Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
I want to talk about something that is a tool
that I think goes below the surface of diversity.
We started the morning with diversity;
we're going to end with looking at diversity.
That's how I interpreted the theme "Mix it up."
I think, fundamentally, we're afraid of other people.
We say that we're not because we're adults
and we should, you know, be able to interact with other people,
but in fact, we are afraid
to have open presence for other people in our lives
and have them relate to us in a significant way.
I'll do this by telling a couple stories,
and I want to involve you in a safe way,
in a way that I think we can get to the heart of diversity.
My older daughter is now 21,
and Tess is 10 -
because every 11 years I give birth whether I really need to or not.
(Laughter)
And since Tess is 10, next year is my year.
(Laughter)
And that will be a major medical miracle.
(Laughter)
I actually wear more clothes than I need on stage
because I'm in that lovely time that we call "menopause,"
and I have to be able to take something off,
so don't fear if I start taking clothing off.
Before I realized to wear more clothing than I needed,
it was rather frightening for audiences
because I would tear at my clothes and have nothing to take off.
So, anyway, Emma, my oldest, was six years old,
and she loved Spider-man.
Spider-man was her hero.
She wore Spider-man pajamas,
she wanted to be Spider-man for Halloween.
She couldn't get enough of Spider-man.
She had a little cubicle locker at school,
and she pasted these pictures of Spider-man all in it.
She came out of school one day in tears,
and she had these little, crumpled-up pieces of paper
with the Spider-man posters on them,
and I said, "Honey, what's wrong?"
She said, "Matthew told me that I can't like Spider-man
because only boys can like Spider-man."
And I said to myself,
"Where's Matthew?
(Laughter)
Let's have a little sit-down with Matthew."
But what was really interesting about it
was that I stopped doing the work that I was doing
because of that event.
I was doing really traditional diversity training in organizations,
going in, working with adult people in teams, to look at diversity issues.
And I thought, "My God, why am I wasting my time and their time
when we get these messages so young in life?"
About what boys do, girls do,
all kinds of different minority groups and other groups.
We get all these messages,
and I am wasting my life doing this work.
I need to focus on kids and on my daughter.
When Emma was a little bit younger than that,
at the age when whatever a kid is thinking,
they say it, like, really loudly.
(Laughter)
So we were in the grocery story,
and I knew in a flash that she had hit pay dirt
because there was a man in a wheelchair, with no legs.
She started running toward me,
so excited,
and she said, "Momma, momma, there's a man with no legs."
And what did I say to her, do you think?
"Shhh."
It was not news to that man that he had no legs.
(Laughter)
I feel fairly certain that he knew he had no legs.
What I realized in that moment
is that often what we do
is we mistake noticing difference for making a judgment.
So if I notice difference,
somehow there's a judgment implied in that,
and I think we need to go beyond that
to get to a more core, human place around how we interact with other people.
I was interested in LaShawnda's talk today
about the quilt
because she showed the photograph from 1911,
and 98 years later,
I got a call from an HR director, 2009,
saying, "We've got some problems. I want to know if you can help."
I said, "Well, what's the problem?"
He said, "We have white employees
putting nooses on black employees' lockers."
I said, "Well, what did you have in mind?"
And again, my work was changed,
because what he said to me was,
"Well, I think maybe a one- or a two-hour training program."
(Laughter)
Wow - if I could do that in one or two hours,
that would be fabulous.
I would never sleep.
I would just walk around doing that work.
But what I realized in that moment
was that I had committed myself
to doing that kind of insignificant work in the world,
and many people had.
We were looking at diversity on a very superficial level.
We weren't getting beyond the interactions of people.
We were looking at who I am and who you are,
but not what's the quality of engagement between us.
We weren't looking at the space between us and trying to narrow that.
There are a couple of things I know for sure:
that the shorter that distance is between me and you
and the richer the quality of that engagement,
the healthier we are,
and the healthier our planet is,
our world is.
And the shortest distance between two people is a story.
It's the capacity for me to know your story
and for you to know my story.
Because what happens when we tell our stories
is you become not a what but a who to me.
And once you are a who to me,
I can't go back to seeing you as a what,
as a category,
as a stereotype.
I would love to invite you to help me out with something.
If you would raise the house lights,
and I'd like to have everybody stand who is able to stand.
I know - it's the last thing in the day.
Let's have a little more energy.
What I would like - I'm going to take language away from you
because what we do with language
is we deflect our difficulty, our embarrassment,
our, you know, wanting to move away from something.
So I'm going to take language away from you.
And silently, I want you to find a partner
that you can, in the configuration we're in,
stand in front of, face-to-face.
So I'll give you a moment to do that.
(Chatter)
(Chatter increasing)
I see that, um,
I see that taking a language away from you really worked well.
(Laughter)
So, here's what I'd like to do:
I'd like to have silence in the room.
And I'm not going to leave you in this very long,
because I know it's uncomfortable,
but I think it's at the heart of what we need to do
in terms of mixing it up.
What I want you to do
is simply, silently be present with this person in front of you
for just a bit.
Just be present with this person in front of you for a moment.
It is really important that you continue to breathe
(Laughter)
during this exercise.
And I just want you to notice what you notice; there's no judgment.
The judgment we place on ourselves - "Oh, I'm really feeling awkward,"
or "This is really hard for me,"
or "I'm an idiot because I can't do this" -
that judgment keeps us from learning,
so let it go.
Notice what your body is doing.
Is your face tight? Just let it go.
Shake out your arms and legs and be present, just for a moment.
(Laughter)
We talk about diversity a lot,
and yet at the core of it is the relationship of people together,
and it's really very difficult for us, isn't it?
Close your eyes, if you would.
I'm going to lead you through a couple of memories.
I developed this exercise, this learning practice,
a couple of years ago with a colleague,
and I want to take you through it really quickly if I can.
I want you to remember a few memories.
I'm going to lead you through it - keep your eyes closed throughout.
And I want you to remember these memories as physically as you can,
not just mentally.
I think we talk about diversity and mixing it up in our heads,
but I want you to feel it physically.
And the first thing I want you to remember is a favorite childhood game.
What did you love to play as a child?
What were the pieces?
Where did you play it?
Who was involved?
How did it feel to win?
Your favorite childhood game.
Let that memory go. Keep your eyes closed.
Remember a sanctuary, a place that you feel safe,
where as a child that you would go to be away from everybody to feel safe.
A sanctuary.
Keep your eyes closed. Let that memory go.
I want you to remember your first love.
How did that make you feel?
What were the circumstances of that?
Where did you feel that?
How did it sound?
Your first love.
Keep your eyes closed. Let that memory go.
You're doing great work; we have two more.
A moment of great loss in your life.
Where did you feel that in your body?
How did that show up for you?
A moment of great loss.
Let that memory go.
And the last one -
a moment of potent learning.
A moment of potent learning.
Without speaking,
I want you to open your eyes
and look at the partner that you had before we did that.
I want you to acknowledge that this person in front of you
has as deeply held a set of memories and stories
that make up the texture of their life,
as do you.
Maybe it feels differently to look at them after having gone through that.
But I also want you to remember this:
that every single person you meet
has as deeply textured a set of stories
that are meaningful to them in ways we can never know.
Every single person -
the homeless person in the square,
the CEO, the janitor, the middle manager,
this speaker who has menopause -
(Laughter)
every single person has these deeply meaningful stories,
and you know what our job is?
Our job is to walk toward those instead of away from them.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)