comfortable with being.

inequitable and with exclusion.  Um,  and for the reader, for your listeners, I just want to make sure, um, I'm not misstating this. Like when I say super comfortable, I mean that if you are a member of the social systems where you have Multiple intersectioning identities that are dominant identities, right, versus het male.

Um, yes, you're, you're very comfortable in these systems because they dish out unearned advantages for, for who you are.  Um,  These are not comfortable systems for marginalized folks. Right.  But still, there's a degree of marginalized individuals also internalizing oppression in ways that makes surviving the systems  possibly easier, let's say,  or, um.

Yeah, so  we are raised  everything about our socialization  when we arrive to  something like this, right? When we arrive to what's happening in Gaza right now and having to have those conversations, we don't have the muscles  to actually engage, engage across some really significant differences.  Um, and so, um.

You know, what's really sad is that there is massive urgency for action to be taken so that the systems can be forced towards a  ceasefire, let's say, right? Because leaders are not moving towards that, uh, power exceeds nothing. It has to be taken. So it's up to populists to do mass strikes. Mass mass portraits or mass strikes  to leverage the pressure because these democracies are not listening to their constituents.  Um, and so they have to be like, compelled to listen. Um, so we need action.  Typically, that means there's a conversation that happens before action, and we are not set up with the muscles to even have a conversation.  Right.  Um, the analogy that comes to my mind as you were talking, I was thinking of like,  um,  if a car  falls or a really heavy object falls on my kitten  and I need to quickly lift that object off.

their body, um, that's not the time to build muscles. If I don't have my pecs and my biceps and deltoids and my back and core built and quads and hamstrings, if I don't have them already built for it, I'm not going to be able to lift that. And so I think that is probably a good analogy and metaphor for what we are  seeing, um, right now happening. 

Um, and,  and you, like you said, like, the time to have these conversations is not when something like this is unfolding, where we, action is needed, like, immediately, we are day 24, we have 10k plus deaths at the moment,  um, and with an outrageous number of them being children, right?  Um,  so it's almost like, well, if you don't have the muscles to have the conversation, there needs to be some sort of muscle or some capacity to know that conversation has to be tabled. 

There needs to be some way to spark humanity and figure out, like, what action needs to be taken. And it.  And I think that is where there's some friction between those two, right?  Um,  places. Yeah. 

So,  because, I mean, obviously for long term, long term, medium term listeners of the podcast, um,  this idea of like, we're not used to having difficult conversations is something that we talk about quite a lot. Like,  we've gotten used to  sitting in our echo chambers.  And only surrounding ourselves online with people who agree with us,  with only listening to the TV shows and reading the newspapers and following the  influencers that agree with us.

Um, we've got a news to the algorithms that are feeding us things that we agree with, or positing,  like, the exact opposite of what we agree with so that we'll get really angry about it and then  kind of bounce off that.  Um.  We, we cannot seem to,  as a species,  separate people's  humanity  from  the disagreement that we're currently having with them. 

Um, and one of the things that I've seen a lot in the last three weeks on LinkedIn specifically is  Someone will post their thoughts or their opinions on the situation in Gaza or on, um, the events in Israel and  immediately somebody else in the comments will go, I didn't think you were this kind of person.

I can't follow you anymore. And then block them. Mm

Yeah. Yeah.  I mean, that's happened to me a lot, right?  Day one. And I'm not gonna lie, like when the first few times that it happened to me, where someone would post something or say something in my comments, I had a double take. Like I was like, wait, what?  How is,  you know, I'm just going to make up a name and John Doe, how is John saying this, this is really confusing.

Um, LinkedIn has been a very active community for me for the last year and a half. I've been on LinkedIn longer than that. But like for the past year and a half, when I launched my business, it's been an incredibly active community. And so it's been really  like, it was a shock for me that like, how are you an anti racist and saying this? 

Right. Um, and, um, and it's not just like an intellectual, uh, experience. Like what I noticed immediately was like, it felt like a tightness in my chest  and my hands felt a little weak. And I was like, that is an experience of me feeling disconnected from someone, me thinking that there is somebody out, this person gets me.  I am seen by this person, and then this is all of a sudden an experience of like, oh, I'm not seen by this person. This is not a person I can have belonging with at the moment.  And, um, I gave it a lot of thought because what ended up happening is like lots and lots of connections.  People are messaging a few times actually happened in the comments, and I learned very quickly.

Okay. I need to start screenshotting,  uh, because this will make for interesting observation article writing, like, maybe trainings,  learning experiences, but, um.  Someone will comment and saying, I am so disappointed in you, Amina, and it's always a white person, by the way, right? Um, I'm so disappointed in you.

I can't follow you anymore. Happened multiple times. And I, I too, like, you know, there is this Amina human being, a brown Muslim immigrant. Female, uh, disabled person  from that lived, from that body, I'm experiencing this, the, oh, I'm so disappointed in you and realizing how hard that hit because  I have been chasing belonging all my life  and have not gotten it.

