2nd Reflective Essay and figuring out my 'blog problems
4/28/05 I created this 'blog because, well, I thought I had to get the blog name in order to keep up with technology. Nearly 5 years later the only entries on it were 5 spam comments to my "Hello 'blog World" entry whose title was longer than the actual post, "QED." Who knows how many changes of ownership the blog host had seen before Google swallowed it. After wrangling with it for several hours, I finally figured out how to move my original blog to here and gain access so I could edit it. I couldn't figure out how to delete the spam comments so I just deleted the entire post and created a new post with a fancy new template. OK, enough of the administration and on with the reflecting.
I was caught completely by surprise when I was asked to be the first person in our class of 2 or 3 dozen cohorts to tell why I was at BGI in the context of Social Justice. As Masai spoke I had some time to think about what I was going to say, but I totally forgot about the time limit AND I didn't recognize her subtle hint that my time had expired. I was leading up to the whole SJ part, but never got there. As other people relayed their moving stories I deeply regretted not being able to tell mine, especially since I didn't go to Channel Rock with any of my cohorts. They really don't know me. On the other hand, one of my LPD goals is to let go of things and not take myself so seriously. In the spirit of the Olympics and in my athletic parlance that would be, "relax and go fast." Relaxing is so hard for me because I really feel it would benefit everyone to know where I'm coming from, but I guess there's a time and place - and this is it.
I was really moved by some of my cohorts' reasons for being at BGI. To be honest, I feel like I have not had the "male white privilege" of which so many speak. In fact, I feel like it's quite the opposite. I am not a really smart person, but I work really hard and everything I've attained was through sweat equity. About ten years ago I started looking into top tier MBA programs. I was told flat out almost universally that being a white heterosexual male in his 30's with a B average in college, even if it was West Point, and no big leadership positions in business would not give me the opportunity to be accepted into a top tier school. That made me feel angry.
On the other hand, one privilege I did have was to serve in and travel through much more of the world than most others on this earth. That really helped me to understand just how much privilege members of the USA have compared to most of the world. And, perhaps more importantly, how much we "Americans" take it for granted. "American" in and of itself is very offensive to me now. There are South, Central, Latin, North, etc "Americans," but we act like the term is reserved for us. While touring Europe in 2000 by bike I had a really interesting "potluck" dinner in a hostel with a French woman and Belgian, Portuguese, Australian, and English men. When talking about this issue they coined the term "ignoranus" to use in lieu of "American." How interesting that they knew OUR language well enough to make a pun out of ignorant and arrogant (or, more accurately, a pseudo crude extension) to describe most of us; ignorant to the rest of the world or too arrogant to care. So, the silver lining to the black cloud that I wasn't not white, not male, not young, and not successful enough to gain admission to Stanford GSB is that I'm at BGI opening my eyes to the many different perspectives, cultures, and upbringings of my cohorts and the community.
Some of the exposures that I really appreciate are the things that the folks at Solar Richmond are doing to meld "green technology" and jobs in an underprivileged community, the acknowledgement that there is increasing economic disparity throughout the world that threatens to make all of us live (or not live) like the citizens of Cuba, and that there are others who feel it's unjust that a corporation has the rights, but not the responsibilities, of an individual.
In many ways I am perceived to represent white male privilege - I graduated from West Point, I worked at Microsoft, and I now work at Boeing. While I want to show my cohorts that I really don't, that I have been "swimming upstream" for most my life, it seems that the best thing I bring to the community is my understanding of the devil's advocate point of view. My hope is that this will make their understanding better so that they can seek to have others understand our position better, that position being wonderfully summarized by Native American Tadodaho Leon Shenando:
Look behind you. See your sons and your daughters. They are your future. Look farther, and see your sons’ and your daughters’ children and their childrens’ children even unto the Seventh Generation.
posted by meinnovations @ 9:57 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Hey Mike,
Good to finally make it here to your blog, and thank you for doing all the tweaking necessary to make it so.
You raise quite a few interesting points in your post. I have great respect for you as a person who has had to swim upstream for much of your life. You write: "I am not a really smart person, but I work really hard and everything I've attained was through sweat equity." It is truly an amazing life you have created for yourself and I am thankful to whomever gave you the values to work and to survive what must have been some hard times. I know that this is a North American cultural norm: 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' and all that. I think that it is my personal value as well, not just my own cultural imprinting.
I too, pulled myself up by my own resilience. And I have to recognize that some of that very resilience is part of the privilege I have. People who have been beaten down, emotionally, physically, mentally, etc., don't have the same resilience as you and I have. We have not been as oppressed as they. That doesn't mean we have not been oppressed though. We all have that experience unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately, as it gives us compassion...as you have for the paralympics you posted in your LPD section.
Mike, you do have privilege and that is not meant to make you feel bad, cruel, mean or what ever. You went to a good school, you were able to work at Microsoft, and now at Boeing; you have two homes, and probably the privilege of a large mortgage. This is privilege. It is important to see that. It is not to be held against you. Rather it is to help you see yourself in relation to the rest of the world, the world which calls us Americans "ignoranus" because many of us are blind, or keep ourselves blind to our status vis a vis the rest of the world.
You may not have had class privilege, and that may be why you had to struggle so much. When we struggle like this we don't think that we have privilege. "Hey, this is hard, this isn't privilege like those guys who have it easier". But you do have other privileges: ethnic, gender, able-bodied, mental ability, heterosexual, to name a few that I assume, perhaps wrongly.
When we can accept the truth about ourselves, we awaken to our own power. I see you awakening to yourself. I see how you are exploring new ideas, how you contribute your vision to others, how you father your beautiful daughter. I see you as a remarkable man who is building and crafting a good life with respect and love for and of others.
You are a jewel to me, Mike, a true jewel.
masai
You did not necessarily feel that you got to share your story but I felt that I heard some parts of it as you were describing your love of the region you love in, loud and clear. The little that you shared has inspired me in my BGI journey. I am not sure that you knew that. So there you go. Your words impact us positively even when you are not aware of it:)
I am honored to call you my friend.
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