the email that made me feel heard
published 12.16.19
In May of this year I posted a piece reflecting on my experience dealing with cultural appropriation at work. Six months later I got the most validating, encouraging, energizing response I have yet to receive. The author gave me permission to share her words anonymously, so I am posting her email verbatim (with the exception of names) below. This is an example of how sharing out loud, and in to the seemingly opaque, infinite interwebs, can result in meaningful dialogue and real change.
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Don’t be shy.
Hey Noemi,
I recently came across your article on cultural appropriation and wanted to reach out to thank you for writing it, and to say what an awesome and thought-provoking read it was for me — especially as I remember when [he] initially published the article (…)
When he wrote it I remember feeling uncomfortable, although at the time I didn’t have the vocabulary or the experience to properly probe why. I came from a suburban, middle class, white family, had an easy ride through school and college, and mixed with mostly people very similar to myself. I learned a lot of things at [ex-company], including the dictionary definitions of intersectionality and cultural appropriation, that I hadn’t ever come across before — having led a life of privilege and (to be honest with myself now) complete and utter ignorance of anything to do with race, diversity, gender issues, and really anything outside my immediate sphere. Having since been working at [international NGO] for 18 months, had several new and challenging life experiences, read a lot more and intentionally opened my learning to inclusion, and frankly grown up a lot — I now understand much better the many, deeply disturbing issues with the original article — many of which you so wonderfully articulate in yours.
[Article author] always prided himself (in the way it’s so much easier a privileged white male to do…) on being just the wrong side of provocative, getting people riled up and challenging their views in a way that edged the discussion into the uncomfortable rather than the interesting. We in the [ex-company] team too often left this unchallenged and dismissed it with an eye-roll — it was just [him] being [him], we thought. I am so glad you called him out on this at the time, and wish I had done more to challenge this. I wonder how he would respond to your email today (which by the way was impressively restrained and diplomatic!!) in a world where his views — however deliberately provocative — can no longer be dismissed as ‘PC-police’, millennial oversensitivity, or anything else remotely in that vein. I wonder how he would respond if the discussion was framed around white privilege i.e. all the things that people like him (and me) are able to do as a result of their race and cultural experience, as opposed to all the things that we supposedly aren’t permitted to do for risk of being ‘caught out’ as cultural appropriators.
[International NGO] is going through a huge internal culture shift at the moment, where we are questioning our role and responsibilities — as an iNGO, as privileged and powerful actors in a world of poverty and unimaginable inequality, as people from ‘the global north’ implementing or leading projects in ‘the global south’ and a plethora of other knotty issues. Let’s just say we’re far from being a perfect organisation, but we’re getting there and constantly evolving in the right direction, and I feel fortunate to work in a place where there are so many passionate, diverse (although not diverse enough), intelligent and brave people leading the discussion. It’s made me really open my eyes to the importance of tackling diversity, inclusion, representation, and power dynamics head on — and why it’s so important to engage those with power and privilege in these important discussions.
Thanks Noemi for your article, thanks for calling out the original offending blog post, thanks for reminding me of why it’s so important to talk about these things, and thanks for inspiring me to get my thoughts in order to send you this message! If you are ever in [town] let me know and it would be great to reconnect.
Warmest wishes
[Former co-worker]
by Noemí Jiménez
Co-Founder