I will say in the places that I've lived. And so like that landing so heavily on top of like 45 years of being told that you don't belong, you're wrong or whatever,  um,  you know, I was like, well, I remember in the first couple of times I started typing something and then I was like, I'm not. I'm not, I'm going to do, I need to keep my DEI strategist and coach hat on.

So it's actually been helpful for me to,  as much as I have been able to keep a coach's hat on,  uh, role on in my comment sections, at least to say that, you know, I replied a few times, like I am so disappointed as well.  Like, this is going to be a shared human experience, it seems, that we're going to be disappointed in each other. 

Um, and I don't know what to do about it. But what I do know is I'm not blocking people. Because I am not interested in creating echo chamber for myself. I'm not going to insulate myself from other people's hurt.  Because I think that is one of the things that we're doing wrong, is we're insulating ourselves from other people's fear and other people's pain and grief.

And not letting ourselves feel safe. That, um, because I, that's like the one place I feel like there's some commonality and some shared experience and we're not letting that,  um, we're not letting ourselves sit with that.  Um, but yeah, that was a really, uh, common experience. And then I think you saw my post where I talked about there are consequences.

Yeah, I lost followers, but I have gained so many people right. Um, as well. And I. Want to say like I've only blocked two,  but  unless you become violent in my comments, I am actually not blocking people. I might never respond to you. I might get tired.  I may snap at you here and there, but I'm not just like,  not going to connect with you because I  think that's what's fundamentally wrong with our society today is where white supremacy has worked and where colonization has actually succeeded is in creating. 

Is in like the ability to, we've been socialized to cut relationships right away  first,  instead of engaging in the difference,  um,  preserving relationship while engaging in difference. We, the minute we see someone not carrying the capacity to,  um, to see us,  because we're already so disconnected and hurt,  that trauma gets really triggered.

That's like assault on a wound that already is open. And people are just, it's, I don't know, a trauma response. Maybe it's safer to say, I'm not going to engage with this person because they're going to exasperate  my health, mental health being well being or create more  pain and invisibility for me.  Um, but yeah, that has been  like, and to make sure no shade.

On anyone who is using the blocking feature as a way to manage their mental health and manage their experience on LinkedIn or any other social media platform. I know that that is really important. I know there are trolls and bots out there as well and that, um,  you know, it like engaging with.  The people who are just showing up to argue with you is a really  form of using your energy.

But there are people,  like if I've already had a relationship with you and this is turning out to be the first difference between us,  I am not willing to lose you for this. 

Yeah. And I, but I think that  that is an incredibly,  I can't think of any other word than involved.  That's an incredibly evolved response.  A lot of people haven't got to on social media or in real life. Like, I think  that initial reaction to  finding out that you disagree with somebody about something that is  not like what eggs you like in the morning, but like that there's a meaningful disagreement. 

Like, we do run away from that kind of discomfort.

humanity is being questioned or like your humaneness,  your, your, your humanness and your dignity is being questioned. That's the difference here, right? It's like, it's a very significant, pivotal, crucial difference.

Yes. Yeah. And I think, I remember, um, I was talking to, so Rob Marsh, who's, who is the co host of the Copywriter Club, I was talking, I was on his podcast talking about how,  um,  people have,  people have  so tied up their  own personality and their own personhood with their beliefs and their ideologies and their... 

worldview,  um, that when, what, when any of those things are questioned,  they do feel that like, that stab, like, it's not the thing that I think that you hate, it's me that you hate. 

Mm hmm.

And like, what,  when you look at it from that perspective, it is a perfectly natural response to go  like,  I can't, like, this is too

A very protective response. Yes.

yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah.  But,  but that doesn't necessarily work in a society. Like, it works if you're facing a tiger,

It's a

or a poisonous plant, but like, it's not, like, with actual people who aren't going anywhere, like, it's not,  it's not sensible.

hmm. It's a, it's definitely a very valid strategy and it's a very useful and important strategy. You do need to use it. Like I have cut people out of my life. I have, so I'm not, I want to say I'm not some saint out there who was like, I engage with anybody regardless. Like I have cut people out of my life and I've got family out of my life.  Um, but  What I'm seeing right now is the,  our tolerance, and it's not even tolerance. It's like really, honestly, it's our capacity to actually meaningfully engage across difference. And one of the things, I think one of the reasons is I think that, um,  again, this is gonna go back to white supremacist culture, is that we are taught,  um, and socialized to internalize that like.

In being emotional is unprofessional. I think  it's unprofessional and conflict is always associated with being emotional,  right? And so conflict is unprofessional as well. And we have a society that is, um, we don't know how to openly grieve.  In fact, I feel like I posted on this topic about a month ago, something can happen.

