It's a pleasure to welcome all of you to today's meeting. I would also like to welcome our radio audience throughout the Upper Midwest who are hearing this program on Minnesota public radio's midday program. Broadcasts of Minnesota meeting are made possible by the law firm of Oppenheimer wolf and Donnelly with offices in Minneapolis. St. Paul and major cities in the United States and Europe. Minnesota meeting is a public affairs Forum which brings National and international speakers to minnesotans members of Minnesota meeting represent. This communities leaders from corporations government Academia, and the professions Minnesota meeting is celebrating its 12th year in the marketplace of ideas. Can we talk Joan Rivers popularize that phrase several years ago? And the fact is we can all talk. The better question is can we communicate can we listen and understand each other's ideas. Can we share can we truly connect with each other? The truth is that with our spouses and our children and our workmates. We all have difficulty effectively communicating. Sometimes we're just amazed that people heard what they heard when we know darn. Well what we said. This inability to effectively communicate gets exacerbated when there are cultural norms that have shaped our ways of communication. We have read that men and women communicate differently today's guest is made tremendous strides in helping America understand the gaps in communication between blacks and whites at a time in our history when it is absolutely essential that all cultures listen to each other understand each other and care about each other Thomas. Kotchman is telling us how to do that. Mr. Kotchman is professor emeritus of communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago and president of kotchman communications Consultants limited is the author of black and white Styles in conflict and editor of wrapping and styling out Communication in urban Black America. He is internationally recognized as an expert in African American and Anglo cross-cultural communication. Mr. Kotchman in association with the International Association of business communicators a worldwide Association for the communication and public relations professional will be conducting a workshop after today's luncheon titled Crossing can cultural barriers exploring communication Styles in a multicultural World sponsored by the iabc following Mister Cochran's presentation questions will be taken from the audience genma Rasik executive director and can darling of Minnesota meeting will move among you to manage the question and answer session. You may use this little slips of paper on your table to jot down questions for discussion. In the name of more effective communication. I am now pleased to introduce Thomas Cochrane. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here. I understand the amount of energy and effort that was spent to make this possible to then several people that need to be thanked. I was looking at a copy of my AARP bulletin and it said has integration failed and I wanted to rephrase that to is integration dead. And the answer to that is no but the terms and conditions of integration of changed and this in fact speaks directly to what in fact is the topic for this portion of the day long presentation, which is as we move from Melting Pot the salad bowl. What are the terms and conditions that have changed and what was it on the Melting Pot? I think a statement by Teddy Roosevelt in 1919 captures the the pattern That was has been called Melting Pot which was one of my colleagues says is more of a meltdown. Teddy Roosevelt said and I will paraphrase if the Immigrant comes and assimilates himself to us. He shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else. But any man who says he's an American and something else also was not an American at all. We will not be dwellers in a polyglot boarding house we have room for but one language and that is the English language. We will have no divided Allegiance here. Notice the some key pieces in that key words and phrases. We will have no divided Allegiance here. He Pluribus Unum one out of many maybe the idea of Roosevelt looking at the ethnic politics of Europe European nationalism of the 19th century, and we see the ethnic politics politics today and Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union and elsewhere. There was this view that in order for people to create a political Unity. We had to get people to D tribal eyes. We had to get people to give up a part of who they were who they are and all of us in terms of the Melting Pot and this is the part that my friend and colleague refers to as a meltdown. There was a sense that one had to De tribal eyes to americanize meant to give up a part of that other alternative non-anglo ethnic identity. To be sure people could withdraw from the mainstream by Retreat to reservations. If you were Native American or American Indian, you could choose for religious reasons like the Amish or Hasidic Jews of Brooklyn to retreat and limit your the mainstreaming process that way and how to rights and Mennonites and a lot of religious groups did that so you could choose not to mainstream you could Retreat usually on the basis of the separation of church and state and Retreat for religious reasons into your own Enclave. But the ethnics were to the extent that people were going through mainstream institutions. That's where the pressures to assimilate really were exercised. Nobody cared much of the Polish grandmother in Chicago spoke polish and only went to polish stores and kept the language and didn't learn