Challenge yourself to engage in respectful conversation with people close to you when they make problematic comments by actively listening and utilizing the E.A.R.S strategies (credit: Dr. Kathy Obear).
Explore, inquire and ask questions(s)
Acknowledge their feelings
Restate what they said to check for accuracy
Exploring Solutions together
Work on confronting others in the moment when a wrong has occurred. Yes, it’s easy to call out things after the fact or comfort someone targeted by hate or bias privately. Still, to change the current climate where microaggressions, hatred, abuse, or even violence occur, we must actively stand up against it to show, without a doubt, that it is unacceptable. Standing up in the moment is a tough thing to do, but one we must all practice and work toward.
Challenge yourself to become comfortable in settings where you are in the minority and where no one is the same race, gender, orientation, or ethnicity as you.
When spending time in spaces where you are the minority, you’ll begin to understand power dynamics where you cannot control the environment, determine collective messaging/narratives, or activate those in the space to weaponize majority or leadership authority to your benefit.
Challenge yourself to some reflective thoughts regularly to consider why you may harbor unsavory feelings about those who do not look, love, or believe as you do or come from parts of the world you are unfamiliar with.
Lean into where unsavory feelings started: Did you learn it at home, school, church, news/television programs, social media, or work? Perhaps even a collective set of experiences where those not like you are perceived in a less than favorable light, where you determined the other has no authority to impact your life, or frankly where you believe those not like you are brutish or inhumane and in need of your help in a 'polite, civilized society' (colonizer mindset, savior complex).
Following this reflection, consider how your perceptions of others who are not like you have impacted any decisions you have made that may impact their lives. For example, voting a certain way in elections or employment decisions or fueling false narratives which lead to harmful consequences for those not like you.
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