We collectively don't know how to grieve. We don't know how to be sad, and we don't know how to despair publicly.  And it's a lack of a skill, plus it's a taboo. Like, if you do it, it's seen as you are not resilient. Like, if you're marginalized and you do that, then you're like doubly, like you've failed your ability to be resilient.  Right? Um, and so it's looked down upon and so, but we need those skills to have to maintain the relationships that we have currently.  Um,  it's a fundamental breakdown, so it's a, it's a white supremacist culture characteristic to not be, to not allow people to feel.  Or to have a handful of allowed feelings, right? 

Um, and to not engage in conflict,  um,  in homeopathy, uh, so allopathic medicine, which is Western modern medicine that we all are typically, um, experiencing is where you have a  symptom. The 

doctor is going to prescribe something to address the symptoms and the goal is to suppress the symptom. And the assumption is if the symptoms gone, the ailment is gone.  Home in homeopathy, um, the, uh,  medication or the medicine that is provided to you, how they know how the homeopathic, uh, practitioner knows that it's working is that your symptoms actually get worse first.  And you need it, need the symptoms to get worse because the goal is not to treat the symptom, but to treat the thing causing the symptom. So if you've touched on and triggered the thing that's causing the symptoms, of course your symptoms are going to get worse first.  And then they treat, then they're like, okay, now we got to the,  I'm going to do open quotes root cause, and now we can treat that. 

Um, and this is, and moments like these are actually showing us  Where we are pointing to the root causes that we are not a feeling. We don't emote  in very healthy ways. We don't, we don't experience a full range of emotions. With no judgment and equal measure  happiness.  Oh, yeah. And it's not just in the workplace.

It's this is in K through 12 education system in the higher education system where he's socialized into this. The reason why it's in the workplace is because. The system is producing the people to end up in the workplace,  but I think the workplaces where maybe it shows up the most, um,  because we ignore what children say, listen to what adults  pay more attention to what adults say, um, but.

when children make the most sense.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And so, and then the second thing that I'm noticing is like, um, I feel like white supremacy has succeeded in making us incredibly disconnected and separate from each other. And we literally think that that's a solution  disconnect,  um, and to sever relationships  as a means  towards something healthy.

Apparently 

Yes.  And I think, yeah, and because we're just after safety, like, but the safety is individual and personal  and you can't, 

veneer, very

yeah, well this, yeah, exactly. Like you can't,  maybe it feels safe for a while, but like it doesn't make the world any safer and personal safety surely isn't worth very much if the world is not a safe place to be in.  So

needs to be in being connected

yes,  yes.  Um, so in this whole kind of speaking about the workplace and how we can't, not only can we,  not only can we not have that range of emotions and be  people in that space,  but it feels like with this  conflict, with this,  as we're all  wrestling with, it feels like two very different, or from two very different viewpoints. 

Going on what I've seen on LinkedIn, and I am aware that my LinkedIn is, as much as I try to make it not, will be an echo chamber of some sorts, because that's how the algorithm works.  Yeah, as annoying as that is. Um,  it feels like we can't, it feels like business leaders, um, and business owners and  people in leadership in different spaces  are struggling  with how to hold those two groups of people  in one space. 

without having to feel like they have, they have to make some big statement or they have to pull everybody together or they have to say this is the, this is the way that everybody in this organization  works and this is the thing that we think  and if you think this other thing then you can't  be in here.

It feels like, like it's a microcosm of like wider society but without the block button because like you've signed a contract and you're paying them a salary.  Um, 

except you can get part of it easily.

well, yes, exactly. You can get rid of, you can get rid of them.  Um,  and there are some people, there are some people that are doing it really, really badly. 

Oh, gosh. Yeah.  But yes, and I've seen, like, belonging and DEI experts posting, um,  posts that are, like, plot leadership for lea for organizations and businesses, instructing them how to create a psychologically safe place  by firing people who don't align with a particular viewpoint.  Um,  Uh, and so,  yes,  it's, I don't feel like being done well at all. 

so how do you,  how do we do it better? 

Um,

all the world's problems in the time that we've got left. And that'll be great. Mm hmm.

so,  one, we need to, so this happens, right? When George Floyd  was murdered?  And that whole thing unfolded, there was this massive urgency of, like, oh, my God, we need DEI directors. Oh, my God, we need chief diversity officers. Oh, my God, we need to do this work. Um, and unfortunately, like, a lot of that was driven the, I think, employers and businesses didn't know their why they weren't clear on why they were jumping into this work or jumping into creating these roles. 

And when you don't, when you aren't intentional about your why, you're going to, it's not like you're not going to have a purpose. You are going to still have a purpose. So like, if you're not intentional about your purpose and your values,  um, the why of what you're going to do and the how of what you're going to do,  it's not like, You're not gonna have a perfect purpose or that there won't be any values or that somehow it'll be more objective, objective and neutral work.