English. But for those who would make it the precious to assimilate with great. So the goal of Melting Pot was assimilation and a key part of assimilation was dissimulation to become unlike who you were. In fact one almost showed ones Allegiance not by so much by acquiring Anglo values as by disconnecting with one's non-anglo values that's often the way in which Allegiance was communicated within the framework of the Melting Pot. The other part what's changing in salad bowl pluralism, and this is a key part and this is important to understand. That the resistance that's coming to Melting Pot is not in the acquisition of Anglo cultural standards and values. I think I see the ethnic group still striving to be acquire that the language and culture of the dominant group. What is being resisted is the giving up the relinquishing and the repudiation of ones non-anglo ethnic connection that's important to understand because right now within the framework of Melting Pot people have promoted an either-or kind of thinking anyone who says he's an American and something else also is not an American at all. That's either or thinking right, isn't it? You can't be both and it's either/or. Yet as I read the the map in terms of where ethnic minorities are and how they're expressing themselves. They coming from a both and position. A both end position. Yes, I can be American and something else also and by implication my loyalty should not be suspect to the extent that I retain that other part of me. I remember some in 68. I was talking to some teachers in the Blue Island School District outside of Chicago and one black man raised this question. He asked me whether this was racially discriminatory. He said I get rated unsatisfactory on my teaching report each year because my white male principal thinks that my teaching style is to expressively intense. But if I were to adopt the style that he wanted me to I wouldn't be black anymore be white. He asked me what I was racially discriminatory. I said, well it's not race per se but it is culture and is an identity piece in there and if peoples identity is now only formed on the basis of their color their skin, but there's a performance component to an identity as blacks often say when they say they're leaving their Blackness at the doorstep when they come into mainstream institutions. They clearly not talking about their race, which is evident it talking about culture and other elements that relate to Performance. What does it mean to be black that what am I? What am I leaving? And why am I not happy in the organization that that allows it my question which is relevant here is with that black man. Be more or less loyal to the organization that permitted him to be more black. And most everybody says he'd be more loyal right. So here you have the Paradox. The The Melting Pot policy was predicated on the notion of either or and here you find someone saying I will be more loyal to the organization that permits me. My non-anglo - that allows that to express itself Paradise interesting different. It's a both/and way of thinking not an either/or way of thinking but when organizations have their minority advisory panels and Hispanic advisory panels and women's advisory panels, the white males are saying and wears a group then There is suspicion, you know, is it is it for the company or is it against the company? It's establishing another kind of accountability and this suspicion because basically the Melting Pot thinking promoted individualism and not groupthink separate the individual from the group and so on they're important issues here in implications because they're there is still a lot of Suspicion whether these groups will ultimately will mainstream and how will they mainstream and so on my sense is that Re-segregation will probably be an outcome of any kind of diversity initiatives because as people move from an unequal hierarchical system to one that is more equal. The issue of how we shall communicate and what the nature of interaction will be will have to be worked through within each of the groups themselves. We have a lot of cohabitation black sit at their tables and cafeterias at the University and white sitting there cafeterias and an Asian sit in theirs. And so we have a lot of so-called integration cohabitation, right? Well, where's the real communication? And where do we have to go to get that the other part which is I alluded to just now is the pattern of social accommodation. Within the framework of Melting Pot it was unilateral. The minority group is minority groups of where accommodate the dominant Anglo male group. Let's identify it even as male as women begin to bring their other issues to the fore ground. They may find themselves. Sometimes not represented by the organizational culture. That is the established pattern for the American society. So Roosevelt said if the Immigrant qu F if the Immigrant comes and simulates himself to us, there's no hint of reciprocity dominant groups around the world know only one language and culture their own. It is the minority groups that are bicultural bilingual Multicultural multilingual and so on. So that means the implication is that white males are often have the most to know and learn in the area of cultural difference if everybody accommodates you on your terms and you can live as off. Is the case with whites that they can live their entire lives in white neighborhoods living in white neighborhoods working in white-dominated companies often times insulated to the extent that their Circle immediate circle consists of people who are just like them and who