Authenticity starts small
On learning how to speak for your beliefs
A person says something racist. Or sexist. Or homophobic or transphobic. Or, they say something that makes you uncomfortable even though you’re not sure why.
If you’re me-from-6-years ago, you boil inside. Your heart is racing and your pits break out into a cold sweat.
Inside, you’re shouting, NO!
But on the outside, you’re silent, or you might even be smiling and nodding.
It wasn’t until a few years ago, when my perinatal therapist suggested that I might be a people pleaser, that I started to change my behavior. The most helpful encouragement was this idea:
Be authentic. You don’t need to change their mind. Just share your mind as well.
At first, it was terrifying. My heart still raced. My pits still sweat. I said things less articulately and more aggressively than I aspired to do. I often still felt panicky after the interaction was over. But the next day or the next, I felt better than I would have. I knew that even if I hadn’t been eloquent, I was being more myself than I had been before.
One reason I think this works is the emphasis on it being my take—and not that one moment that history has been waiting for when I, through my courage and eloquence, healed us from all! the hate! in the world!
A phrase for that desire in the context of sexism is “white knighting.” It’s a condescending way for a man to approach his role in fighting the oppression of women. I think the concept can be expanded to the fight against any hatred that is outside of your personal experience. Not only is it not effective, but it’s just another way of perpetuating oppression.
So! I kept practicing and practicing being authentic out loud. Some of the times that I shared my perspective were smoother, and some stayed uncomfortable. Sometimes, I was already emotionally exhausted for one reason or another, and I gave myself permission to let this one slide. After all, there would be and have been plenty more times to be one of the people speaking for the world we dream to create.
I found myself thinking of this journey in authenticity earlier this week, when an incredible museum educator came to the St. Louis Art Museum. Filippa Christofalu trained us on what she calls “Body Based Pedagogies,” and we educators hung on her every word.
Christofalu’s research focuses on how we, as educators, can enable visitors to experience a museum with their whole self: especially through their senses and emotions. In the morning, she gave a lecture to share her framework, and in the afternoon, we went to the museum galleries to experience it in action—switching between the role of visitor and of educator as we went, so we could experience both perspectives.
Part way through our tour, we paused in an elevator lobby with bare walls. Christofalu invited us to close our eyes, and she read a poem about a beautiful woman. She asked us to picture that woman as she read it—What is the texture of her hair? How does she meet your eye? What is the color of her skin?
Then we went to another gallery. First, we did a not-obviously-related exercise where we made a connection with a portrait of our choosing. It enabled the group to notice that people in the paintings are, indeed, people.
And then she brought us to a particular piece in the room: a painting on lapis lazuli—a blue stone once worth more than gold—that shows the ancient Greek hero Perseus rescuing a beautiful Ethiopian princess named Andromeda. Some artists of the same time period correctly depict Andromeda with black skin. In our piece, however, the artist paints Andromeda with white skin.
We talked about how this piece presents an opportunity to discuss preconceived, mainstream notions of beauty with visitors. An important vision for our program is to do things like this—to love and share museums in all their complexity. Museums can bring joy and console grief, and yet they are based in a history of conquest and exclusion. Both of these things can be true, and we don’t have to hide the latter to enjoy the former.
Christofalu had masterfully eased the group into a discussion about race. The poem placed the seed of a question; the next exercise gave a little breathing room and reminded us that portraits are people; and the final piece opened the poem’s last question in earnest: “What is the color of her skin?”
Of course, I had to ask Christofalu, What would you do if such a discussion went terribly wrong? What if someone said, “I don’t think this a problem. I think it’s better that the artist changed her skin to white.”
She gave us several ideas for what to do, and one of my colleagues asked a follow-up question, with this at its heart:
“But how do we feel comfortable doing it?”
My colleague cited a yoga training they’d been to, and how the trainer pointed out that the movement and mindfulness of yoga can bring up intense emotions. The trainer suggested that their role as yoga teachers is to be present with that emotion, but not to handle it for the students.
My fellow museum educator was asking how that approach might compare to ours. While they didn’t quite say so, I wonder if they were thinking of how responding to these kinds of uncomfortable (or enraging!) comments from visitors can feel incredibly intimidating. In the face of handling it imperfectly or even making the situation worse, it can be tempting to let oppressive comments slide.
Christofalu told us that it is our responsibility to tend to these conversations when they come up in our tours. That is why we take the risk. I wholeheartedly agree, and my personal journey has enabled me to take those actions when I’ve needed to do so.
I also know that a person can intellectually agree, can intellectually learn the hypothetical steps to address hate—and in that moment of tension, they might find their heart racing and their pits sweating. They might find themselves, against their wishes, smiling and nodding.
I have been that person.
A smile and nod won’t be the response they hope to give—and it won’t be the last chance they have to be their authentic, loving, world-changing selves.
Mentioned in this issue: Museum education researcher Filippa Christofalu; and “Perseus Rescuing Andromeda” by Cavaliere D’Arpino.
My favorite hot drink is a London fog. It’s Earl Grey tea with steamed milk and vanilla syrup, and it tastes like tranquility. Buy me one?