“If we say “inclusion” but we mean
“We have something that’s perfect exactly the way it is,
so you should come join us and fit right in,“
that’s not inclusion, that’s colonization.
Dear my people,
especially (but not only) my white people, my cisgender people, my heterosexual people, my neurotypical and ablebodied people,
Yesterday we honored Indigenous People’s Day in USAmerica. I hope you noticed and learned some new things that we were not taught as children, that we were not taught about the truth of our own history of USAmerica and Canada. I invite you now to anchor yourself in the feeling of noticing a new perspective and truth and to reflect in an adjacent way.
When those of us who have privilege and positions of responsibility and control within our institutions, congregations, and organizations mean to be inclusive, we must carefully examine what we mean by that word.
Too often we mean that we are excited to share This Thing We Have™ that is absolutely fabulous, lifesaving, and meaningful exactly the way we have crafted it, and mean that people should come fit right into it with us. It is generosity that leads us to want to share it because other people should have it too! So we put out a call that if people would just come join us, they too will have their life saved in some way.
But, when we are part of the majority culture and are leaders (formally or informally,) we or people like us were likely in charge of the original creation. Because of this our default is to have already created This Thing We Have™ just the way that is most perfect and comfortable for ourselves.
But.
Inviting others to fit into This Thing We Have™ is not inclusion. People who join an organization or group should not be expected to leave their whole selves at the door and Become Just Like Us.
They should not be expected to enjoy everything about the way we do things in order for us all to be together. People need different things to be present, to feel welcome, at home. People need different kinds of structures and ways to make meaning together and ways to serve.
The ones who need This Thing We Have™ just the way it is now are likely already here.
If, at the core of This Thing We Have™ there is something truly lifesaving, we must sift and sort what is necessary for This Thing We Have™ from what is just habit that privileges us within it.
As we go about this sifting and sorting, we may learn that some of the ways we do things or speak may be hurtful to these others to whom we generously wanted to reach out.
For those of us who have worked so long and hard to create and sustain the incredibly meaningful This Thing We Have™, finding out that some things we do hurt others, causes harm…well, that *feels* some kind of way.
Sometimes our thinking and feeling response goes like this:
- We know we are not the kind of people who intentionally hurt others, so that can’t be right.
- We react quickly and reject the implication that we are people who cause harm.
- And if we didn’t mean to hurt or exclude them, it must, our thinking goes, be their fault.
- After all, This Thing We Have™ is amazing and lifesaving.
It takes only an instant for us to become sure that those people just aren’t right for our group, they are mistaken, they misheard what we said, or misinterpreted what we did. Because if we are not the kind of people who would cause harm to others, it must be them. But it is we who are making that decision.
Can you tell the problem here?
Or some of us react with shame and freeze, or try to push the feeling and the situation away. Or we feel awkward, confused, bereft, agitated, or generically “upset.”
It is uncomfortable to realize that something we did hurt people. Many of us were never taught how to be still with the discomfort of finding out that we actually hurt someone else just by doing what we always did and saying what we were taught to say. So maybe to avoid that awful feeling we believe our intention more than we are able to take in and believe someone’s articulation of the lived impact of our words and deeds.
People come with their own values, experiences, practices and perspectives. Our responsibility—if we truly believe that what we offer is lifesaving—is to learn, grow, and change to make space and flexibility. That means we must start that learning and changing now. Even as we put out an invitation, we start to learn what is necessary and begin to change what we can in order to prepare a way.
If we who hold authority and responsibility in our organizations and congregations expect people to give up core parts of who they are (their values, cultural practices, patterns of communication, even the validity of their human experience) in order to fit themselves into This Thing We Have™ and demand people do it our way, well, historically we have a word for that. Colonization.
***
This reflection can be challenging, I know, especially for a lot of us who have lived our lives with the social structures that support our lives being more right than wrong, more helpful than hurtful, more majority culture enforcing than marginalized.
If you follow me, you know that I’m all about the invitation to curiosity, noticing, breathing into a moment, and moving forward one move at a time. Notice not just your thought-full reaction, but your emotional one as well. If your reaction to this post was immediate denial and rejection or the also unhelpful feeling of shame, and it’s a natural reaction, notice it. A feeling is just a feeling, but also, it is information. So don’t stop there.
Don’t abandon reflection simply because you had a reaction.
***
I invite you to take a breath and remind yourself that it is a commitment of the practice of Preemptive Radical Inclusion that we reject the shame which freezes us and instead lead with curiosity.
So roll the post back and just wonder about it.
Ask yourself a few different questions:
- “What are the specific points that I’m uncomfortable with?”
- “If it is true, what would that mean?“ and
- “If it is true, and I am just now realizing it, what can I do next?
- What are the ways my actions and speech in my congregation or organization cling tightly to
The Way We’ve Always Done It and how can I loosen my grip?”
And for all of us, this:
“What would it mean if the way that we cling to control of the patterns and processes of our institution was on the continuum, not of democracy, but of colonization?”
~ CB Beal, Justice and Peace Consulting
(this is lightly edited rerun of a FB post from this day in 2019)