Performing Group Diversity Stories

From time to time, I like to share questions that are emailed to me such as this one:

Q: A few of us at our college would like to perform stories around cultural differences similar to what you do in Tribes& Bridges and More Alike Than Not: Stories of Three Americans – Catholic, Jewish and Muslim. How do we get started?

A: If you are going to perform stories around race and issues of justice, be prepared for deep emotions to arise, yours and others. If you are going to work with others, besides all the difficult, nitty-gritty, normal collaboration issues of schedules and responsibilities, you will be faced with unique challenges precisely because we have been trained to keep quiet about issues of social significance.

First, talking about these issues often breaks many family rules. In order to survive, many families didn’t talk about what they’d been through. For example, after the Holocaust, the internment camps, the Boarding Schools, the Jim Crow mistreatments and lynchings, many parents enforced an unspoken, yet deeply felt, “No talk” agreement.

Speaking the unspeakable as well as even attempting multicultural colleagueship can feel like a betrayal to the people and communities from which we come. As you collaborate and discuss the care and nurturing of your audiences, you must do the same for each other.

Our hurts run deep. Tears will be shed; memories and, therefore, creation can be blocked; doubts will continually surface. We have to have a long and large love for our stories, our country and each other to keep going. Opening the wounds is never pleasant, but healing happens in the light of day.

However, open the wounds gently, gently, gently. Ground rules around support, communication styles and the like are essential. As in any relationship, talking out fears, limitations, preferences and visions beforehand can help make the uncovering process easier. Still, if you are hitting the true repressed veins of our individual and communal psyches, I would imagine your team will experience some of the things we did: fitful sleep, times of “I can’t do this,” and moments of incredible connection and freedom as we finally faced and spoke long-buried truths.

Good luck and let me know how I might support you!

This article may be reprinted when this full byline is used: Susan O’Halloran is a story artist, workshop presenter and keynote speaker whose work explores the complex (and, with Sue, entertaining) issues of social justice and valuing differences. She is an author of four books plus diversity curriculums, CDs and films. The Chicago Reader says O’Halloran “has mastered the Irish art of telling stories that are funny and heart-wrenching at the same time.” Find out more about Susan and her online classes plus download a free audio interview at: www.susanohalloran.com.

A Hair Brain Idea

One day I was shopping in a drugstore with a friend who is black. I was buying some mousse for my hair. I walked down a center aisle and picked up a canister of styling foam. She pointed to the sign two aisles away labeled, “Ethnic hair products.”

“Now, why,” she asked, “is my Dixie Peach pomade labeled ‘ethnic’ but that gooey stuff in your hand is not?

She was, of course, talking about the one thousand and one ways she as an African American female is made to feel like “the other.” There are “neutral” or “regular” hair products (that is, the majority’s hair care products) in the center aisle and, then, there’s “ethnic hair products” two aisles over on the wall. She, like so many people who are not white, are constantly told that they reside on the periphery. Are they not all hair products and isn’t my red, curly Irish hair also “ethnic”?

I see the same thing happen in schools. In textbooks I read chapters labeled, “American settlers” and, then, a special box labeled, “Black settlers.” Are they not all settlers?

Okay, I’ll admit we have moved a step closer to being an inclusive society because consumer needs or contributions that were once invisible, not even on the shelves or in the books, are now acknowledged, but we haven’t gone far enough. What is considered “white” and everything that goes with it – hair, food, clothing, communication styles, accomplishments – is still central in our culture. In fact so central that it’s not even seen as just one way of doing things. Whiteness just is. It’s neutral. The standard. Normal.

As someone identified as white, having the awareness that I am a multicultural being – not regular, normal or neutral – is the beginning of acknowledging that my experiences and habits are just as unique and quirky to someone else as theirs can be to me. With this increased awareness and our actions to equalize power in our society, no one group will occupy the center. One day, all of us will.

This article may be reprinted when this full byline is used:

Susan O’Halloran is a story artist, workshop presenter, television personality and keynote speaker whose work explores the complex issues of social justice. She is an author of four books plus diversity curriculums, CDs and films. The Chicago Reader says O’Halloran “has mastered the Irish art of telling stories that are funny and heart-wrenching at the same time.” For a copy of a free teleseminar with Susan, go to www.susanohalloran.com

* Photo purchased from istockphoto.com