From conflict to understanding, from getting stuck to moving forward
Anatomy of workplace Conflict Transformations: Tools, Tips, Thoughts
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Workplace Conflict
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Race & Gender
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Conflict in Pop Culture
About the author - Dr. Sara Shamdani
“I don’t know what I think until I write about it”, wrote the brilliant Joan Didian. I am a socio-political scientist and a writer and I come to understand my experiences more fully through writing. And because I’m passionate about conflict transformation and work as a mediator to bridge people’s understanding of each other, I come to these pages to explore my experiences and understanding of conflict in our culture, particularly at work. Sometimes I draw on my personal stories and experiences and sometimes I purely cite the research I’ve read. I hope these stories and thoughts resonate with you and I hope you find something helpful in them.
Prince Harry and the question of Unconscious Bias vs Racism
During a recent interview with a journalist, Prince Harry who was promoting his highly anticipated memoir, Spare, was asked about racism within the British Royal Family. The journalist asked: “[Meghan] said there were troubling comments about Archie’s skin color. Wouldn’t you describe that as essentially racist?” Harry responded with a no and how those comments were examples of unconscious bias, which to him is different than racism. In this post I want to unpack the very important terms of racism, racial bias, and unconscious bias, their nuances, and how different people define them.
When art talks about work: Beyonce and the ‘Great Resignation’
Music is one of the most ephemeral forms of art as it moves the body through the rhythm, sensations, and vibrations it creates. It is incredible to see Beyoncé use her platform in a powerful house-inspired dance song, inviting the listener to dance, stomp, clap, and move their bodies to the rhythms of the song and release the pain, sadness and anger of the last few years through dance. And while doing that listen and sing the lyrics around philosophies of a healthy work-life balance.
Workplace Violence on Live TV
There are many, many angles to explore Chris Rock being assaulted by Will Smith at the recent Oscars, an example of a complex situation where multiple things are true at the same time. Here I want to highlight this perspective: what we saw was an interaction between three people who were at work. This situation is analogous to a trade show attendee assaulting someone staffing a booth. Two of them likely felt verbally harassed, and the third was physically assaulted.
The Firm and the Disaster of Lack of Diversity
Sometimes I get a chance to combine my professional and personal passions, and this blog post is one of them! I’m a huge proponent of the business case for DE&I (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) policies, and in my spare time I love to dive into the royal family gossip. Right now the royal family has made front-page news with a cautionary tale about the massive business costs that result from underinvesting in DE&I training and policy implementation, as well as a lack of diverse voices in senior leadership.
Whoopi, race, colour and ‘passing’
“If the KKK was coming down the street and there was me and a Jewish friend....well... I would run....but the KKK will pass them but not me”, Whoopi Goldberg explained. This is an important sentence because it is a glimpse into understanding what Whoopi was talking about: ‘the fear of not being able to pass no matter how momentarily!’
Whoopi Goldberg, “Maus”, and the conversation of ‘what is racism?’
Recently there was a conversation on the talk show “The View” about some Tennessee schools banning Art Spiegelman’s brilliant book: “Maus”. They were talking about the significance of the book in showcasing the devastation of the Holocaust, and then the conversation took a turn by Whoopi Goldberg talking about how the Holocaust was not racially motivated since this was simply crimes of humanity against its own kind. She called it a “White on White crime.” Her colleagues mainly disagreed with her, but none were able to provide a substantial analysis or an argument of why Holocaust was about race. I have a lot of thoughts about this important topic.
A circle back to Science fiction
"My feelings are hurt", is such a wonderful sentence. My feelings. The focus, the subject of the sentence is the feelings, the feelings that belong to the person who is experiencing and narrating them. In this sentence, there's no "you", although the "you" can be implied, the focus is so strictly on the person who has been hurt. It's a simple utterance of truth about one self in its most indisputable way.
Hamilton and Toni Morrison
I have been reading and reflecting on the criticism that Lin-Manual Miranda received on the release of In The Heights. In my research, I went down a rabbit hole and came across something very interesting: a critique of Hamilton (the musical) by the playwright Ismael Reed in a play called “The Haunting of Lin-Manual Miranda”. This play criticizes, what Ismael considers, Miranda’s smoothing over of Alexander’s Hamilton slave-owning ties and not even addressing his contributions to the genocide of Native Americans. I learned that this interesting play was partially funded by Toni Morrison, a very intriguing factor, so I dug deeper.
In the Heights: An immigration story and unconscious bias
I’m fascinated by immigration stories. As a first-generation immigrant myself, I’ve found that regardless of where people immigrate from when they immigrate with the goal and in hopes of a better life, many of those stories are similar. They seem to blend and create ‘the immigration story’.
Feminist Killjoys and the Royal Family
I watched the TV event of the year: Oprah’s sit down with Meghan and Harry and I have been thinking about allyship of Prince Harry. Or rather allyship in general. He said during the interview that although he had been doing the work before meeting Meghan and reading and educating himself, he grew up in an environment that active anti-racist thoughts and behaviours were absent.