are accommodating and all who are accommodating them on that basis of their turn on those terms then where do they have the opportunities to learn? about difference So this becomes another implication of the assimilation is process. The golden salad bowl is diversity keeping differences alive and well. Simply put a plus b plus C is a better choice for any society or organization Than A or B or C that I say a plus b plus C. I said the plus all right rather than a or b or c regardless of the value of a b or c. In this case one can commit to the idea of pluralism more is better and the fundamental issue is one that we are now more socially equal within salad bowl pluralism than we were with Melting Pot pluralism, which was hierarchical where you could keep your non angle ethnic identity, but keep it confined to the Community Church and family or synagogue, right all reservation. But as a white male, I can go anywhere and the venue for my language and culture is wide and Broad. How are we socially equal if mine gets a much wider play than yours does what's wrong with talking English with a Puerto Rican accent? Right, we have Regional dialects Regional accents. All the Puerto Rican accent says you're Puerto Rican. Okay. All right, but there is a bias inherent against that which stems from some notion that anybody is an American and something else also non-american to also people rush to be to get rid of all of that. Now we're saying keep those differences alive and well turning the tables. We might be able to draw on a we may be able to use that. In a book in search of Excellence. I remember years ago was going around Peter's Waterman book and when every corporation I know was picking up on and learning from it and I was reading and I said, you know Black Culture already knows how to do some of the things that some of the ground Breakers in mainstream culture is asking for the premise of one of the In Search of Excellence was everybody wants to be a star performer and a member and a supporting member of a winning team. All right. I said hey, that's the Jazz Ensemble. That's already what you got people taking turns playing on a supportive role and everybody gets their turn to be the star the cultures already prepared for that. Whereas an Anglo culture. If you don't have a principal in critical role in a defining role in you end up sitting on the bench. Nobody pays any attention to you. All right, so there are different orientations of one could draw on and which are valuable. So here is a critical difference where Melting Pot promoted assimilation salad bowl promotes the maintain maintenance of diversity where Melting Pot promoted unilateral accommodation to the dominant group salad bowl says we are now more social equal. That means that the dominant group white males are now being asked to reciprocate. White males are saying all right. Tell me what the rules are. I learned the language, you know, tell me what the new rules are. I don't want to go walking around with egg on my face all the time. Well, the new rules aren't in place yet. They still being defined. Bob Hale says we can engineer a process for you, but we can't always tell you what the process will turn out, but we can define a process that will help. Us understand I ABC wants to do you did a book without bias and said well, is there a safe English? No, there's no safe English. You know, can you create a language that will offend nobody? Yeah, so these don't say anything maybe but and then you'll be indicted for your silence. So what can we do we can begin to identify descriptively what's going on here. All right, every solution generates a new set of problems. The only way I know that I'm making any progress is of the problems. I have now better than the problems that had before. The problem of finding a tax shelters better than the problem of finding a job. So now if we if through affirmative action and through diversity training and people ultimately have their organizations reflect the diversity of the society as a whole and people are distributed and ranks. Once we solve the problem of inclusion basic inclusion. Now, we have the new problem of how do we manage the mix? How do we manage the mix? What are the different issues? Can we treat people with respect treat them equally without stereotyping them. There's a bias out there. about making generalizations There's a view that says generalizations about groups that General Lee suspect. All right, aren't you stereotyping? Well that comes from Melting Pot pluralism where we kind of pointed a finger at someone when they had an accent or and we're anyway different and we criticize them for in the hope that they would change that right to give that up. So there's a whole history of viewing generalizations about people in groups as the experience is one of being accused so it would be not understandable why members of minority groups especially would be very weary weary and Leary and weary of discussions that might open up Old Wounds or open up open themselves up to further accusation. The problem comes about and this is the Dilemma of the ethnic minority. What happens when someone accuses you for being Who You Are It's easy when people accusing you for being here, I mean it's hard also, but it's certainly a lot easier when people accuse you for being who you not the poor everywhere around the world always characterized by as lazy by members of the middle class groups of the same corresponding cultures Society, right? We know that's not true people poor Idol, but not lazy. The difference difference but what about when people accuse you for