Power and Privilege Part III

With my amazing colleagues at a team building and communications workshop

"Where there's a man who has no voice, there I shall be singing." This is one of the beautifully poetic lines written by the great artist Jewel in her song Hands. The song has many great tidbits of wisdom but this one has often struck me as I sing this anthem to myself. This sentiment that some people need other people to be their voice is echoed again and again by service-loving individuals, advocates, and NGO people. The idea that some of us need to speak for others. I have reached a point in my life that this idea is very off-putting and when I hear others say their job is to speak for such and such a marginalized group, I often mentally respond with my favorite come back "Just go home." You are further perpetuating the cycles of dependency and 'voicelessness' you claim to war against, if you feel you are giving someone a voice. This may offend some, so keep reading to see why I make this statement.


I fully believe all people have a voice. The issue is not a lack of voice, it is that some of us choose not to listen (in the broadest sense of the word, not necessarily involving the ability to hear with your ears) or some people are not given an audience to hear their voice. This could mean language barriers; it could mean confidence barriers; it could mean those people have been so well-trained by cultural norms that they think they have no right to speak and thus do not; or they have cried themselves hoarse in the past without response, so they decide to save their energy. I have decided we need a new paradigm. Instead of being the voice for others, we need more people who will give others a seat at the table. We need to start asking, "Who will be your plus one?"

Cambodian Wedding 2014

Perhaps this concept resounds with me because of the sheer number of friends I have getting married, all the wonderful cards asking who will be the plus one that I bring along. Or, maybe it connects back to my time in DC where I had the pleasure to attend a number of galas, fine dining, networking affairs that often provided the opportunity to bring along one more person. This, I think, is an approach we need to copy, since we cannot force people to listen.


As I talked about power and privilege in previous blogs, we see we each have our perspectives and we likely have our own groups with which we spend time (perhaps with those who hold similar perspectives). For some of us, there may be certain events and parties that we are invited to attend because of our power and affiliation (audiences that we can access because of our power and privilege). Instead of speaking for others, what if we start inviting those whose voices are not heard into those halls of power along with us and giving them an audience with whom they can speak?

Interpreting in Australia

An example from my own life... I have shared before that on a number of occasions I have been called on to be an interpreter for some of my Deaf colleagues. Though, not an ideal situation for a perfectionist with nothing but life experience to serve as training for such a task, I am often eager to take on the challenge (and at times create the challenge by lobbying to bring my Deaf colleagues along with me to meetings and events). Why? Because so often people say well-intentioned things like "It is so great for you to speak out for Deaf people since they can't do it themselves." Or "It is nice they have you to speak for them." Sure, the sentiment is often benevolent but my Deaf colleagues sure don't need me to speak for them. Many of them are equally, if not more opinionated than I and simply need to borrow my voice or ears (as some have before asked) so that I can make their language one that others will understand. Or, they need access to my audience. The limitation is imposed by the society in which they live, not inherent to their being.


A colleague of mine, also working in the NGO sector, has said numerous times "Guilt is a useless emotion." Thus, I write this not to chastise, as I, too, have likely used some of the phrases above and likely said even more offensive things.  I simply want to propose a new approach and to draw attention to this issue for all of us who are lucky enough to have a seat at the table with those who have power and privilege. It is not our job to take on another's story or fight, we simply must give them the audience.

Who are you bringing along as your plus one?

Power and Privilege Part II

Many of you know I had the privilege of being a part of a co-creation process developing curriculum for students that will be participating in service learning experiences around the world.  Remember some of them from previous pictures?

Photo courtesy of the Classroom of Many Culture's very own Laura H.

One of the challenges that I have faced, and witnessed other foreigners face, is understanding power dynamics within the work place (or society). Power structures are a social construct that come from years of conditioning and since each country, and even location in a country, has a different set of conditioning, perspectives are incredibly divergent. With the input of some of my colleagues and one of my interns, I came up with a little test that could be done with students to help them better understand their perspectives, which then will help them to consider others' perspectives (since we often do not realize our views are just that OUR views not the ultimate truth).

Below are some examples, a slightly edited version, of what we used with the co-creation group and examples I used with some of my staff in testing this activity. First, you get to play. See what biases you may hold. We all have biases so I encourage you to be honest with yourself and not say, "I can't respond that way because that makes me look misogynistic, racist, age-ist, etc." You are the only one seeing your biases** and it is only by recognizing them that you can start to address them, if you so choose. 

**Note, this idea was very difficult for some of my staff to understand. Many of them have been raised to believe that when asked a question the goal is always to get the 'right' answer, also known as the answer that most closely matches the opinion of the authority figure/teacher.

After you try it, I will explain some reflections of my own that have popped up in my life in Cambodia. To play, you must decide of the three 'people' pictured, who is the boss, who is the manager, and who is the staff person (ignore the fact that some people are missing half their heads this is a technology problem not a reflection of any kind of actual physical difference in the person).  

When putting this together, it also made me think, based on my experiences, how homogeneous the bosses and managers in my life have been.

