good morning everybody I'm here today to
talk to you about tolerance and the
importance of going beyond just
tolerance but first I want to talk to
you about two examples in the first
example my husband and I decided to host
the dinner party at this dinner party we
were going to have a set menu we were
going to have ten of our friends all
sitting at our dining table and it was
going to end at 10:00 p.m. in the second
example we were going to have another
dinner party but at this dinner party we
were gonna do something a little bit
different when building the set menu we
decided to call up our friends and asked
them to tell us what they wanted on the
set menu and when inviting our friends
we told them to please invite whoever
they wanted the more the merrier and
instead of doing it at our dining table
we decided to build a new dining table
with our friends and try to see how many
people we could seat
when you think of these two examples
there's something fundamentally
different with them the first example is
an example of tolerance and the second
example is an example of something
beyond just tolerance the reason this
topic is so important to me is because
of the different aspects of my identity
like you I am a woman and like you I am
a Muslim and like a lot of you I am a
person of color and sometimes in society
because of those aspects of my identity
I've been extremely uplifted but other
times I've been extremely pushed down
and depressed because of them there is a
way forward to stop this oppression but
before I go into that I want to talk to
you all first about tolerance
when a country says it is moving towards
becoming more tolerant this is amazing
when my country the United Arab Emirates
said that it was going to make 2019 the
year of Tolerance I was proud because in
a country or person moves towards
becoming more tolerant
it means they acknowledge and they
respect that there are different
identities in our society and we need to
make space to make the sure they feel
welcome but would that said tolerance
alone is not enough because when you are
trying to be tolerant we put ourselves
at the center of our consideration I
decide what I think is important and
needs to be represented in our society
there's no exchange when we only look at
things from one perspective like this we
miss important issues like power like
discrimination and like different
people's voices and perspectives the
late author David Foster Wallace and his
speech this is water gives us an example
of how we have a tendency to put
ourselves in the middle of our
experiences and how he had tried to go
beyond just being tolerant to try to see
someone else's perspective
he tells us about a time where he was in
a grocery store he's tired it's after
work but he needs to buy groceries he
waits in this line the line is long and
at the end of that line there's a
cashier and she is being so slow he sees
the anger building up in everyone
waiting in that line and he feels it in
himself this anger and this frustration
why is she so slow but then he stops
himself and he takes himself out of the
center of that experience and he goes to
the woman and he really looks at her he
notices that she's she's really tired
why is she so tired he sees that he's
just bags under her eyes he sees that
her hair is all messy and uncombed and
he wonders why is she so tired could it
be that she's so tired because she works
three jobs or or could it be that she's
so tired because she's the only one
working in this country and the rest of
her family is back home so she spent all
of last night talking to them on the
phone
or or could it be that she's so tired
because she spent all of last night
holding the hand of her dying partner
when we as a society don't try to take
ourselves out of the centre of our
experiences and go beyond we miss not
understanding and seeing that different
perspective like that of that cashier so
we as a society need to go beyond just
being tolerant
the way we can go beyond is to consider
and dig really deep into ideas of
diversity and to embrace this idea of
diversity because diversity means to
create structures of representation in
our society for different identities and
we need to also embrace multiculturalism
and by that I mean we need to make sure
our societies are states of being that
allow people with different identities
to feel welcome the whole purpose of
trying to go beyond just being tolerant
is to create a sense of belonging the
beauty of belonging is when you can
create that sense you create ownership
if you remember the second dinner party
I mentioned to you during that dinner
party we had encouraged our guests to
have an exchange with us to tell us what
they felt was important to be
represented at that dinner party and
because we did that they wanted to
contribute everyone there did everything
they could to make that the best dinner
party they'd been to I remember a time
where I was so excited to be in a space
but because there wasn't that exchange
and I there wasn't that welcoming I
didn't feel like I belonged that
happened here in my home town Dubai
after almost a decade of legal training
and studying and working in the UK I'd
finally come back and was gonna practice
as a lawyer in my country
but the night before my first day at
work I spent hours looking through my
cupboard trying to figure out what to
wear and specifically trying to decide
if I should or should not wear my abaya
because I had heard that people had a
negative perception and stereotypes
about Emiratis I heard that people
thought we were unfriendly and
unapproachable and I'd also heard that
people thought we were were not
hard-working we were lazy and I didn't
want that on me I'd worked so hard so
for three years I didn't wear my
cultural attire to work so what could we
as a society do to make sure that people
with my identities and with all of yours
and others feel welcome and like they
belong how how do we do it the first
thing that we can do self-reflection
dr. Robert reason a professor of
education at Iowa State University
explains that when someone takes the
time to truly get to know themselves not
only do they understand the different
aspects of their identity and how those
different aspects interplay with one
another and interacts they are also more
motivated to understand this in other
people and this understanding of
different perspectives can help create a
more welcoming society
the second thing that we can do is have
empathy
dr. R Lee Haas child a sociologist from
the University of California Berkeley
came up with a term called the empathy
wall and the empathy wall is defined as
an obstacle to a deep understanding of
another person which can make you
indifferent or can even make you hostile
all because that person holds beliefs
that are different to you or has a
childhood rooted in different
circumstances so we as a society need to
learn to scale that empathy wall and to
look over it to see what that different
person's perspective is and why they
think and what I act the way they do the
final and third point I'm gonna talk to
you about is action we need to take
action my husband to give you all an
example is a professor at universe at
university and at the first day of each
semester he will walk into his class and
he will tell his students regardless of
whether you drop this class or how you
perform I want each and every one of you
to know that I deeply care for and love
all of you
and I will be here in my classroom and
in my office every day for you I love
that story and I love hearing that the
reason being because at that point on
the first day he doesn't know anything
about those students but he has created
a space in his office and in his
classroom of unconditional acceptance
and welcoming to give you all another
example the fact that you are all here
today is a beautiful example of all of
you scaling that empathy wall to hear my
perspective and to hear the perspective
of all of the other speakers that have
spoken today and that will be speaking
so thank you for doing that
I wanted to conclude my talk today by
paraphrasing what the American comedian
Hari Kondabolu says about tolerance
he says he's 2020 why are we still
talking about tolerance you know what I
tolerate back pain
I tolerate knee pain I tolerate any of
you we should be talking about love and
acceptance for me I don't tolerate any
of you either
because I accept and I love each and
every one of you thank you