being here you are that means now I'm in a bind after denying to avoid The Stereotype. I have to deny my authenticity. That's hard to dilemma. Do I change my behavior and accommodate the dominant group because they penalties attached to being different. How do we rescue that? Well, let's talk about different. Let's talk about some good generalizations. Let's talk about the possibility that it is possible to make generalizations. Right? Would you agree that people are suspect over generalizations made about groups. Is it a good generalization to say the people that generally suspect about generalization made of Agra? What's a good generalization? Well, I would like to save the term stereotype for abuse of generalizations stereotypes are accusatory people point out a difference about you. So as to condemn you for you too emotional. I'm not emotional. So if we avoid the accusation would we minimize the defensiveness around it? Could we accept difference as difference talk about instead of differences is right and wrong talk about them as right and left. This is the way it is over here is the way it is over here. Here's a good generalization men tend to shape their family round careers and women tend to shape their careers around family. Not true of everybody. But generally true. Does that have implications? how about is an opportunity equal that requires Mobility if one group more than the other is better able to take advantage of the opportunity because they mobile might there be a case brought up before The Supreme Court at some point about class discrimination based on a failure to recognize differences. How dare you treat me differently? I'm the same as you are. How dare you treat me the same on different from you. Right. One of the things that we need to do here is work out the differences between double standards and different standards. A double standard is treating people differently when you should be treating them the same. So in one place in town in Illinois, when black kids a help when white kids are out beyond the curfew the police pick him up and take him to their home when black kids are out the on the curfew. They're brought to a detention center with a parents have to come down and pick him up from the Detention Center. Everybody says that's a double standard right treating people differently when you should be treating them the same a different standard is treating people the same when you should be treating them differently. Right. That's the hard part that we now have to work through. How do we respect differences and treat people equally and recognition of different. Well, the issue of mobility of one group is better able to take advantage of it. Then how is an opportunity equal which requires Mobility if one group better than the other is able to take advantage of it. You can't within the framework of treating people equally often means treating them the same within the framework of same treatment. How is an opportunity equal that produces unequal effects? The salad bowl pluralism uses the agricultural model. You don't give the same every flower in the garden of same amount of sunshine fertilizer and water because that guarantees that only certain flowers will grow. Same treatment only becomes equal treatment if it produces an equal outcome. Right, so we'll give moving expenses for the family. All right. Well, what's family is that the Anglo family, you know grandparents and Connecticut sun is in Silicon Valley daughters a doctor in Houston get together on Christmas or Thanksgiving elsewhere significant events weddings funerals. right or by telephone. That's Anglo. right What's an Asian family? Like what's a Hispanic family line? Grandparents are included in well, if you offer a moving expenses based on the Anglo family, then Asians and Hispanics and others who integrate their parents into the basic family cost more for them to move. On the other hand if you gave the same allowance based on the Asian standard. And anglos have fewer people to move. They have more to spend on furniture and other things geez. What are you doing? How do we avoid the competition? They're getting something. We don't have. Treating everybody equally means treating the same right I do it for you. I got to do it for everybody. Uniform treatment is fair and Equitable right differential treatment. Well suppose we devise something creative Gene marvelous my colleague and Associate suggested that if we use the standard that allowed for the greatest number of options like the Asian one and made it available to everybody if they were in the same kind of situation and angle family that was involved in parent care, right? All of a sudden now, it was possible to move everybody. That's a nice solution. You can still treat everybody the same right by creating the same options for everybody if they're situation warrants that's thinking creatively. The bilingual education Act of 1977 loud versus Nichols Chinese Community brought a suit against the government or the state said look if everybody gets taught in English only then the recent immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan and China don't have equal access to the curriculum. What is the criteria for equality? Is it everybody gets caught in English? Which denies some people equal access because they don't know English well enough yet to benefit equally from being taught only in English. or do you create bilingual education because the criteria for equality is not English only but equal access to the curriculum. What is the criteria that you using to define equity of parity? So another thing