Pencils ready?  You may now open you booklets... (I have always wanted to say that, though just the thought of those words makes me anxious).

 

Biases Game

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Put your pencils down.  Enjoy that wave of relief that washes over you with those words...

 

Image 1

Image 1 reflections: I used an image similar to this with my staff members and they tended to assume C (White Male) was the boss and then would switch A (Asian Male) and B (Asian Female) as the manager.   Almost all of them used the rationale based on what they see at our office for the A or B decision.  Across the board, they assumed the foreigner would be the boss as that seems to be the accepted norm.  From my perspective, some of this comes from the low education levels post-Khmer Rouge and still rebuilding a trained management within the country.  Some of this has to do with big multinational NGOs and businesses that bring a boss from overseas.  I have seen it argued that this is residue left from the French colonial times, where the French were the ones with power.  Per usual, I give you no one right answer.

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Image 2 reflection: Here in Cambodia, respecting elders is still the norm. Even the language indicates a division of respect based on age (I address someone my grandparents' age as grandma/pa, older than my parents as older auntie/uncle, my parents age as younger auntie/uncle, older than me as older brother/sister, etc).  When sharing this slide with my colleagues, C (the oldest) is the boss, B (middle-aged) is the manager,  A (youngest) is normal staff.  When sharing with some non-Khmer, Westerners, it was believed that the oldest may actually be the normal staff serving as a guard or cleaner.  The assumption was made if a person is still working past retirement age, they must be forced to because of lack of retirement, maybe they have low education, and thus would be in a lower level position.

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Image 3 reflection: Cambodia is a fairly homogeneous place, in comparison to many other countries, but there are still some biases.  For example, in this image, C (a Caucasian foreigner) would likely be viewed as the top person in power while B (the African, here in Cambodia likely Nigerian) would be considered the lowest with the Khmer in between.  I have not been able to really get a deep reason from any of my Khmer friends about this bias but there is definitely a lighter is better bias.  African or African-American/Europeans are treated differently than white foreigners.  When sharing this with others in different countries, a wider variety of distinctions emerged about who would be the boss based on race or ethnicity.

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Image 4 reflection: I didn't actually use this image with my Khmer colleagues, as it is largely assumed everyone is Buddhist.  The Muslim population here seems to almost exclusively work in the fishing industry and Christians are few and far between, though growing in number.  In discussing this with some other expats, we were all thinking about the religious backgrounds of our former bosses.  It was interesting based on region of origin how this varied, I have a bit more Jewish influence in my past places of employment due to being in the DC area.

These last three I think are where it really gets interesting with my colleagues...

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Image 5 reflection: Everyone who saw this image automatically ranked people based on the more education, the higher up in power.  It was an easy assessment with no deliberation.

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Image 6 reflection: Then, this image appeared and, for some, there was much more hesitation.  This was the example that came up when one thinks about foreign, college-age volunteers coming through and their role in the office dynamic.  In some organizations, staff seem to treat them as if they have some secret answer to everything.  In this image, none of my staff kept A (the person with the least education), who was now a foreigner as the lowest person.  Usually, C (the mid-level education person) was bumped down while the high level education person remained the big boss; however, for some staff, the under-educated foreigner became the Big Boss.  When asking staff about this decision some could articulate that perhaps education is much better overseas, so a higher education degree in Cambodia is the same as a lower education degree in another country.  Some  assumed a highly educated Cambodian had likely studied overseas, so they could still be the big boss while a mid-range educated Khmer person likely studied in Cambodia where the education system is not as strong.  For some, when asked why, they simply said, "Because a foreigner always has to be the boss.  They are the ones with the money."  When I started to talk about how maybe foreigners don't have cultural knowledge and understanding that is essential to working well in the country, most of my colleagues didn't even know what to do with that observation.  It was absolutely fascinating and left me pondering for DAYS.  What exactly are we exporting to these other countries?

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Image 7 reflection:  This one broke my heart.  Most of my co-workers that I showed this little exercise are Deaf.  Almost, across the board, they put A (the Deaf person) as the lowest on the power ladder.  B (the person without a disability who is hearing) was always the boss.  Some would switch C (person with a physical disability) with A (Deaf person) for the lowest on the hierarchy but only if they could pretend C was the interpreter for A.  I told them to imagine the organization we were talking about was to help Deaf people, just to change the scenario.  They still did not move person A (Deaf person) above the second in command unless they inserted the caveat that the manager was serving as an interpreter.  So, why does my heart break?  How do we support our Deaf community members to become the leaders they can be if they can't even imagine having a Deaf person, let alone themselves, responsible for leading others, especially hearing people.  

Have you ever worked in an office with a person who engages with the world in a different way?  From a chair?  Through sign language?  Who cannot see?

This made me think, how different would our world be if included all people at the table, regardless of how they engage with the world?  But, you will have to wait for Part III of this blog for my final thoughts :)  Thanks for reading and enjoy struggling with the questions this raises for you.