FOR HUMANITY
Human to human
What if...
We are all just people. Human beings. How you treat others is how you treat yourself. Or even better: when somebody asked Ramana Maharshi "How are we supposed to treat others?", he replied "There are no others". I love that quote so much. What if there is no separation? What if you play with the thought that every person you meet - be it your quiet neighbour, your toxic boss, that super pretty girl or the arrogant shopkeeper - is actually you in another lifetime. Reminding yourself of that thought can instantly shift your attitude.
If you are a devoted yogi or if you are in to meditation, you might already have experienced that feeling of oneness with what surrounds you. In fact, yoga means union. Union of your mind, body and soul. Union of you and something bigger. When you get into the magic of yoga and meditation, you just feel it. We are all one.
If you are too busy running that rat race and haven't yet found the time for stillness, then look to international human rights and ground your actions in that. Because they are supposed to be universal, for everyone.
What if we all stopped playing small, pretending like our actions don't matter. If it's one thing we know for sure it's that every action and every thought matters.
Today we talk about Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) at work. What if we added a Human to Human (H2H) approach in everything we do?
EXPOSING UNCONSCIOUS BIAS
Act in line with your values
We spend so much time in school learning. Capitals, rivers, history... But are we spending enough time learning about ourselves and in particular our prejudices and other more or less unconscious beliefs we have? It is so easy to say you believe in all people's equal value and then only recruit people who look just like you. Simply because the biases we have are unconscious. The privileges we have are so difficult to see unless we do the (inner) work.
I think, as a woman, it is often easier to understand other groups that are also oppressed; we feel the same frustration. In the same way, I can better understand my own privileges and make an effort to be inclusive.
If I believe men could be more aware and active about gender equality, then I too could be more aware and active about racial inequality for example. I recognise that I am both privileged and unprivileged and therefore have the luxury to draw on both experiences to showcase empathy for the other side. And the good news is, we all can!
CHOOSE COMPASSION
What are the ripple effects of YOUR life?
Do you know that your actions have the potential to affect more people than you can imagine?
If you are an employer, you have power to ensure that your workforce is diverse. If you are a teacher, you can educate your students. If you are a parent, you can educate your children. The truth is, we can all do something. We all have a platform.
We can all stand up for humanity.
We are all catalysts for change.
We can all improve the world with our actions.
We can all take a stance for goodness and compassion.
Either we accept the world as it is today. Or we make ourselves a catalyst for change.
Gentle Rev can help out with design thinking if you are uncertain how to do it.
WAKE UP WITH THESE BOOKS!
Let's read and redesign our views
Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi
Follow generations of black people. It starts with two sisters in Africa and ends with the US today.
Just Mercy - Bryan Stevenson
Heart-breaking stories on how people of color in the US, including kids, are treated in a nonhuman way.
The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander
An historic account on how the current system is a prolongation of the earlier system of legal discrimination. Detailed and eye-opening.
White Fragility - Robin DiAngelo
As a white person, it is easy to feel offended, guilty or angry when someone claims your words or actions are tainted by bias, prejudice or even racism. In this book, we learn why and how to avoid it so that ultimately, we can shift focus back to what matters.
Passing - Nella Larsen
NYC, late 20s. Some black people had very light skin and hoping for a better life, left their families and tried to pass as white. This story makes you understand the sacrifices and risks they took.
The Ferguson Report - US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division
The DoJ's report on the investigation of the Ferguson Police Department. Ferguson became a symbol of police brutality after the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed young Black man. An official report might sound dreadful to read but it is the opposite.
The color purple - Alice Walker
"A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence."
Shout out to Stanford PhD Dr Amanda Licato for helping out curating this list.
Stand Up
A man in a Black Lives Matter Protest danced to this song, Stand Up by Cynthia Erivo. Since then I can't get enough. Such power and energy in the music and lyrics. It just gives me more energy to keep doing what I feel is right!