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Writer's pictureVankita Brown

Are We Really Listening?

Over the past year, I have facilitated a series of listening sessions about the national social unrest, COVID-19, isolation from telework, and mandatory stay-at-home and quarantine orders. In an effort to build my skills, I was happy to assist in shepherding these discussions and I found them to be fascinating learning and connecting experiences.

My role as a facilitator in these discussions was to create safer spaces for sharing and making room for learning. I consider these experiences to be exercises in community and resilience building, and I am truly humbled and honored that people allowed me to be a part of their respective sharing process.


Most recently, because of the attacks on our Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, the nation has entered into another series of discussions about the attacks and broader national conversations on anti-racism, equity, allyship, etc. Once again, I was approached about facilitating discussions on these topics.


Let me preface this discussion first by saying that I am a student of race, class, and gender issues and also human communication. I fundamentally believe in the transformative power of dialogue. When I was initially tapped for this round of sessions, I was elated to assume my role as facilitator. However, after leading these discussions over the past year, my thinking has evolved significantly about the meaning and benefits for these types of conversations.


I was (am) a strong advocate of these discussions and I defended them to my friends and colleagues, many who were against the idea from the onset, and for good reason. Some of those reasons included allowing others to see our pain and traumatic experiences and use them against us in the workplace (“Her experience with racism and sexim has made her too fragile to have an objective mind to handle complex assignments”), and having victims of trauma relive those experiences without recourse. I agreed that these are all valid points, but still assumed I could do more good than harm. After all, as a Black, Woman, I stand in solidarity with all marginalized groups and I believed I could protect them in the safer spaces I created and “controlled.”


Their messages haunted me even through the initial sessions when I believed we were doing awesome work. I thought we had finally gotten to a place where we could speak our truth and that things I had longed to articulate - things that I lack the emotional management to say out loud without inciting my own passion - could be said and shared, and we would be listened to with profound compassion. Because, I mean, isn’t that what we wanted? To finally be heard!


However, as my first stretch of sessions were wrapping up, and my friends and colleagues voices played on a continuous loop in my head (“They do not deserve to hear our pain”), something within me started to shift. By this time, the sessions had become emotionally draining as I listened and sometimes had to turn off my camera so people didn’t see the tears that would well in my eyes as someone talked about their respective experiences of explicit discrimination, isolation, fear, and othering. I slowly started to reflect on the imprinted sentiments of my friends and colleagues disdain for these discussions, and found myself asking, “Could they be right? Did I have this all wrong? Did I implicitly provide an entreė into people’s suffering?”


Recently, someone asked me how to facilitate these crucial conversations and about facilitation more broadly. I said to the newly eager student of the practice, “The first thing you must know is that this type of work is not for the faint of heart. Frankly, it is uncomfortable, but if you are sincere, don’t run from that discomfort. When the conversations turn really uncomfortable, that is when the real learning happens. Likewise, as a facilitator, you will fail a lot and that is okay too. Failing is also when the learning happens. I fail a lot at this practice, and it has resulted in the most critical learning moments.”


I also explained that these sessions should be done responsibly, since these discussions often involve listening to the pain of marginalized communities. There is the strong possibility of triggering and retraumatizing people.


For the student, I offered the following tips for facilitating and managing these discussions.


State the intention. I mentioned this in a prior post. Being clear about the intention of any facilitation, especially for these types of sessions, is imperative. Whomever is initiating these discussions must set the intention. Is this for awareness? Community building? Developing initiatives? The facilitator will support by restating the goal, once it has been made clear by the host.


Clarify Leadership’s commitment. In many ways this is also a trust building exercise that cannot be a one sided transaction. All parties have a responsibility. And if there is an obvious power dynamic, for example, if these types of discussions are occurring in an organizational work space, leadership must be willing to state what it will do in exchange. Will strategies be developed? Will policies be changed or new ones instituted? Will programs be retooled? If leadership is not willing to offer a demonstration of good faith, then cease and desist these efforts; the organization is not ready for these discussions.


Use Guiding Principles. Every session needs a set of ground rules or guiding principles that should be stated at the start of every discussion. It is crucial to set the expectations about acceptable behavior during the session. It immediately sets the tone for the type of environment that will be maintained. These principles create the groundwork for creating a safer space. It is important to note that no space is completely safe. There is always some risk assumed in situations where people are being made vulnerable by disclosing. But it is important to let your audience know that we enter the space with the intention that we will hold community in a place where people can feel supported.


Here are a few guiding principles I use:


  1. Accept discomfort. As people share stories, experiences, and feelings on sensitive topics there will inevitably be moments that are not comfortable. Stay with it; this is when the learning happens.

  2. Everyone’s contribution is equally important. Everyone will be mindful of time when it comes to sharing, knowing that each person needs equal time.

  3. When speaking, each person will remember to be respectful of other individuals and groups.

  4. Each person will take the responsibility for her/his own statements using “I” statements rather than “they say” or “everyone believes,” etc.

  5. All comments are addressed directly to the question or the issue, not to comments another person has made. Do not offer unsolicited advice, critiques, judgments

  6. Honor confidentiality. What is shared in the group will be held in confidence unless the entire group decides otherwise.


Watch for distractions. An episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is a perfect example of this particular dynamic. The abridged version goes like this, Zoey holds a town hall within her company to talk about race. Needless to say it goes all wrong as several of the White staff venture off into their own monologues about their lives and respective challenges, none of which have anything to do with race. Zoey’s gift is that she can read people’s minds through song. So, in the midst of her other colleagues' “sharing”, one of her Black colleagues is doing a full on performance of Michael Kiwanuka’s, “Black Man in A White World.” It is one of those amazingly crafted scenes where art does intimate life, and provides a more profound understanding of one’s lived experience. Suffice it to say that these discussions can easily decenter the defined topic (particularly if it is unnerving), and go off the rails. If this happens, refocus the group by reminding them of the purpose.


Guard against hijacks. Similar to distractions, sometimes people will monologize the entire discussion and take the dialogue in a different direction. Often this is to advance their own agenda. It happens when the discussion has gotten really uncomfortable and to escape that discomfort, some people will try to move out of it by taking over the conversation. Establishing guiding principles is important to ensuring that the discussion stays on track and reminding participants of the agreed upon decorum.


Those are the strategies I have learned throughout facilitating these sessions. Now, for the part that I did not share with the student, but probably should have.


Something many folks should know when entering into these spaces is that you have been granted access as a guest of marginalized groups. These are sacred spaces for those of us who sit on the margins, and have always made safer spaces for our communities to exhale. A place where we can speak our truth, share our experiences, and be our most vulnerable without any judgement, fear of retribution or disregard. It is a place where we have built resilience - a place we go to recharge and fellowship with each other.


Current listening sessions in some ways have now put these spaces in jeopardy. We have been asked to create room sometimes for the very people and situations that have caused us to retreat to these sanctuaries in the first place. Even though I profoundly understand all of this, I am still an advocate of these learning opportunities because I am a champion for change. I do believe we can not change what we do not recognize or acknowledge (thank you Ms. Iyanla Vanzant!).


But I do also recognize the risk this is for dispossessed peoples. We are often put in the unfortunate position of having to spend emotional capital to accommodate and make space even at our own expense. It is unfair. Honestly, I struggle. I struggle with the right and wrong of it. What part am I playing to further exploit people’s pain? Will I be on the right side of history for this? Am I using my powers for good? I do wonder …


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