One Right Way part 2
If you aren’t a Star Trek fan, I feel sorry for you. There are many things to love about Star Trek,. In particular, as I was reflecting on the white supremacy characteristic one right way, I found myself thinking about the Borg from Star Trek. The Borg is a collective of cyborgs that go around the galaxies, striving for perfection, and assimilating cultures, knowledge, and technology from those they encounter. One others are assimilated that are brought into the collective and forced to adopt the hive mind. If you resist, you are destroyed. Does this sound familiar?
Regardless of your point of view and experience, I’m willing to bet you think you are on the side of resistance and not on the side of the Borg. However, I doubt that is actually the case. I suspect that how people look at what they are doing, what they believe, and what they were taught was framed in this “one right way” characteristic. There are two questions that I’ve been considering this past week to figure out whether or not I’m simply going along to get along and upholding a not that reinforces an oppressive system.
- What are the various cultural perspectives that formed the policy, opinion, or actions that you want to uphold?
Let’s take standards of professionalism as an example. In an article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review by Aysa Gray, “Professionalism has become coded language for white favoritism in workplace practices that more often than not privilege the values of white and Western employees and leave behind people of color.” Aysa goes on to point out several different ways this is true. Throughout all of it, I kept wondering who defined what was the right way with timeliness, language, “cultural fit” and other categories. When you look at and trace the origins you will see that many are driven from white cultural perspectives and other cultural perspectives are belittled as interior thinking and not as nearly as efficient. Take for example timeliness. As described by Aysa below, in terms of task completion either way can get the job done, but they have different values in the process. Having the different values and approach to things is not racist. Insisting that there is only one right way and that way is almost always from the view of the “dominant” culture of the organization and county is racist. Like the Borg, if you simply insist that everyone conforms to your way and you can’t bring yourself to consider the way of another cultural perspective the you are upholding the oppressive system.
However, in a world driven by capitalism, professionalism is based on a monochronic relationship to timeliness and work style. It centers productivity over people, values time commitments, accomplishes tasks in a linear fashion, and often favors individuals who are white and Western. In contrast, polychronic cultures, while still able to get tasks completed, prioritize socialization and familial connections over economic labor. Within black and immigrant communities, there is often a deep ancestral connection to polychronic cultural orientation. Some people of color push against this by adopting a monochronic orientation, but many hold on to their polychronic work style. As a result, they may lose their jobs more often in a culture biased against their norms.
If I’m not open to considering and valuing other ways of being and acting, I’m losing out on an opportunity to learn and grow. I’m also losing out on enhancing the relationships with those around me.
2. What has the impact been on those around me with the policy, opinion, or actions that I’m supporting?
Racism, Sexism, Classism, Heterosexism, and more still exists in this society. We’ve avoided addressing this issues at its roots for centuries. I think Fredrick Douglass said it well in his “The Race Problem” speech. “The United States Government made the negro a citizen, will it protect him as a citizen? This is the problem. It made him a soldier, will it honor him as a patriot? This is the problem. It made him a voter, will it defend his right to vote? This is the problem. This, I say, is more a problem for the nation than for the negro, and this is the side of the question far more than the other which should be kept in view by the American people.”
We often talk about doing thing the right way and it’s the only way to fill in the blank. However, if you look at the narrative of solutions over the centuries, there is an emphasis on how blacks must pull themselves up by their bootstraps. We seek a focus on individual achievement through conforming to the dominant norms. We hold serious punishment of those that resists. You see the push against teaching history that includes more perspectives and facts that have been excluded from classes for centuries. But have we really focused on evaluating the “one right way”. How does that way really value? How is being asked to sacrifice from their cultural perspective in order to do the one right way? When will we impose accountability and consequences for those that ignore these questions and keep the status quo.
If doing the same thing we’ve done for centuries has resulted in the continued existence of oppression, isn’t it time to do something else and do it from a different way of being?
E Pluribus Unum, out of many one, is the motto of the United States. How much more Borg like can you get for America?
