As I write this blog, my energy in investing in this troubling line of argument wanes.
At its core, it reflects two of my own character weakness. First, I am unashamedly a people pleaser of the highest order. Second, as a result I absolutely abhor confrontation. I refrain from expressing my view and what I am really thinking, lest it offends another or worse, still leads to a heated argument, that I am genetically programmed to concede.
However, I have an unflinching belief that an open, informed and balanced debate is absolutely essential to the fabric of society, the rule of law and by default, democracy.
If you cannot listen and acknowledge my difference of view in a manner that is respectful and grow as a result of that encounter, then respectfully, what is the point of you breathing?
This story began 8 years ago at B-school. Any half-decent B-school requires you to listen, work with people from different walks of life. Initially, for the most part, we all think about 50 per cent of the class is talking crap. How do you work with someone who disagrees with you? The answer is you find a way because you have an incentive to: you both want to pass.
After the first term, something unexpected happens: you realise that most people offer a different and valuable perspective to your own, as they come from different walks of life, experience the same thing. Acknowledging others differences, allows you to broaden your mind.
This gives birth to the skill of respectfully listening and acknowledging contrasting views, without the aim of shutting them down.
This is the single most important lesson that I have learned in the past few years. As a result, I actively seek out varying opinions, because I want to understand where you are coming from. Borrowing the words of Atticus Finch, I believe that you never really understand another person’s perspective until you step into their shoes and walk around in them.
It saddens me that not all my classmates have the same respect for others views as I do. They are unable to listen and empathise.
In fact, they have gone the way of the dodos and like many Americans decided to entrench their position. If you are not with “me” then you are “plain wrong” or “not with God.”
My recent encounter with some friends illustrates this.
I wrote to 8 American friends asking all of them why not more African-Americans actually left the USA. In my mind, any opportunity the USA presented was redundant if you had one of the lowest life expectancies of any other ethnic group. African-American men had a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by the police. Only in the USA, are African-American men and women being killed for the following (highly criminal) activity:
– eating ice-cream in your own home
– bird watching
– jogging
– sleeping in the common room area of your university
On paper, an African-American person would be safer in any other country: Canada, Israel, most European countries (Denmark, Germany, the UK) and some African countries (Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Namibia, Botswana etc)
Seven out of 8 responded that this was not an unreasonable question because even if other countries offered less pay, the one thing they did offer was security of person. They agreed that there is merit in my argument: less pay and few opportunities were not so bad if you were alive to enjoy them.
Despite this, most of the seven said my question lacked context. They all proceeded to present valid arguments for why this did not happen and would not happen.
Off the top of my head some of the reasons given were:
1) The majority of Americans don’t own a passport: numbers amongst African Americans were likely to be higher, as poverty prevented its own challenges to mobility.
2) Immigrants came to the US from China, India, and every other country I mentioned. The impression that Americans must have where things were much worse in those countries. I discounted the Kool-Aid that Americans drank being the American Dream. The power of hope and the dream of a better life was still imbibed in Americans, even if it were no longer a reality,
3) Cultural: One friend said that because I had never lived in the same neighbourhood all my life. I could not appreciate the ties that created to the community – even if it was completely dysfuntional.
4) Single households: Most single-parent households in the USA were African-American, were the parent in question was a woman. Women were less likely than men to leave their country of origin for a job abroad, especially if they had children to take care of. Similarly, if most children were a consequence of teenage pregnancies, then of course moving abroad was an impossibility.
5) When you are poor and disenfranchised, you don’t for one second of one day, think that other places offer better prospects.
Finally, someone mentioned better prospects for African-Americans in the USA. I cannot disagree that the US is the only country that presents the opportunity to become Jay Z, Denzel Washington, Obama, Beyonce or Toni Morrison. But for African Americans, the chance of gigantic success materialising is like winning the lottery. What are the odds that so many folks can beat systemic racism?
I didn’t expect all 8 friends to agree with me.
The eighth friend didn’t. In fact, he wrote that there was a fundamentally irreconcilable difference of opinion, between me and him. That no other country outside the USA offered better opportunities.
And yes, just to be clear I am not married to the 8th friend and he is therefore, not asking for a divorce. This is a message to my 8th friend.
“You have not read a thing I wrote or said and it saddens me that there is no room for well-informed debate or empathy in your life now. You need to be alive to enjoy any or all opportunities. The fact that you cannot separate “money” and it is money for you, from the value of life, helps you shine the ugliness inside you. Goodbye and Good luck. You will need it.”