that we will be looking at so the issue of stereotyping and archetype. Stereotypes of the views of Outsiders let's let's assume we can talk about generalizations that are accurate and good and non punishing and on accusatory and simply look at difference as difference. What is else is it that makes people loath to accept stereotype. There's a view out there that for a generalization to be true of a group. It has to be true of every member of that group to qualify as a good generalization. If I can find one person who represents is of that group, but doesn't fit this pattern of the group The generalization is invalid. That is idiotic. That is bad social science. There is no standard of pattern that is 100% true of Remember who I have black women come up to me at the University of Cincinnati. She said, you know, I grew up in West Virginia. It's very hard to have an African American Social and cultural experience growing up in West Virginia. I was talking to Jewish colleague of mine from New York City and we were both of us from New York. We're in San Francisco. And we're talking about the Jews of San Francisco is that you know, the Italians in New York City. I'm a Jewish than the Jews in San Francisco. Clearly there needs to be a cultural context that would support a cultural or two alternative and I know some black friends who live in Ann Arbor or some of the white suburbs were wondering how to give their child an African-American cultural experience growing up in a wife's number. Also very much a problem for interracial marriages and so on. Anyway that that becomes a very serious concern. So what is the appropriate view with respect to archetypes or generalization? One of my Chinese students did a survey of Chinese parents in China and he asked them to what extent would they rely on their parents for financial support during old age and 90% of the Chinese parents interviewed said they would rely on their children for financial support. Then in this country culture in Chicago. He asked anglos to what extent the same question and 90% of Anglo said, they would not rely on their children for financial support. Right? Well, how do you evaluate 9 out of 10? That's pretty good, isn't it? That's something that really stands out. That's something that anthropologists would call salient. Write something that really stands out. So that's a real pattern. What do you do with the ten percent who don't fit the pattern? Does the fact that it's not true of 10% mean that it's that invalidates the 90% for whom it is true moral one participates in a culture not only Often by practicing all of its tenets and patterns, but by understanding it when it happens with the 10% understand why the ninety percent voted the way they did. Sure. So one participates in a culture in an active way on a passive way, but in a passive way if I don't signify do I still know what signifying is? say that's black for those who don't know what signifying but the point is that I've rarely I came across while black to don't signify don't come across any blacks who don't know what it is C. So one participates in the culture in lots of different ways who would have a harder time understanding who would the 90% have a harder time understanding the 10% Yeah what they don't Right because it's not cultural. The cultural patterns are understood by members of the group even if they are not practiced. Right. So generalization in many ways is representative of the tradition of the group. But we need to get The Insider perspective. One of the problems is that we don't commune because we don't communicate we are left with our Outsider perspectives of each other. English tourist group went through an Afghan Village and they noticed as they went through the crowd that the Afghan women shielded their faces and withdrew and let the English tourist group walkthrough. And the English tourist group said how polite these people are. Well, that's the outside review the inside of you. Was anybody who knew anything about the Afghan culture was the Afghan women thought the English women were improperly dressed in with trying to Shield their faces and stepping back to avoid contamination by the evil eye. Which view would we say is a more reliable indicator or explanation for what the Afghan women's Behavior? The Insider write their own View with respect to cross-cultural communication we are outside as with respect to the others communication and inside is with respect to our own. One of the values of black and white Styles and conflict of the work that I and my colleagues do with Hispanic Latino Anglo or Asian-American Anglo gender and culture. We tap into The Insider perspective what's going on here and from whose point of view? That's what we are left with forget objectivity. Let's not that that isn't a good thing to reach toward. But let's get to honest subjectivity. Let's get to our own filter. What is the lens through which you view the world. Do I discredit emotional Behavior as irrational? I can't talk to you. Now you too emotional. I've never heard a woman say that to a man. I've only heard a man say that the right. But the point is what is the cultural attitude that is being promoted here reason and emotion work against each other more emotional you are less rational you are well among blacks and Hispanics and others the absence of emotion signifies insincerity. So the very emotion that anglos withhold on the basis of rationality or trying to be rational makes them less credible with groups that require emotion for you to be thought of as sincere. All right, let's become aware of the lens and let's acquire what we would call Multicultural flexibility wearing several hats being able to understand what the behaviors mean to different groups and it's not always easy. What makes your heart palpitate? You know Asians when you East Asians when you hear them talk they will say if you force me to confront you in a direct way that sets my heart palpitating black say if you don't let me confront you. In a Earnest forthright manner that sets my heart palpitating and as Vicki identified added earlier and with white women if you confront me in a direct way my heart starts to palpitate. Well, how do we develop some abilities around this though? The let us stay engaged. These are some of the issues that we will be working through as we solve the problem of inclusion. