Students from the SkillsUSA program at Lynn Vocational Technical Institute talked about building tolerance and inclusivity in communities in their “Conversations On Race” virtual interactive workshop on Monday night.
The event was co-sponsored by the Abbot Public Library and the Marblehead Racial Justice Team.
SkillsUSA president Brian Lopez and program member Nyssa Lewis led the workshop, asked participants about empathy, microaggressions and biases, and encouraged them to share their experiences and views.
Lopez said it is important to think about empathy because it is the pathway to understanding tolerance and inclusivity.
When putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, Lopez said people are more sensitive toward other people’s experiences, resulting in a stronger and more positive interaction and understanding of one another.
Microaggressions were a large topic of discussion in the meeting as many participants said they had experienced some form of this in their lives.
According to a packet SkillsUSA put together, some examples of microaggressions include phrases such as “where are you really from?”; “you speak English well”; “I don’t see color”; and “you don’t seem gay.”
Lewis highlighted the importance of acknowledging microaggressions and trying not to use them. She encouraged people to not marginalize others based on their differences.
A participant named Holly said she has experienced microaggressions because of her sexual orientation.
Holly, a lesbian woman, said she was out in a group when someone referred to lesbians as “those people,” before telling Holly she doesn’t look like a lesbian.
“I can’t even tell you how it made me feel,” Holly said. “It has happened so many times. I just try to set them straight, no pun intended.”
Lopez said they want to acknowledge this kind of language and educate people throughout the workshop.
Program leader Jason McCuish, a teacher at Lynn Tech, said if certain terms are exposing biases or hidden racism, then that’s something that should be looked at.
“If you ask someone where they’re from, that’s one thing,” McCuish said. “But if your intention behind it is that you’re suggesting that they’re not from here because of their language, then that is totally different.”
The packet also presented statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that showed rude behaviors and insensitivity toward other people’s identities.
According to the statistics, 74 percent of LGBTQ students say they have been verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation, while 82 percent of Muslims in America deal with discrimination. About 37 percent of women in full-time corporate jobs have experienced sexual harassment and two out of three students with disabilities are more likely to experience bullying than their non-disabled peers.
The workshop then went into discussing implicit biases, which Lewis said may be based on some unconscious causes that result in feelings and attitudes toward another person’s race, ethnicity, age, religion or sexuality.
Lewis said implicit bias begins at a very young age and develops through exposure to direct and indirect messages from television, family or communities.
“It is helpful for each of us to learn more about our implicit biases so we can learn to be more empathetic, tolerant and inclusive,” said Lewis.
Racial and gender stereotypes in the workplace are an example of implicit biases in action. According to Simple Psychology, an experiment found that stereotypically white names received 50 percent more callbacks than stereotypically Black names, regardless of industry or occupation.
Lopez said this is an important topic of discussion, especially when dealing with the common notion of “white privilege.”
“Race plays a critical role in the conversation about our biases and life experiences,” Lopez said. “While those who identify as white often have greater privileges granted based on their race, it is true that, within the conversation about bias, tolerance, inclusivity and empathy, we all often have particular privileges afforded to us.”
When examining that not everyone shares the same privileges, Lopez said it will be easier to grow and understand others and to overcome microaggressions.
“We believe that in a lot of ways, we all have to go through discomfort in order to grow,” said Lopez.
Lopez and Lewis hope this workshop and these discussions can motivate others to consider other perspectives and share their experiences.
“We have a lot of experiences in common, but there are many things that make us different,” said Lewis. “Tolerance and inclusivity are about finding ways we are alike. We want to point out that it is in our differences that we are better able to understand what makes us special, both individually and collectively.”