Um, your standard default purpose and values are going to drive the work, and they are typically invisible to you. And because you live in, um, unequal inequitable societies,  that  they're gonna be purposes and values that are just going to strengthen the status quo. You're going to do DEI work and belonging work in such a thin veneer  that it's not going to be sustainable.

If the work that was done in the past three years was done purposefully, meaningfully, with attention, with a systems lens to actually dismantle and divest from oppressive ways of being, we would have had some muscles at the moment to know how to, like, leadership would have had the muscles currently to know how to navigate through this, right?

Right. Um, you're never going to know exactly how to navigate, but you're going to have some ideas and you're going to have more skills.  What we're seeing right now with leadership, scared to say anything, or if they're going to say something,  um, bending over backwards, figuring out how to make the perfect statement, or the statement that's going to upset the least people, or they're, and obviously it's coming out, it always is going to tie back to capital or to money in some ways.

How do you make statements that don't?  That don't get you to lose your donors. Like, if you look at if you look at higher education, for example, right?  Um,  and so, I mean, I, I always want to begin with, like, when there isn't a crisis unfolding, that's the time to build your muscles. Like, this is mistake number 1, trying to build your muscle while you have a child underneath the car is the worst time to build strength, right?

Like, it just doesn't work. It's a,  it's a  expectation to have over yourself that is just not fair. And not kind, and so I would tell leaders that this having this expectation of your employees is unfair  in the current grade, you need to figure out how to create a container. So leaders currently need to figure out how to create a container in which  the full range of emotions can be experienced. 

Um, and the container needs to have robust psychological safety without, uh, and when I say container, I mean, like, with guidelines of, like, how can you engage in this crisis  without further isolating and excluding  each other in the workplace?  Um.  I think the problem is that a lot of it is happening outside of the workplace on social media,  and then those sentiments are coming to work, right?

Those, those, those experiences that you're having outside of the work, which is another way to another reason why I think  employers don't understand, like, investing in your employees.  Skills for inclusive leadership is a really,  really robust long term investment because you want to have an organization when crisis happens that has emotional resilience to, um, have effective meaningful conversations across difference engage in conflict to know how are they going to human with each other.  Right?  Um, and so I think like, at the moment, instead of  Focusing on trying to kick out perfect statements, which they're, they're feeling with miserably. So Harvard Harvard's president made a statement that also  what fell really short of what.  I think people need to hear or to be said,  um, and  those perfect statements are going to end up being safe statements and they're going to be statements that are going to be statements that bring you the least amount of heat from systems of repression. 

Well, it's like, yeah, it's like every time, like, there's a, there's a summit or a, like, a UN thing and, like, the communique or the resolution that comes out of it at the end  says the least.  That it can possibly say without saying nothing because you've had like everybody chipping in with like it's got to keep everybody happy and when you do that, you do end up, yeah, saying nothing that is of any substance.

I think they saw like when I think about leadership here and some of the skills that I feel like are, I'm  seeing a lack of right.  If you want to if you're an organization that wants to be equitable and inclusive. Right.  You,  you need to know how to see a system. You need systems literacy.  You need to know what a social system is.

You need to be able to recognize a social system because what needs to happen is as a leader, and as leaders, you need a collective. So an individual leader, no, and collectively leaders need to have the capacity to be able to make, um, principled discernments  about the context.  Any, any human right that has been won in the U. S. we know has not been won without mass protests  and mass leverage  forcing the system to change.  Leaders of those organizations have always had to take a side. When we look back, we can tell who was on the right side of history when it comes to slavery and who was not. 

When we look back on indigenous genocide, we can see who was on the right side of history.  And  because we don't, one of our socializations, so in the U. S. and Canada, the cultures are incredibly individualistic.  We don't look at our society as systems. So we are actually a little systems blind, power differential blind.

We don't see power differences.  And the core of DEI work, the core of equity work is,  um, having to center the needs. Of the most marginalized and the most impacted, but negatively by those systems.  If you don't have the skill to be able to see that,  um,  how are you going to create an equitable and inclusive workplace?

Right?  I feel like that is like the key skill that is missing the ability to  see the system and be able to be able to say, ah,  Here I can tell our people are being oppressed by a system,  being able to look at our history and see parallels and see and be able to recognize.  Um,  don't have that skill because also, like, US history is not taught 

no.  And like even in the UK,  um, like, I grew up with  The stance on,  on equality being,  you're not meant to see color.  Like that was the, that was the vibe of education when I was growing up. Like everybody's equal, everybody's the same. We don't see color.  Um,

then how are you supposed to recognize black people's experience?

well, exactly. That's the thing. Like,  so like they're literally telling us that the system  that we're all, the water that we're all swimming in doesn't exist,  like that they're telling us that there is no difference because.