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kochman, we are delighted. It's the Minnesota meeting to be presenting. Mr. Kotchman went with the help of the International Association of business communicators, which is a worldwide Organization for the communications and public relations professional. I ABC and Minnesota has over 450 members and offers a range of services including professional and development for members and the public such as the workshop that they're sponsoring this afternoon. So we welcome all of you to this meeting raise your hand if you have a first question the first question Rosemary Ritchie who is a member of the board of directors of iabc at first question. Is this a friendly question will let you know in a minute. The question is, how can we begin? Can you give us a first step? If we're in a say an organization where there isn't cultural diversity and we want to start learning and it sounds like we need to learn by doing. Can you give us some advice on that? I always think the best learning is to be thrown in a situation where you there is a risk factor. Three white males and 25 black males anywhere for two weeks. It's amazing what learning occurs and how fast it occurs in that environment? but I think that when I look on my own experience it was often when I was in a situation where I didn't want to egg on my face I wanted to do I wanted to be right even for pragmatic reasons before I finally decided it was a good thing to do for moral reasons, but even for pragmatic reasons just the pride Professional Pride and and not wanting the repercussions of one company, you know, when it's PR unit all of a sudden there was some magazine and different people have different continents and then you know Africa and there was a monkey well, Wouldn't they know that that would offend or where was the sensibilities? I mean their prices to pay down the road. Do you want to wait for a class action suit before but I think in terms of first step. I think I think I'm sorry. I think what we want to do is to know more about the group than the people of the group than we presently do. There's a whole circle of reactions to oppression. There's a whole circle of traditional culture. There's another circle of influence of the dominant culture if you add your own individual proclivities and so on and they all apart of us and the question is what kinds of conversations do we have with people once I know more about you what kind what kinds of conversations will I have with you now? And I think that becomes an important issue. So one has to do a Reach Out effort you will find that people will be At first suspicious as they must be what is your motive here? You know, why are you here? But once you are qualified as sincere and are looking to promote inclusion and multiculturalism, then I think you will be you will meet with her happier kind of receptivity and there will be growth and learning in that simply because you'll have yourself expanded. So I would say anything that allows you to go through as a travel and not a tourist would help that process along right on the bus with the chickens in the you know, But that would be the but one way to go. Thank you very much. Dr. Coachman. We're going to go now to an Merrill who works for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. You talked earlier about good generalizations and I was sitting here thinking how my fear of that is if we're willing to embrace good generalizations. How do we not then? Also Embrace bad generalizations as well. That's you know, there's a sort of like what I heard them or Deborah Tannen said the dangers of not talking about them outweigh the risks of talking about them. So I take the same position. One should not assume one should not assume that a member of that group who must necessarily fit the pattern of the group. That's number one. People are still resistant to being categorized. Even when you are accurately categorizing. There's sometimes an educational responsibility Asian for instance are accurately characterized as being very good in Science and Tech and so on so agents say how come we can't get in the management track, you know, so at some point one has to be careful how this information gets used. But right now we are operating from if I know only my own culture then I am not not operating from a generalization. What I am operating from is everybody's just like me. Right and when you discover that they not or you assume that they are later find out that they that they're not then you have created some rare. So it's not that we're avoiding generalizations. We're operating ethnocentrically, right? The question is is the danger of misfiring. Yes. There is if I have but at least what are the probabilities that I will miss fire when I have two or three alternative hats to wear as opposed to fit I have