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Maybe I'm recognising
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This will likely be the last newsletter for a couple of weeks as on Monday I'm traveling again. This time over the Atlantic and half of the US to Colorado. I will visit some family and then head to the Badge Summit to hang out with wonderful peers, partners and Open Recognition is for Everybody community members.
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Recognition. It's a thing we humans need. Maslow, self esteem, etc. Society is shit at systemic recognition, as evidenced by the fact that an Ivy League degree doesn't more often elicit an eye roll. The percentage of white CEOs, wealth inequality and the fact that young people stress so very much about their futures are also outcomes of poor recognition systems. We don't learn how to recognise others when we're in school. Western society continues to tell us we're in competition with each other. We continue to breed ego and individualism. We are educated to support a system that doesn't recognise our humanity.
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That's all very lofty, I guess. Educational philosophy is, you know, philosophy. But for whatever reason, part of my work is to be the tired activist in the room, so I'm going to go and roll my eyes at buzzwords and snicker every time someone says something about AI fixing everything.
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Maybe I'm white
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In an ever evolving attempt to become wise, I've been thinking about white privilege (again) and am baffled that it is a mostly-avoided reality for so many people. I'm white, and it's clear to me that being white means you're free from all sorts of burdens that people of colour are sadly not free of.
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But I'll be damned if I don't have my little share of White Fragility. It is *hard* not to be defensive when people make assumptions about you because of the colour of your skin. It is hard for me to sit in the discomfort of knowing that a person of colour is *right* when they make assumptions about my whiteness, regardless of how wrong they might be about my background. I am uncomfortable about being unable to correct the record. And that discomfort is sort of the definition of White Fragility. These difficulties and discomforts are what POC feel all the time.
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The next time someone (not necessarily a POC, anyone) makes an assumption about you, don't correct them. Let it go into the universe and sit with it.
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Maybe I need help?
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I updated my LinkedIn profile pic for the first time in 12 years. No reason, just finally had a new, nice profile picture that was taken by a proper photographer (hi Anne!)
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