Everybody is the same. And whilst I get that that  quite I mean, probably came from a good place. I mean, we all like we all came at it from a good place like as a kid, like I didn't.  And that was, that was a hugely like natural thing for me to, for me to think, but then as  The more I learned as I grew up, and the more I read, and the more, um, people I met who had marginalised experiences,  the more I came to realise how  utterly offensive that statement is,  like,

Right, 

sorry?

right. Yeah. So, like, it takes learning, but I, I feel like in the, in the global north, that learning pace is so slow

Oh, yes.

and it doesn't happen until you're much later in life. Um, and so. It's it takes a while for people to realize there is a gap between their good intentions and the bad impact and the undesired impact. 

And that's something needs to be done about that gap. Uh, I think this is really prominent with leaders right now. This is showing this is showing so much if this was like toilet paper on your shoe when you leave the bathroom. This is this is what I'm seeing, like, the inability to see that gap. and know that there's something needs to be done about that gap.

Um, uh, Michelle Kim in her book The Wake Up talks about, she's the one,

just about to mention it. 

she's the one who talks about principled, um,  discernment of your context. If you can't, if you can't have principled discernment of your context, if you can't figure out who is the most marginalized, uh, or multiple marginalized identities, you're not going to be able to be able to figure out, you're not going to be able to tell fear slash bigotry.

from oppression, right?  Police officers, law enforcement in the U. S.,  when they kill a black person or a marginalized person,  what's the first thing they say to be off the hook? What do they lean on? 

That he looked like he looked dangerous and it's always

Right, I

looked dangerous, they were scared. He looked like he had a weapon. All that kind of stuff. Mm-Hmm.

so like  not being able to tell the difference between fear slash bigotry, bigotry and oppression. If you can't figure that out, you are not going to be able to do equity work. You can't create inclusive spaces. You need to be able to tell the difference between um, conflict and oppression.

You need to be able to tell the difference between war and genocide. You won't, you need to be able to figure out the difference between, um, terrorism and resistance, right? Both have awful impacts, but like, there is a difference. You need to have a discerning way to be able to figure out the difference between the two.

You need to be able to figure out symptoms from root causes,  um, and, and  be able to tell  is a systemic correction needing to happen at the moment. Where do we need to have impact that is going to reduce?  The exclusions that's that is taking place  and leaders are the captains of their ships.

They're the ones.  Navigating the Titanic,  they need to see the iceberg from a distance.  Um, and so they are responsible for the cultures that they create. And so right now, I think like this thing of where they think that the best practices to issue in a statement or stay silent. So these are the two best practices I'm seeing people lean on  and  what they're not doing.

Harold, give this to your, to your listeners. People leaders who are listening is to turn inward to your organization,  figure out how to have.  Listening sessions with your organization inwardly and figure, and then from those listening sessions. Come up with  guidelines and norms,  create a container, and that container is going to be one time only constructed for this crisis.

So those containers are not going to be replicatable in each context because DEI  work is about context always.  And so, um, you do have to put in the work to figure out, like, what kind of container do I need to create for my people so that when they come here, they can human in ways that are collaborative, they can human in ways that are letting them. 

Uh,  letting them feel a full range of emotions, putting in support structures that are going to help your employees go get this, the help they need  from therapy or counseling or what other sources or sources of help are needed at the moment, right?  Um,  I think this is the time when leaders get really disappointed in ERGs  often. 

And that's really unfair because this is not the job and the responsibility of ERGs. The responsibility to create belonging and, um, inclusion lies with the business and the organization and outsourcing it to your employees who often are doing this for volunteer,  volunteering this for you is like, I think, incredibly unfair.  And it just doesn't, it's not just unfair, it's just unsustainable and it's not effective. It doesn't produce the results that they want.  Um, and.  I think what ends up happening is people eventually learn as they get used to a crisis that silence is the way to survive and disconnection is the way to like we go revert back to those ways of coping.

They're like coping mechanisms. 

I, yeah, I think that idea of, of being able to  take a crisis.  And not immediately think the first thing I need to do is make sure nobody thinks badly of me as a leader or as an organization,  but instead,  so ditching that, like not, not worrying about what you should be doing or should be saying, and instead go, this thing is happening.

How can I look after my people? I think that's such a powerful leadership.  That is often missed. I think when we think of crises as business owners or as leaders, we think about  crisis management, which is essentially PR, like essentially we are, we are looking out for our brand and our reputation.  And I'm not saying that's not important if you're running a business, like that is an element to it, but  surely more important is thinking about how we manage the crisis. 

That our people are going through right now and how we can best support them, which will then support our business in the long term. Mm hmm. 

Um,  yeah, optics, optics ends up winning a lot. Optics ends up winning a lot. And if you think about it, like a lot of business  will, businesses or organizations will like, I think in the last year I've seen it less, but like still happens is where they will refer to themselves as family or the word community.

