Reflections in Response to Frank Dukes- Rosa Zubizarreta

by Rosa Zubizarreta
founder of Diapraxis

Wow. What a painful situation all around, of good intentions going horribly wrong…. And so much potential learning here, for all of us who care about dialogue and deliberation.

Yes, by its very nature, our privilege creates huge ignorance, as it means we don’t know from our own experience, what it’s like to be (often quite literally) on the other end of the stick. At best, our lack of privilege in one or more areas of our lives, our connection with the pain we have experienced in one or more dimensions of our being, can sensitize us and make us more open to learning about other areas in which we are still blind. Regardless of the particular areas in which we ourselves are not privileged, there are always other dimensions of experience where we walk around without seeing and without feeling the repeated and ongoing injustices & degradations & life-threatening circumstances that others are experiencing — areas in which we are still ignorant, as we are not the targets of that particular form of hate.

So yes, our “unearned racial advantage” creates huge amounts of ignorance, for all of us who are white or pale-skinned.

And our class advantages… which are usually unearned… create huge amounts of ignorance, as well. (In the rare cases where they are “earned”, they are often accompanied by huge amount of amnesia… but that’s another story…)

And then there is the privilege we have as “professionals” or “experts”… In Latino cultures, there is a phrase that is in common use, “deformación professional”. I don’t often hear the equivalent in English… it translates as, “professional deformation” (in contrast to, “professional formation”.) And it’s used to point to, all of the ways that our training to become “experts” in our field, has deformed our own humanity, by leading us to view everything through a single lens… could also be used to refer to, the sense of entitlement that our professional expertise often creates.

And then, there are power dynamics, and how those affect communication in teams. While I have no knowledge, direct or indirect, of this particular situation, I can’t help but think about the Challenger explosion…  I can easily imagine that there were people present, who clearly saw the problems as this situation was unfolding, and for whatever reasons, were not heard.

I bring all this up here, because I don’t believe there is a single lesson to be drawn from this situation… lots more that could be said, but here are three themes in closing:

The first is, the need for us as d & d practitioners, to become more savvy about the interplay between social justice activism & our own work. Otherwise, “peacebuilding alone can tend toward mitigating conflict, which can, in turn help preserve an unjust status quo”. This is from a long online comment where I reviewed Dr. Véronique Dudoet’s brilliant work, along with other useful resources on the intersection between activism one the one hand, and dialogue and deliberation on the other.

A second, related theme is the role of power and politics of listening… as I wrote in a blog post last year on The Power and Politics of Being Heard,  “The way things are currently structured, listening is usually what the powerless are forced to do, and what the powerful refuse to do.”

Last but not least, I’ll end with a bit of a rant on the theme of discipline and training. As much as I appreciate the spread of dialogic and deliberative practices, I often feel baffled and frustrated by the simplistic “all we need to do is start listening to one another” messages, one-page tip sheets, etc. I truly get that we all want to make this work as accessible as possible, and that’s a wonderful and noble intention. At the same time, it often seems to me that we are doing everyone a huge disservice, by de-emphasizing the need for skill and training and practice. We may want to consider the intensive training in non-violence that was involved, in preparing for the Greensboro lunch-counter sit-ins — which sadly, are too often misrepresented as having been “spontaneous”. How can we make our dialogue and deliberation work accessible, while also inviting people to engage seriously with the discipline and training that it requires?

From what I’ve gathered, the extraordinary person who designed those rigorous non-violence trainings is Rev. James M. Lawson, who is still an activist today, as well as a visiting scholar at the Civil Discourse and Social Change initiative at Cal State Northridge – which may be a relevant resource for all of us who are sensitized to the need for exploring the intersection of these two arenas.