I can remember a conversation I had with a childhood friend when I was very young. We had been raising money for the school charity and were becoming aware of the fact that people around the world don’t all have the same things. The same opportunities, the same possessions, the same rights and in particular there are people in the world who don’t have enough money to eat, to be safe and to stay healthy.
I turned to my friend in utter dismay. I just couldn’t
understand how it had happened that we had all started in the same place and
had landed in such a state of disparity. Ten year old me whispered to ten year
old her: ‘I just don’t understand. Why don’t they print more money and then
those people would have enough’.
My friend, who was clearly a high achiever in her understanding
of economics, went on to explain to me the concept of value. It’s not just
having something that makes it worth something. It’s got to be valued. In the
case of money, scarcity equals value. In the case of the latest fashion, popularity
equals value.
Value is a term we band around a lot in conversation. ‘What
are the values of the organisation?’, ‘Does this align with my values?’, ‘She
is a valued colleague’. But when we talk about value in terms of diversity, I
don’t think we are getting to the heart of what this really means.
I want to share an incident with you. I feel like I am
stabbing someone in the back by writing this but that’s the point. This needs
to be known and I need to not feel like a villain for sharing my experience.
Some months ago I was enrolled on a course which would
celebrate, empower and facilitate diversity. It had promise, ambition and of
course was driven values which I could appreciate. However, a month or so ago I
noticed that the final class I would be attending was an all-day session on Yom
Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and for many the holiest day in the Jewish
calendar. The series of events went as follows:
Me: Oops, you seem to have scheduled this on a day I can’t
attend for reasons of my diversity. Could I join the adjacent cohort earlier in
the week? [but really hinting that you have plenty of time should you wish to
simply move the date of this course to a less auspicious date].
Them: Sure, but you can’t attend for the group work sessions
[for sensible reasons but this just niggled me more].
Me: [going in for the double tap] I can do this but I don’t
think you are taking this seriously enough.
Them: We are so sorry, please forgive us [whilst we change
nothing and forget to send you the zoom link for the alternative cohort].
Me: twiddles thumbs in awkward confusion, caught between
privilege and marginalisation.
It’s not rage that I feel. It’s far more uncomfortable than
that. I don’t feel like I deserve to be rageful but I am hurt, disappointed,
confused, and upset. If I thought I was being discriminated against for being a
woman I am certain that the red mist would descend and I would know exactly
what I wanted to say, how I would say it and I would have no regrets for my
poor behaviour. I have no insecurity about standing up for myself as a woman.
But as a Jew, I find it much more difficult. I don’t want to
be a trouble maker. I don’t want to fulfil someone else’s racist stereotype of
the pushy Jewish woman who won’t get off her soap box. Even when I’m right. And
if I feel like this, how does it feel to belong to a marginalised group and not
benefit from the privilege of being able to code switch like I can? My
diversity is mostly hidden until incidents such as this.
My non-rage is mirrored by the non-affronting offense which
has been caused. I don’t believe someone sat in a dark room lit only by the
blue of their laptop screen and said ‘we don’t really need the Jews in on this.
Let’s plan it on the one day a lot of them won’t attend’. But nevertheless the
result is the same.
It’s insipid. It’s crept in, or maybe out, of the
consciousness of the homogenous blob. I grew up amongst a terrifying narrative
of ‘they wanted to stamp us out’, ‘it was the night of broken glass’, ‘when
Hitler’s men came for your grandfather and his father (Opi), Granny ran her
nurse’s thermometer under the hot tap to show them that Opi was unwell and
could not go with them to the camps and that’s how they got out of Nazi Europe’.
I grew up with an intense feeling of responsibility never to be a bystander
when difference is not afforded the dignity it deserves. We are not all the
same. And that is a beautiful thing. If we ‘forget’ to honour this, then
careless action by careless action we create divides, injustice, prejudice and
we all know how these things escalate.
Writing this has been a real struggle for me. Aside from my
internalised anxiety about how I might be making others feel about my low level
(though no less important) oppression, I also do not want to create a blame
culture which isolates an individual. We are learning together and it’s ever
more important that we create safe spaces to challenge one and other, to grow
and explore the language we use, the assumptions we make and the changes we
commit to.
