A Conversation With Annahid Dashtgard
Jennifer: We've been having more conversations recently about women, and particularly women of colour, sharing their own stories and us listening to those stories of their experience in the world. It made me think very much of you because you've just recently released a book, an amazing book that I'm encouraging everyone to get a copy of Breaking The Ocean: A Memoir Of Race, Rebellion And Reconciliation.
So you know, I thought of you because of this beautiful book that you have released into the world that shares very much your own personal story. I also thought of you because you're a dear friend, and we've been friends for many years. I first met you of course when I did a diversity and inclusion training with your internationally renowned consultant company Anima Leadership. You have called yourself an inclusion warrior. So can we start off by talking a little bit about what that means- you're one of the most peaceful, gentle people I've ever met so when you call yourself and claim that badge of honour as an inclusion warrior, what does that mean for you?
Annahid: Thank you for the intro, it's great to be here in your community today. You know, it's funny that you described me as being so gentle and kind, I'm thinking, is that true? Because I mean, it is true. And then there's also this fire that's there as well. You know, I think I use the word warrior deliberately because of the idea that belonging is something that we can never take for granted. I think one of the biggest challenges as a human species has been our ongoing challenge throughout generation after generation to create space for the groups and the communities that are left out. We have gotten better at doing that over time, we had the human rights conventions coming 100 years ago, we've seen the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the disability rights movement, all of these movements are ways of really saying, look, there are whole groups, millions of people that are simply completely left out of having access to opportunities that the rest of us can take for granted.
We have to really, we have to fight for that. That's why I use the word warrior, because what we're seeing now happening in the U.S. is really just a very public forum or tip of the iceberg of histories of oppression for black, but also indigenous and other racialized communities. I think if people are seeing this and not understanding or kind of maybe for the first time thinking, what can I do? I would say, at the very base level that this is not a struggle for black people, and it's not a struggle for indigenous people. Creating spaces where everybody gets to belong is a struggle that is all of ours. So I'd like to invite everybody listening to this to call themselves an inclusion warrior. Really, I think we should all call ourselves that. Yeah. hashtag-inclusion warrior.
Jennifer: Absolutely. And you know, you touch on this in your book. You talk about the healing power of emotion, including anger, including rage. One of the things that was such a gift to me in the work that you shared in the training that I did with you through anima leadership on diversity was emotional intelligence. I appreciate so much being able to engage in these issues, not as an armchair intellectual activist. Because there's a safety in that, there's safety in not opening to the ocean of emotion. Something that I appreciate so much about your approach is giving us a language to be able to talk about our emotions as valid including the darker emotions that are scary and uncomfortable to engage in, but are necessary. Can you share more about how you approach that through the stories that you share in the book, from your life around bringing in emotional intelligence to this conversation and allowing us to feel?
Annahid: Yeah, I think one of the biggest barriers to environments where belonging is taken for granted is emotional, the barrier is emotional. You know, we live in a time where there's lots of analysis around marginalization, privilege, anti-oppression, you know, there are different names that it goes by. In my experience when I'm working with a group of people, I find that the people that have the most difficulty, it's not because of lack of information or lack of theory, it's because a feeling has come up for them that generally as a society, we're not taught to notice our emotions as much as we are our thoughts. So I think a lot of us miss out on developing emotional intelligence and so you know, emotions for most of us tend to happen below the surface of conscious awareness. Particularly when we come into conversations around inclusion, belonging, power, equity, oppression, there's a lot of strong emotion for most people in the room. And if we can't notice what's happening for ourselves, then the conversations very quickly get derailed. I think a lot of organizations, a lot of teams, a lot of communities are stuck at this place where people have strong emotions, but they don't know how to have the conversations with one another, to move past those emotions.
I think the first thing like you said is just that no change happens without honouring what we're feeling. Right? So I think the starting point is what's coming up for me. Is it grief? Is it anger? Is it rage? Is it indifference? What is that emotion pointing me towards? It's not about noticing how I feel to just endlessly stay stuck there. But noticing what I feel as a signpost to what I need to perhaps go towards, what I need to learn more about, what I can perhaps self reflect more around, a conversation I might need to have. I think that in having conversations around these issues we need to also allow space for emotion to happen in the room. I'm seeing it.
Jennifer: It feels very relevant for me because when these issues come into clear visibility publicly as is happening right now, these issues of racism, there's nothing new here, except that there's the video being shot and it's more presented to the world right now. Of course, the protests happening in the United States are part of that and so allowing this into our spaces that we may not have had these conversations. I'm sorry that we haven't had enough of these conversations going back over the years, but let's start with where we are. So I'm glad to be having this conversation with you.
