Setting the right tone for your message

All good outer work starts with inner work. We need to become good detectives on ourselves. Before telling a story around a social justice theme, interviewing people for your research, or inviting someone to speak to your class or organization, boldly delve into your own history of difference. Be willing to look at not only when you were on the receiving end of other people’s ignorance and hate, but the much harder task of when and how you’ve dished it out. We need to understand how we are like the things we want to change in order for our stories to achieve the tone that opens hearts. Get to know your defenses and your hiding places, your large reserve of prejudices and fears. When we cozy up to our shadow sides, we sound less righteous and people are less likely to close down when we speak. If we want to change hearts, it is wiser to speak of our journey, not what other people should say or do.

Plus, read everything you can about your subject. Learn from others in a Gettrespectful way, that is, don’t turn traditional outsiders into a project by asking a thousand questions. We need to take the responsibility to educate ourselves and be ready to share who we are. People who have been placed on the outside have enough burdens without feeling as though they are specimens under a microscope or spokesperson for their entire group We can look for ethnic film festivals or panel discussions where it’s set up for us to ask questions and the people involved are being paid for their time or, at least, voluntarily in education mode.

To tell our stories without sounding “preachy,” we need to use all the tools of the storytelling trade — suspense, humor, clear characters the audience can care about and so on. Listen to storytelling and political speeches that don’t work. Analyze when you started to shift in your seat because you felt as though you were being chastised. When does a description of a situation immobilize you with guilt and overwhelm you with its complexity and when do you feel compelled to pick up the phone, write a check or go to the meeting?

Managing Our Prejudices Within Our Own Families

Most of us don’t think of having biases against our own sons and daughters, but, sometimes, because emotions do run high in a family, that’s exactly what they are.

Preston, my youngest son, never cared much about traditional school learning. School gave him a chance to sharpen his skills in ditching, fibbing and faking.

When I was a kid growing up in a Chicago working class neighborhood, education was king. From day one, I heard, “You’re going to college. You are going to college.” My parents expected that my brother and I would be on the honor roll. It was more than a family goal; it was a community-wide aspiration since many of the adults in my neighborhood had barely finished high school. We were going to be the first generation to go on to higher education.

When I became a mother, it did not matter that I had adopted my sons. In my mind, my sons were O’Hallorans and that meant… the honor roll and college.

However, when my son, Preston, hit junior high and switched from a pass/fail to a letter-grade system, he continually brought home Ds and Cs. My husband and I responded by mounting a campaign that made several modern wars look like small potatoes. My kitchen walls and several file drawers were filled with charts and formulas such as: “Skip class, trade in two desserts,” or “This many completed assignments equals this many minutes of TV-watching.” Anything to get my son motivated!

Then, one day, I had the good fortune to read some of Howard Gardener’s writing. The educator and author Howard Gardener talks in several of his books about multiple intelligences. He points out that our present-day school system only promotes and rewards two kinds: verbal and logic/math intelligence. There are five others: spatial, musical, kinetic, interpersonal (having people smarts) and intra-personal (being self-reflective or smart about yourself).

My son has several of these non-school intelligences. For example, he has spatial intelligence. If you are going camping, have Preston pack your car. You won’t need rooftop storage; Preston will get everything you need neatly stuffed into your car. Of course, you’ll have to take him along to repack your car or, upon your return, you’ll be forced to leave half your gear behind.

Preston also plays the guitar – musical intelligence – draws hilarious cartoons – visual intelligence – picks up dance steps quickly – kinetic intelligence – and is the one in our house who knew what was going on with everyone else – interpersonal smarts.

Slowly, with Mr. Gardener’s help, the charts and formulas came off the walls. Finally, we caught our breath and asked, “What strengths can we support rather than continually focusing on what’s not working?”  At last, we looked at this kid of ours and said, “Who are you?”

Soon after this revelation, we found ourselves in the chauffeuring business, trying to support Preston’s more natural, outside school talents: soccer, Art Institute lessons and so on. We cut a deal with Preston. “Okay, get C’s and we’ll get off your back. C’s will still keep a few doors open. Maybe someday you’ll decide college is for you.”

I’m still waiting. Today, Preston lives in Alaska working as the head mechanic at a cannery. He loves working outdoors, climbing under trucks or crawling up huge cranes that lift commercial fishing boats out of the water. As long as he’s operating heavy machinery, he’s a happy man.

I say to myself several times a week, “He’s happy. He’s happy. He’s happy.”  But the truth is that every time I see an article that connects years of college with increased earnings, I have to bite my hand to keep from clipping out the article and sending it up north.

I still wish my son had gone to college. I think he would be more economically secure if he had. I cannot get that thought out of my mind, even though it defies reason and experience – we’ve all heard the stories of entrepreneurs who became millionaires without finishing high school. But no matter how progressive I might think I am, I have an emotional commitment to my prejudice. The mantra, “You will go to college. You will go to college,” was repeated in my family with such worry, angst and joyous expectation, I soaked it in. “You will go to college” is written in my DNA.

I cannot eliminate my bias in favor of formal education. I can, however, manage it before I treat my son in a condescending, controlling manner. My children know my opinions on higher education. That’s part of my job as a parent; I have given them guidance. Then, I let go. They’re adults; it’s time for them to live their own lives. I hate that, but it’s true. So I bug out.

All of us have prejudices. The question is: what do we want to do with them? In being aware of and managing my bias, I have the prejudice; it doesn’t have me. Each time I was able to admit that I had a prejudice against one of my sons’ qualities or behaviors, my parenting improved. Only then did I have a choice as to how I would behave rather than responding with unconscious, automatic, less than kind reactions.

Within the larger family of human beings with which we share this earth, the dynamic is much the same: become aware of and manage our prejudices and we can all live more freely and happily together.

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