Either/Or Thinking part 2
To delve more into either/or thinking, I started to consider some of the interactions I have faced with this mindset. I realized it’s everywhere and often so subtle that you don’t question it at first. With DEI work, I hear many proclamations that you are either racist or not racist, sexist or not sexist, homophobic or not homophobic. What if the reality is that we are both?
We’ve learned that pink is for girls and blue is for boys. We’ve accepted the notion that most clothes are gendered. We were taught that if you say certain words you are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. However, we are human and we absolutely will have moments when we repeated stereotypes or oppressive ideas because many of these things are just called normal. Think about how politicians will say “thugs” or “inner city” and you automatically think of Black or Brown people.
What if we embraced the notion that we are all flawed and we have times when we are racist and times when we are anti-racist? I’m willing to bet we could start to dismantle oppressive systems if we stop trying to avoid our own accountability to upholding the system and never questioning the role we play in it. Either/or thinking keeps us from multiple truths existing at the same time. It keeps us polarized and unwilling to progress.
I highly recommend people read this article, “Both/And Leadership” by Wendy K. Smith, Marianne W. Lewis, Michael L. Tushman. We can operate in a different way if we just open ourselves to the possibilities.