I thought about this question of why should an international travel company, adventure travel company, be engaging in this and talking about racism, and talking about inclusion? It became clear to me very quickly that this is incredibly relevant in our work because we bring small groups of women into a very challenging often you know, new cultures, new landscape. They're travelling to the other side of the planet sometimes, and we bring them into these experiences and it brings up emotion. Those emotions come out in a group, that is in itself a circle of diversity-women of different ages and colours, ethnic backgrounds and class. There are so many different lenses that women are bringing into that experience. Creating a safe space where people can have that emotional experience. It comes up very much when you go into Mongolia or Tanzania, or another place where you're seeing a lot of economic impoverishment, and social justice issues. A lot of that comes up in the body and we feel our privilege. We feel this question of how do we relate to the other? So I think it's very, very relevant to us having these kinds of reflections on the emotional piece of it because it's not just an intellectual kind of work to do.
Annahid: I'm just kind of caught by what you're saying and there's a couple of thoughts that come to mind in terms of the work that you specifically do. All of this work, this whole conversation is really about strengthening relationships across difference. When I think about what you're describing it's a relationship in a couple of ways. It's the relationship to the country, the land, and the peoples, that we're going to visit. Some simple ways of strengthening that relationship are getting out of the stereotype.
Often when we travel to another country, we have a singular idea in our head of what that country or those people is going to be like. So one of the things that I often recommend is just having many options, reading stories from people that are from that country and landscape. The more options we have in our head when we go into a relationship with a new place, the less likely we're going to typecast and the more open we will be, the more curious we will be, and then that relationship can unfold.
And then the second piece is the relationship among people in the group. And I think there's a term in the literature, micro-inequities, so much of the barriers to inclusion happen at the level below conscious awareness. So they come out in, you know, most of us tend to gravitate to talking to and befriending and spending more time with people like ourselves. People who share the same racial identity, the same class background, the same sexual orientation, etc. So in the groups, as people come together, I would really invite people to reflect on who am I attracted to, and who I may be less comfortable with. Who's getting left out, and how can I use my influence to really make sure that I develop a relationship with everybody in the group. Especially those that may have a minority identity in some way. It may be harder to feel the same access to fitting in.
Jennifer: And you work with many different people in your diversity and inclusion training, but if you could speak to me a little bit more about what you share in your book- your own life experience around this issue of how we bring up these conversations. I think you've given such a gift with your book, Breaking The Ocean to share a very personal story of how you came to Canada and how you struggled in those earlier days as a new Canadian. How you came to come to terms with your feeling of belonging as a woman of colour in this country. So I'd love to hear more from your story about how you found opening up these conversations? Obviously, you do it in your work I mean, you are a professional training people on these issues. But it can be very hard to initiate. I want to take the responsibility as a white woman to initiate these conversations as uncomfortable as it can be, it's not the job of people of colour to open up this space. It's all of our responsibility and I think that the expression, the visibility that we're seeing from people of colour, from black people right now is a gift. But I also want to take responsibility for opening up this conversation myself, in my own circles with other white people. So can you share a bit about how you've seen that done well? How do we open up this conversation respectfully?
Annahid: You know, this is a marathon, not a 100-metre sprint. I think that's important to say because it's not about jumping into the most difficult conversation overnight. Pacing ourselves, think about this as a long term, investing in a long term relationship. So for folks that perhaps haven't had conversations with people around race and equity and inclusion issues, it's not about running out overnight to talk to the 10th. I would say to start with understanding the issues better ourselves, and just gradually choosing one or two people in our lives that we could maybe help. What would it look like to help that person take a step forward? Is the person willing to learn and how can I maybe help them take a step further in their understanding, particularly in organizations? I think it's especially important because then it's not just about our parent or grandparent, although those folks are important. But really what we're talking about here is institutional structural change. So that where the conversations are especially important are with our managers, with our board of directors, with our senior managers that actually have the ability to ripple out the consciousness throughout the organization in terms of who gets hired, who gets promoted, whose voices get listened to. All of those things that really make a huge difference.
