Overcoming Assumptions

One of the things that I love about the Twin Cities is how culturally diverse it is. And not only are the Cities culturally diverse, they also lack the extreme racial segregation of some of their neighbor cities in the Midwest. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau published a report on racial segregation a few years back and six out of the top ten most segregated cities in the U.S. were right here in the Midwest. Minneapolis-St. Paul didn't make that list, but Milwaukee landed itself in the number one spot (for those interested, the others were Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Newark, Cincinnati, Buffalo, NYC, Chicago and Philadelphia). So for me, living in a neighborhood where I can see a young black man walking down the street without automatically wondering, "What is he doing here?", is a breath of fresh air.

Yet, living and working in a multicultural environment also means that sometimes I'm confronted with things that I don't understand, or things that make me feel uncomfortable. I'm grateful for that, because those experiences help me to become more self-aware. Through confronting our feelings about certain issues, we are able to examine them, understand them and hopefully move on. One of the things that I've had to come to terms with over the past year is my feelings in regards to the veiling of women. Minneapolis-St. Paul, as many of you know, has an extremely large Muslim population, mostly due to the large number of Somali immigrants. In fact, Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the United States. Many of the Somali women living in the Twin Cities follow the practice of wearing the "hijab" -- the traditional head covering. For a long time, I held the sentiment that women who wore head coverings were oppressed and must not be very intelligent. Because from my ethnocentric point of view, a liberated and intelligent woman would never choose to cover herself like that. Then I moved here. There were four or five Muslim women that I served with in AmeriCorps, all of them wearing some form of a headscarf. As I got to know these women, I had to set aside my assumptions because I realized that they were extremely smart, funny and strong individuals. Almost all of them were college educated, most spoke at least three different languages ...

Now at Wellstone, I am having a similar experience. When I attended the very first staff meeting I was shocked to meet two staff members (AmeriCorps volunteers in fact) who were wearing the full veil. One of them has a space for her eyes, but the other has a veil covering her entire face. I had never seen this in person before. I had thought that you had to go to Afghanistan to see something like that. My next assumption was, "Oh, well they must be recent immigrants." Then I spoke with one of them and discovered that she had no accent, implying that she obviously has lived here for most of her, if not her entire, life. So suddenly I find myself going through the same thing over again. I had made my peace with the hijab, but now suddenly here's this burqa. Is there really a difference? Theoretically I don't think so. In terms of interaction, I am having to work on my feelings of discomfort that arise when I am speaking with someone with a veil completely covering her face. In our culture we are so used to looking people in the eyes when we speak with them. You don't realize how important this is until you are speaking with someone and you can't actually see their face. It feels very strange. But I'm working on it.

The best thing, I think, is to be aware of our feelings. In our efforts to be "politically correct" and "culturally competent", so often we want to pretend and tell ourselves that we aren't uncomfortable. But there is no shame in admitting discomfort or confusion. I'm not saying that it's necessary to go up to someone and tell them that they make you uncomfortable. I'm simply saying that it's good to process our feelings about things, or talk to a friend about it. Mira and I were just talking tonight about the veil issue, which is what prompted me to write this blog entry. Once we process our feelings we can begin to make an actual effort to overcome those feelings. If we're never really honest though, we'll never be able to get past it.

What's the point of cultural competence -- of understanding and accepting practices that are different than our own? Some people get confused and think that it means we have to agree with everything. I don't have to agree with the practice of wearing the hijab to be respectful and accepting of the women who wear it. I don't agree with the theology behind separating men and women, and I'm sure that I never will. However, I was raised in a progressive, fairly secular manner. It's not fair for me to judge other people based on my own cultural values. It's not right for me to view those women as oppressed. It's all about looking at the world and other people from a strengths perspective, rather than a deficits perspective. When we accept others' differences, we are able to see their strengths. When we focus on the differences, we get stuck there and we end up judging. And when we judge people we miss out on important opportunities to learn, to understand, to form friendships and to love.

Article worth reading:

Twin Cities: Vibrant with Diversity