Higher education loves using the word community, right? And when there's a crisis like this, it's all of a sudden like, what?  They behave like toxic family members.  Uh, which is really scary, right? And so not understanding that, like, like, it is your responsibility to figure out how to hold people together,  um, and, and do,  and this is just a personal, I mean, opinion of mine.

I just feel like this is, this is, unless you have senior leadership roles, I think accountability there is different. But for your average worker, this is the worst time to start firing people. Because you don't have the skills to create an inclusive, equitable workspace and you're worried about optics.

And so you just start firing people that I think to me is like super dangerous and it's irresponsible and it actually doesn't solve anything.  Right. Um,  yeah. So I think like. Maybe some of our listeners might be listening to us and thinking like, so what am I supposed to do? And I'm thinking like,  um, maybe the first step that leaders need to do is they need to figure out,  um,  what are their capacities?

What are their competencies? This is work that they probably didn't sign up for. This is not something that they have training for. And so  do you have the muscles to create inclusive?  Like you personally, right? Um,  unfortunately, I see this again and again. Executive leaders will get to executive leadership roles thinking that they have gotten there because they have leadership skills.  And,  yes, they might have leadership skills. Actually, they often have leadership skills, right?  But the leadership skills that they've learned are in the context of systems of oppression.  They have learned how to be a leader and how to get selected as a leader, um, which, by the way, we often select based on charisma,  um,  very rarely on a person's ability to deeply listen.  and we, they often, they have been selected Because they have learned, they just are better at the game. They have, they have learned how to navigate the seven.  So the U. S. really well, which means they align with inequity and exclusion pretty well,  regardless of their identities.  Um, and so they're not the best people to be able to self assess what their inclusive leadership skills are. 

There, um, so there's a lot of assessments out there, but the one that I like using is IDI. It stands for intercultural development inventory. It's a tool that's used, um, in over, I want to say 30 countries, um, or 30 languages.  Many, many countries. Um, it's an it boasts itself to be in a cultural tool.  And what I like about this tool is that it actually measures your orientation towards difference.  Like difference in general  and it has a framework and a theory  and what I, the other thing I love about it is that it measures your perceived like how you see yourself, your perceived  relationship to difference  and where you actually are, right? It's a tool. Yeah. So there's a gap that it lets you know about.  Um, and. Um, and so I recently got certified with them. So I am actually, um, offering a very small,  small investment, a small package. It's not a big investment of time and money, but it is a big investment of heart because.  What I, what I'm offering is like 2 hours of coaching with the assessment,  um, just to gauge and figure out, like, just to have an outside perspective on, like, where do you land in terms of your ability to actually engage with significant difference?

Like, not not talking about pizza flavors. We're talking about actual actual differences  because everybody is able to engage with the fun diversity, right? The fun diversity is food and the music and the clothes and the culture, right?  Um, but  actual difference and your ability to actually integrate with that difference versus needing it to assimilate.  Um, and I find this tool, I find that it is an incredibly helpful tool for executive leaders,  um, to be able to do that assessment. And then if you do the assessment with along with your team, people can get their individual private results. But then the system lets you aggregate the data and let you know that as a team, this is where you land. 

And it's a development assessment. So unlike other assessments, where you're just told this is your orientation, this is where you reside. It's a developmental tool. So  it provides you with a development plan of like, well, how do you progress?  From where you are to where you would like to be.  Um,  and so step one for your listeners, for leaders who are listening to this podcast is like,  take an assessment, figure out where you actually take a, um, validated assessment and figure out like, what are your skills and  make a plan,  be a strategist, figure out like in the next 365 days.

How  do you want your  competencies and your capacities to lead,  um, across difference and  to lead inclusively to be different  and then  develop a plan and work towards it. 

Because that's the thing.  We're dealing with this now. This is, this is the current thing that we're dealing with.  There's going to be another one. 

Always. That's the world we live in.

Yeah. And like...  We're saying now that we don't have the muscles to deal with it, but if we do nothing between now and the next,  I mean, calling it a thing is like, I don't know, reductive, but like  the next tragedy, the next conflict, the next,  the next

Planet is dying.

Well, yes. Yeah. Like,

sorts of, yeah, we're going to have all sorts of crises unfold because we live, we're living through collapse at the moment,

Yeah.  And we're, so we're saying now that we don't have the tools and we don't have the muscles, but if we do nothing between then and now we won't have the muscles for that next thing either.  So

precisely.

whilst,  whilst working out how we can navigate these differences now,  we also need to be building towards a better way of navigating them  the next time.

Yes, because being an inclusive leader, um, isn't just about and I don't mean that this is just but isn't only about creating belonging in your organization.  It's about knowing how to live in a world where  constant unpredictable change is the norm.  Um, and  There's an acronym, it's called, for this, VUCA, I don't know if you've heard of this, it's V U C A, and what it stands for is we are living in a world that is volatile, like the characteristics are that  it's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. 