The studies show that about 85% of black and other racialized people in organizations think about quitting the majority of the time across the North American institutions. Health repercussions are greater. Blood pressure, sleep issues, other kinds of issues. There's a lot of data that shows that racialized people in Canada, as well as in the United States, have just experienced a greater emotional and physical tax simply by being part of the organizational structures alongside their white colleagues. And so I think that it's always uncomfortable. I've been doing this work now for 25 years and every time I have a conversation on identity, race, sexual orientation, trans identity, whatever it is, I feel some level of discomfort. But I know why I'm doing it. And, as I said, how. I'm also really strategic. Like I said earlier, it's not about blasting people. If people are pointing to A in the alphabet, it's unrealistic to expect in one conversation that they're going to get to Z. So it's not about blasting people. We want to stretch but not tear.
If I'm meeting somebody or group at point A in the alphabet, I'll think about how do I, and what do I say to get into point B or C. Allowing the emotion of discomfort or anxiety to be there, but not to give into it. Right? So part of this work is really being grounded in purpose. Again, going back to the word inclusion warrior.
My vision is for a world where everybody matters and belongs. I'm really clear on why I'm having those conversations. So I invite people as you step into them and when you step into them, knowing why you're doing it will really be helpful.
Jennifer: A lot of people, white people will say well, I'm not a racist. I'm not a hateful person. I don't hate black people. I'm not a racist. We're part of and we're privileged within a racist system. So moving beyond thinking of racism as hatefulness, can you tell us about your experience on both sides as a trainer, and having this conversation in a personal way throughout your life where white people want to talk about this, but there's a lot of feelings that come up that are difficult for us to manage.
Annahid: This is one of the main points. That we can be well-intentioned and still be racially biased. So much of racism in organizations today isn't so much the overt forms. We're seeing the police enact but as the more subtle ways in which racism manifests through unconscious choice. In other words, below the level of our surface awareness. So I give an example, I have clients that I work with that can go on and on and on about the policies and the equity stuff that they have. And they're, this and that. And then I go to their organization to do a session or to do a consulting gig, and I walk in the room and my white employee will be greeted before I am. They will be affirmed before, even though I'm leading the session. That kind of thing happens over and over again. So the unconscious racism in most organizations comes out through whose opinions get listened to, who gets invited out for coffee and lunch, who gets offered the promotion, who gets asked to help with a project coming up? Who gets eye contact in the meeting, who's hand gets shaken first? All of these micro gestures are signals of power. And they add up. On a very basic level, I really encourage people that the starting step in all of this is why you know we talk about emotions, just notice who you gravitate towards. Because most likely who you gravitate towards is who you feel most comfortable with and who you like, and those that occupy different identity, most of us tend to feel a little bit more discomfort. So just that whole thing around so much of racism happens, despite people's really great intentions. That's a really important point.
The second piece in this, and you spoke so honestly about it is I think there's a lot of fear. I think especially since political correctness was a movement, it kind of brought awareness of what to say and do and what to not say and do. And it was helpful. But it also imposed an external set of rules, without people having the opportunity to go through a learning process to understand what is this thing called racism? What does it mean? How does it manifest? What does it mean for my relationships? So it's almost like we jumped to the end, imposing the set of rules. The equivalent is being in a classroom and expecting students to master complex algebra on the first go around without going through the learning process of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division so that I can understand how these things all go together in this picture of complexity, that is our algebra. I would say I think what's important if we don't share the identity of the person we're talking to.
So if you're a white person and you're talking to somebody who's racialized, and you notice a moment of discomfort and you're afraid of getting it wrong, as a general rule, there's no formula. It's better to be transparent about what's coming up for you than to pretend that it's not there. I've been part of too many conversations where if I feel like this is the thing if I feel uncomfortable and pretend it's not there, it looks like in that moment that I am minimizing, dismissing or ignoring the racialized person's experience. Because I'm shutting down in some way. Or I'm moving on to the next topic, or in some way I'm pulling out of the relationship. So it's better in those moments, and you modelled it so beautifully here to just say, Oh, that makes me feel kind of uncomfortable. I'm not sure what to do with that or, you know, I'm hearing you say this, and I'm embarrassed that I've never asked you about that previously. And I don't want to put this on you, but I feel like maybe I need to think about that a bit more. So we name our own experience and the person then will respond. Some people in your life might say, yeah, I don't want to talk about this right now. Other people might say well actually, I'm so glad you're naming that. You can actually go into a more authentic conversation with the person, or the person might point you to some resources.
But this is where I think white people have some responsibility is that because of those feelings of discomfort, shame, fear, white people pull out. And it's felt. So I think the way to lean in is just name your experience. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to get it right all the time. You can make mistakes, but what you just did was, it allowed me to breathe more easily actually. So that transparency, it's risky, but it's how relationships can develop.
