by Philip Monte Verde
This post is part of a five part series on cultural responsiveness in action. For an introduction to cultural responsiveness, click here. These posts are intended to be 'strategies' we can use, but more importantly point to an improved way of thinking. While written for social workers through the lens of refugee work, the lessons, it is hoped, are appropriate for all sorts of professionals.
To access the complete series, click here.
Respecting Culture
The Declaration of Independence states that it is self-evident that all men are created equal. In practice, it has taken years of social strife to ensure that all Americans are truly considered equal. This has been accomplished through movements on abolition, suffrage, worker’s rights, civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and more.
The very fact that those social movements have occurred demonstrates the American appetite for equality, especially equality of opportunity. Whether equality of opportunity truly exists is beyond the scope of this article.
There is a certain arrangement of roles across gender, age, and other identities in American professional environments. Professional environments have hierarchies in order to stay efficient, and there are certainly unofficial hierarchies around class, race, and gender. But though biases remain, officially we recognize people of all ages, races, genders, sexual orientations, abilities (etc, etc) as being equal.
Non-Western cultures may not share our exact view of equality. Many Africans view homosexuality as taboo (Mususa, 2017). Many refugees from southeast Asian countries want their children to stay close to the family rather than pursue careers that would take them away from home. In our gut, if we were raised in the American culture, we may judge people whose values are so different from ours. But to judge and to treat others differently is not responsive and it is not practical.
Demonstrating judgement in a person’s culture is a quick way to get them to turn away from you. Social work asks us to “advance human rights and socio-economic justice.” It may be tempting to look in judgement at, for example, how many husbands in Afghan refugee families insist on gaining their consent before speaking to their wives or daughters. This urge must be resisted if one hopes to get the sort of community buy-in needed to advance human rights and socio-economic justice.
This is a sensitive subject, and the author acknowledges his white and cis-male privilege when writing about it. But to judge a non-Western group is to assume we know better than them, and that is a slippery slope to walk on.
Above all else, fighting the culture of marginalized people is a battle waged on the marginalized side of the bridge. Advancing rights and justice requires meeting people where they are at, gaining a community buy-in, and walking arm and arm across the bridge to confront institutions of power.
References
Mususa, P. (2017). Homosexuality is still taboo in many African countries. The Nordic Africa Institute. Retrieved from: https://nai.uu.se/news-and-events/news/2017-11-17-homosexuality-is-still-taboo-in-many-african-countries.html
This post is part of a five part series on cultural responsiveness in action. For an introduction to cultural responsiveness, click here. These posts are intended to be 'strategies' we can use, but more importantly point to an improved way of thinking. While written for social workers through the lens of refugee work, the lessons, it is hoped, are appropriate for all sorts of professionals.
To access the complete series, click here.
Respecting Culture
The Declaration of Independence states that it is self-evident that all men are created equal. In practice, it has taken years of social strife to ensure that all Americans are truly considered equal. This has been accomplished through movements on abolition, suffrage, worker’s rights, civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and more.
The very fact that those social movements have occurred demonstrates the American appetite for equality, especially equality of opportunity. Whether equality of opportunity truly exists is beyond the scope of this article.
There is a certain arrangement of roles across gender, age, and other identities in American professional environments. Professional environments have hierarchies in order to stay efficient, and there are certainly unofficial hierarchies around class, race, and gender. But though biases remain, officially we recognize people of all ages, races, genders, sexual orientations, abilities (etc, etc) as being equal.
Non-Western cultures may not share our exact view of equality. Many Africans view homosexuality as taboo (Mususa, 2017). Many refugees from southeast Asian countries want their children to stay close to the family rather than pursue careers that would take them away from home. In our gut, if we were raised in the American culture, we may judge people whose values are so different from ours. But to judge and to treat others differently is not responsive and it is not practical.
Demonstrating judgement in a person’s culture is a quick way to get them to turn away from you. Social work asks us to “advance human rights and socio-economic justice.” It may be tempting to look in judgement at, for example, how many husbands in Afghan refugee families insist on gaining their consent before speaking to their wives or daughters. This urge must be resisted if one hopes to get the sort of community buy-in needed to advance human rights and socio-economic justice.
This is a sensitive subject, and the author acknowledges his white and cis-male privilege when writing about it. But to judge a non-Western group is to assume we know better than them, and that is a slippery slope to walk on.
Above all else, fighting the culture of marginalized people is a battle waged on the marginalized side of the bridge. Advancing rights and justice requires meeting people where they are at, gaining a community buy-in, and walking arm and arm across the bridge to confront institutions of power.
References
Mususa, P. (2017). Homosexuality is still taboo in many African countries. The Nordic Africa Institute. Retrieved from: https://nai.uu.se/news-and-events/news/2017-11-17-homosexuality-is-still-taboo-in-many-african-countries.html