And being an inclusive leader in 2023 means knowing how to lead in those in those circumstances  in circumstances where constant unpredictable change is the norm, right? Because that's what's going to cause  crises and conflicts.  And so a lot of leadership management approaches are outdated. So a lot of leaders who have shown up to senior leaderships or have been in those leadership roles now sometimes will be struggling because this is not what they were,  um, what they had practiced leadership for.  And we can see that in the statements that they're making or the balance that they're working with.

And I think with, with the growth of personal brands and the growth of entrepreneurs and a lot of people with, who wouldn't necessarily see themselves as leaders because they don't have like a massive team. They have enough of a profile that they still feel like they have to make that really bland statement so that nobody thinks that they're okay with  children being murdered.  like, they would benefit from a lot of this work too, and a lot of building these muscles. 

Absolutely.  Um, we should have built these muscles in the aftermath of the genocide of the founding of this country. We didn't. We keep avoiding that. We've never, like, one of the reasons I think, like, we have as a collective, as a nation,  um, and I would say the same thing of the UK, is that we haven't, these, these nations have not owned up to To The they're complicitly in systems of oppression and designing the systems of oppression.

They haven't owned up to weaponizing religion to do that.  And so, uh, 1 of the problems is, is that when a similar conflict shows up,  that past is baggage.  And it's weighing down the nation, like you haven't done your own work, like if you're a bully and you haven't figured out how to heal,  and the past is just rotting and stench, creating stench, how are you supposed to be a different person and deal with it differently?

So, like, collectively, I feel like this nation also doesn't know how to, like, if I want to talk with the US government, um, you know.  has a lot of work to do. Um, I know the last time we met, we talked about the art of interrupting racism and that my last session was going to be September and I wasn't going to do another 1, but  1 of the participants wanted to host another 1.

and so she actually scheduled 1 for December 4th

Okay, great.

11th instead of a 4 hour workshop, it's 6 hour workshop and it's Interrupting, the art of interrupting racism, really but any, actually any ism. It's just that when you practice it in the context of racism, you can transfer those skills elsewhere.  Um, and so it's coming up on December 4th and 11th.

And one key thing that I talk about, um, when you are wanting to interrupt racism, that is a large move that's like trying to do a pull up. Um, you need some stabilizing muscles to kick in first to support that move. And one of the stabilizing muscles is composting your past.  You gotta compost your past because that is weight that needs to be shed.

It is going to make doing the pull up a lot harder. And so that's, that's a thing like this.  Nation as a government is not willing to do this. And so we have  part of the reason why as a nation and we have trouble being on the right side of history is because we weren't for the indigenous people. We weren't for us, for black folks, but then we didn't then also participate properly in reparations or, and we have like zero ability to engage in land back movement conversations.

Um, and so we haven't done, made things right. from the past and we're just continuing to benefit from those harms.  Um, and it's really, and I think like my message to USers and Canadians in general would be like, your countries aren't going to do this work with integrity. And so communities need to do that.

Churches need to do that. Church in the US and Canada needs to do this because they played a massive role in those two. Original sins or harms. All  right. And so, um,  you know, yes, executive leaders in the business world, but there are other organic, like, other silos and facets of our community that need to take on that work in semi collective ways  because otherwise we're just being dragged as an entire nation towards,  um, more chaos, more harm  that is going to become even harder to recover from.  Right. I think I did a post some, maybe I didn't, I think I wrote this and I didn't put it out because I felt too vulnerable, but we are ancestors  that are, we're not dead yet. We're alive.  And what are we, what are our descendants going to inherit from us?  Are they going to inherit?  Shame and guilt for yet another, another atrocity that they're going to be fighting to prevent from being taught in schools.

Is that what we're going to leave them with? Like, we're going to leave them with a moral injury, or are we going to leave them with a story of like, immense moral courage?  Um,  so.  Because that's what we got left with. We inherited some. 

I, um, I grew up in, um, in a very conservative evangelical church with a history of oppressing both women and LGBTQ plus people,  um,  and  I have done a lot of learning about that time and about the arguments that people made to support that oppression.  Um,  and the thing that kept coming back to me as I did that learning and that walking through  that moral injury that was left,  um, was how similar the arguments  were that they made  to support themselves oppressing women, to support themselves oppressing  Ethnically marginalized groups to support themselves.

They were exactly the same as the ones that they were using as I was growing up in those churches to support themselves oppressing LGBTQ plus people. I'm like, and that, that, that replay of that moral.  Um, argument and those,  those things that they then peddled back on  or came around to. But like, we never learn  the original lesson.

Like, 

You know why?

making the same

Yeah.  Um, yeah, because someone famous said this, I'm not going to remember who. I have a feeling this quote gets attributed to a lot of different people, but, um, you don't learn, we don't learn from our mistakes. That's not how learning works. We learn from reflecting on our mistakes. My kid was like three years old, maybe?

