Explicitness - A Choice Word

In reading Johnston's book, Choice Words, I find myself highlighting many sentences and talking to myself - "Oh, I've done that" or "Oooohhh, I shouldn't have said that to my kids" or "Wow, I never thought about how that (what came out of my mouth) could possibly be received."  In Chapter One, under the "Explicitness" heading, there is a particular sentence that caused me to have much retrospect, "...the better you know something, the more risk there is of behaving egocentrically in relation to your knowledge.  Thus, the greater the gap between teacher and learner, the harder teaching becomes."  Even though the implication is on academic teaching, I believe this applies to one's life in any area that you become the teacher.  I think about my own life - I have hired and taught young marketing people, I taught my own children and I continue to teach young equestrians on riding. In contrast, I have been the learner at times as well - as a child, as a young professional and still today working with professional trainers in the horse industry.  As a teacher, I know there are times that I wonder "Why don't they know this?  Isn't this everyday, common knowledge?"  And as a learner, the questions have been asked in reverse, "Don't they know I don't know this yet?  What do they think this is - common knowledge?"  I have had equine instructors that were at such a high-level in the game that they could no longer teach someone that was not at their level and the similar has been true with academic professors - they had been teaching the subject so long and invested so many hours in it that they could no longer relate it to the average student.  And I find myself doing this with the things that I have invested YEARS AND YEARS of time in.  So, how do you as a teacher - whether it be about life, academic or even parenting - decide what to be explicit about and what to let the learner learn on their own?  I'm not sure, but I know that Johnston's Choice Words at least gives me pause for consideration of my own future actions.

Self-Evident Truths: To Whom?

Trying to decide on a topic this week was tough.  Jackson Katz video, Anderson Cooper video “Black or White: Kids on Race”, Dr. Crafton’s discussion on bias, stereotypes and racism, and Gee’s work on the Nature Identity perspective was cause for introspection.  However, it was classmate Jehona’s comment that I kept mulling over and over during my plane ride on Friday, “The ones that have the privilege are blind to their own privilege.” 

I thought long and hard about what this meant to me as I don’t consider myself privileged.  In fact, there were many times in my life that I fought to break through walls on stereotypes and prejudice – not feeling in the least bit privileged – as it related to a working woman in a man’s industry, and then a working woman in management in the same industry now in charge of men, men who had NO need or respect for female management. YET, being born white, I never had to fight the fight of racism – I had no idea what that felt like.  I WAS privileged and I was blind to it!  This epiphany led me to do some “mild” research on when racism really started to be addressed.  My results (not my words, but people MUCH more scholarly than I) are below:

“If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors" - James 2:1-9, King James Bible (circa 45 A.D.)

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence (1776)

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” – Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status… - Article 2-Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: - 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” – Martin Luther King Jr, I Have A Dream (1963)

If racism is a form of ignorance (as called by some) and ignorance can be replaced by enlightenment (which comes through education) which then leads to acceptance, maybe we should be focusing on education instead of declarations, constitutions, bills, laws and speeches?  Could we start mandatory “enlightenment” classes in grade school, carried through all 12 years?  Require a high-school certificate of completion for graduation? So many community enlightenment hours required?

For OVER 1,900 years the world has addressed racism - MANY documents, rules, declarations and laws have been written, historical speeches have been delivered, and yet, here we are – 2013, still trying to figure out how to deliver on the scripture statement of “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” I close with Kurt Vonnegut’s 1961 quote, “The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.”

Significant Emotional Experiences (SEE's)

In the process of constructing identities, I believe there are certain SEE's that occur within your life which shape or reshape your identity, your direction, your thinking and even possibly the outcome of a path that was already pre-destined for you.  Over the years I have thought a lot about what shaped the identity of "me" and in class this past week, in discussing Dr. Crafton's first chapter in her book, it made me bring those thoughts and images to the forefront again. 

I have had several SEE's in my life, but none probably as life-changing as in February 1978.  I had graduated high-school early in order to get a jump on college - academia nut that I was, I had scholarships to help and I was going to be the FIRST child in my family's history to go to college and finish!  My parents were proud and I was determined.  30 days after beginning my Freshman year, I discovered that I was pregnant - something that my older boyfriend and I had not planned on.  60 days later we "did the right thing" and exchanged vows, much to the dismay of my father, and my first semester of school became my only semester of school.  My young husband was jealous of my continuing education and I was forced to leave school.  Then after the baby was born, he was jealous of her too, so I was forced to leave him as well.  At 21, I had a 2-year-old daughter to support, with no formal education and nothing promising on the horizon. 