I think he was two and a half, three years old. Um, and what he would do is put a pin into the outlet, right?  Um, and get shocked.  And so, um, we were,  we, we would stop him, hug him, he would sob, blah, blah, blah.  And then the minute we started praying again, he'd go stick a pin in there and get electrocuted again.

And again, again, and I was like, so freaking frustrated. I'm like, oh my gosh, why does he not learn? And my husband was like, because he's not reflecting on it, you know.  You don't learn from your mistakes. You learn from reflecting on your mistakes. We as a nation are not reflecting on our mistakes.  The other thing I want to just lift out from what you said was really beautiful is that, like, that's part of, like, being able to have principled discernment of context is you have to be able to recognize group patterns,  um, to be able to see the system.

The ability to see a system means, seeing a system means the ability to see group patterns and one of our socializations Tends to be, um, not being allowed to compare anything with the genocide of indigenous people, not being allowed to compare anything with blah, blah, blah. And that prevents learning, that prevents you from seeing, wait, that is the same thing that this is happening here.

Why am I going along?  Um, and so like  developing some of that critical thinking, and that all comes from learning about social systems, which  hear U. S. are not taught. 

That was a TikTok video that you posted. Was it you that posted it?

Which

an author, um, a 

Okay. 

younger woman with short hair. 

Uh, yeah, your name is Sim 

she was incredible and talking about how that comparison between genocides and comparisons

Ah, yes, I do remember.

and how you're not allowed to say that anything is the same as  anything as the Holocaust because  That is held up as the, as the most horrendous thing that could possibly ever happen.

And while it was an awfully horrendous thing, the world has been full of very horrendous things. But we can't compare because, and we can't see that pattern. 

It's, it's, it's a tool of the, of colonizers. Um, it's, you know, there are so many  Tools used by the by colonizers to prevent us from doing the learning and the reflecting that we need to do so that we can build our relationships and be interconnected.  Because if that happens.  The systems will crumble.  Um, and so anything to prevent that having, yes, um, the authors, uh, they are a Jewish author, um, and their pronouns are they, them and they, their name is Sim Kern, S I M K E R N, and their recent author, they've, I think, authored multiple books, but there's a recent author called,  uh, Free People Village, or the Village of Free Peoples.

I'm terribly sorry that I'm

Oh, no, that's fine. I'll find it and pop it in the show notes.

Yeah, pop it in the chat. Um, but one of their suggestions was, you know, to, to find the similarities. And I think that was a beautiful TikTok videos, but like being able to see group patterns  is super important. I just recently read another book on, this is a book written by an author.

His name is Dr. Ahmed Afzal and he is a Muslim  author who South who's written a book called Teaching a Toilet.  Um,  And again, I'm going to butcher this title, but like the purpose or the meaning of education in  an age of collapse. 

Okay.

Um, and I think that's 1 of the things I really appreciated about the book.

It was, it was frustrating. And then, like, I always want to know, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? And I think that that's not the purpose of the book, but like. Like, showing the patterns and making the patterns of the dilemma very apparent, because it's really hard for us everyday people to actually try to tease that out of mainstream news and media. 

Yeah.  Um, I'm going to wrap things up because I could talk to you about this for hours and hours and hours, but, um, it is now half past 10 in the evening where I live. So I am going to have to go to bed soon. Um, thank you so much. for your time, Amna, and for your wisdom and your perspective. Um, and I will pop all the things in the show notes for how people can get to, um, get to meet you, get to talk to you, to find out more about you, just as I did, um, the last time.

Uh, and also I will pop a link to where people can book your, um, Art of Interrupting Racism sessions, because I'm very excited that you're doing more of those. Um,

absolutely. That or the assessment. I'll give you both links.

Yes, please. And the assessment. Um, I think, yeah, being able to find tools that can help us build those muscles, um, to deal with  current conflicts to deal with future conflicts as depressing as that sounds. Um, it's really, really important. So yes, I will definitely do that. But again, thank you  incredibly for, um, yeah, for your time and for this conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for having me again. Um, I really appreciate it. And thank you for, I feel like, having the courage,  um, to have the conversation, even because I know that this is super scary and difficult  to do currently. And, um,  I know that I am going to feel a little lighter knowing that I talked to someone and that other people are listening and hopefully this can open more doors.

And the message I just want to give to listeners out there is that,  um, a good friend of mine, Debbie Dannon, I'll give her credit for this, um, left me a voicemail early on after October 7th, saying, I don't need you to change your opinions and be someone else for me to be in a relationship with you. And I'm going to say that is my message to everyone as well.

You know, um, yes, there are boundaries, like I won't take abuse,  but  I think we need to let ourselves  be impacted by other people's pain  at the moment. 

Definitely. Thank you. 

have a nice evening.