My "friends" were all in school and telling me "there is no hope for you now - a single mom with no schooling, poor Robin, you really aren't going to amount to anything."  My family was supportive, but they did not know how to help.  I had always been a strong, confident young girl and woman, thanks to my upbringing with two solid parents (that have now been married 54 years), yet this SEE brought out new characteristics I did not know I possessed - my determination to succeed became fierce, my acceptance of responsibility went to an all time high, and my drive for knowledge (wherever it could come from) kicked in to high gear.  This moment of time in my life, this SEE, shaped and molded me into someone I am not sure I would have been without it. 

I did beat the odds.  According to 2009 Heritage Foundation data, Thirty-seven percent of families led by single mothers nationwide live in poverty. Comparatively, only 6.8 percent of families with married parents live in poverty and Single Parent Success Foundation statistics are;
• 63 percent of suicides nationwide are individuals from single-parent families.
• 75 percent of children in chemical dependency hospitals are from single-parent families.
• More than half of all youths incarcerated in the U.S. lived in one-parent families as a child.

In reading Dr. Crafton's chapter, there is a line that reads, " I once heard someone say that his childhood was just bad enough to make him successful..." I too, wonder, had I not been pregnant at 18, alone at 21, would I have strived as hard for - and achieved - success?  OR why did I not choose to go down the path of feeling sorry for myself, sign on for welfare, work an hourly job and let the government take care of my daughter and I?  If I had been able to finish college, would I really have valued it as much as I do today - for myself, not for others? 

I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but they are questions I pull out from time to time and mull over - usually right after another Significant Emotional Experience.

Consumer Pushes Ads or Ads Pull Consumers?

As someone who has spent their entire life informing consumers/businesses about things they didn't know they needed, but after seeing the advertising, had to have - I have a somewhat different viewpoint on advertising in general.  Advertising is meant to move the needle for the company product that it is promoting - whether that be for a profit or non-profit organization - and at the end of the day, it is supposed to be entertaining.  Is advertising gender biased?  Absolutely!  Is advertising race biased?  Absolutely!  Is advertising age biased?  Absolutely!  Is advertising geographically biased?  Absolutely! So, if all these bias's exist, why does it come as a surprise when advertising offends?  I believe the only people that are offended by such bias's are the people who are not actually the target audience.  Those people in the non-target audience had no intention of purchasing that specific product, but are offended that the advertising is gender-dominated, age dominated or race dominated. 

There are so many examples of advertising that could be potentially offensive due to "stereotyping", it would take a book to list them all.  But in the interest of keeping this short and sweet, here are some brief examples:  1) Minivan advertising comes to mind - how many ads can you name that have a "happy Dad" behind the wheel driving all the kids to soccer or to playdates?  There are certainly stay-at-home fathers and there are certainly men that drive minivans (with children in them), and even though the white male is the majority in our markets, there is little to no criticism coming from that sector due to minivan advertising being skewed towards female buyers.  Why?  2) Volvo spent two decades advertising safety (without physically using the word) and actually had women design a car in 2002 because "Through customer research, Olsson said, the company discovered that women want everything in a car that men want in terms of performance and styling, "plus a lot more that male car buyers have never thought to ask for..."We learned that if you meet women's expectations, you exceed those for men," he said."(USA Today, March 2, 2004) Again, I make the point that there were no men jumping up and down crying out "sexist" to Volvo.  Why? 3) Vacation advertising - completely driven towards women and young children.  Why?  Do fathers not make decisions about vacations? 

I believe that people drive and influence advertising, not the reverse.  Agencies all over the world spend enormously large amounts of money on research to determine who is their audience, what/how are they buying, how can they get more just like them, and how, if possible, can they cross-over into another demographic, much like Taylor Swift moving from country to pop.  In my opinion, Leo Burnett, renowned genius of advertising, put it the best, "Advertising is the ability to sense, interpret... to put the very heart throbs of a business into type, paper and ink" and "I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death."

Why is it then with all this said, that those offended are usually in the minority of purchasers and usually not in the target-market demographics with no intent to purchase?  And those that are often in the majority of the overall purchasers sector (white males) claim no offense to ads that they are completely cut out of? Hmmmmmmmmmmm...

Officially entering the blog world, although I have no idea what will be the outcome.  As my father always said, "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."  We'll let you, the reader, be the judge of which one it is!