only one I have now increased the probability of being right even though they will be occasionally misfires. So yes, I think accurate generalizations are important and if they have the validity of the members of the group themselves, if it resonates with their experience, they will say yeah that's valid. So there are always two kinds of questions here. What are the patterns of difference and the second question is how representative are they within the population? Right? And we shouldn't ignore the first question because they Lane thanks. The patterns are different explain how the question of representativeness is a good question how representative visit but I wouldn't want people to say. Well we don't have any blacks here. Therefore. I don't have to learn anything about Black Culture right? Well, maybe because you don't know anything about Black Culture. You don't have many blacks here. I mean, you know, so it's a lot because we don't know how to recruit or something like that. We don't know that blacks might get jobs through informal networks and not through ads in newspapers. Thank you. Dr. Kochman. We have a next question from Charles Macintosh with a Ceridian Corporation. It seems like your message has a lot of validity and I am benefits for both both majority and minority groups. It just seems like corporations have now become more homogeneous than they were in the past. How can your your message get to the corporate leaders so that there can be an effective change in terms of corporate culture that only to date really recognize the homogeneous culture with white males Dominique the most effective spots in the corporation. This is a termite Revolution. It's a revolution that's being led by making by having individuals make changes and ultimately having leadership ratify them. If the dominant group and I know a lot of Anglo male groups the top 22 and one company they have one black person vp2 women VPS and their wives don't work. What messages are they getting given that network if they communicate only among themselves? It's unfortunate that it's almost something like a class action suit or a discrimination suit or people get egg on their face for redlining or something happens or banks are now involved in community reinvestment. And in order to qualify. They got to go that route. Do we have to make mistakes right to before we learn the But to answer the question in here requires some bravery on the part of the people who are the termites in this revolution namely that how much risk is there for you to be black in your own company, you know, which is an issue and often if the organizational culture Puts pressure on you to conform as it does. It does that two white males as well white males will talk about the loss of their individuality as they common conform, you know to the workplace. So the certain amount of Conformity, I think the issues are different for white males white males go to the workplace and gain and gain their identity but lose their individuality and black males come into the workplace and lose their identity when they lose their individuality and therefore this not gaining an identity for black males is losing it if we understand the different price that people pay when they do conform and acquire we might come to different resolution, but I think some of the answers is it's tough keeping black males in the management track. It's tough, you know, even if the recruitment process is such a retention processor such that we're not keeping the people then there's a casualty element to this and maybe that's the way the message the question is. How do we open it up? Education, I believe in education. I'm basically an educator as this becomes more of a mainstream topic as people hang out and here the patterns of difference. Let's what are the challenges to the Anglo culture that would come if blacks were free to be black if Hispanics were free to be Hispanics. If women were free to exercise whatever their woman identity would bring to the work with that isn't already reflected in the ethnic culture or what Asians would ruin what would those challenges be? Let's at least deal with nones. Right right. Now we're dealing with a lot of uncertainty people are afraid of change because they don't know what that change will produce that's being very Anglo male. We like just tell me what the rules are. You know, I want to deal with positions of certainty and predictability. I'm uncomfortable with uncertainty. What we need to do is to make people on more comfortable with not knowing what the rules are to be an uncertain environments, but that's again going against the cultural grain. you see get more comfortable with uncertainty Peter Drucker had that in the Wall Street Journal of you, you know the successful those who will be able to prepare for uncertainty. So let's start now why males could learn this from women and blacks and Hispanics and Asians who being in a minority have often been in reactive posture where they didn't make the rules but had to react to rules that others made so that wouldn't be a bad thing for us to be able to do go through changes move through changes right gain some Multicultural flexibility, right? Thank you. Dr. Kotchman for a radio audience. You're listening to Tom. Kotchman is the Chicago paste author and consultant on Multi cultural communication. We're going to move now to Dick Gaskins whose with IDs Financial Services. Dr. Koch and my question relates to the resistance to this new paradigm that you're presenting to us today the what experience have you received or what kinds of resistance have you encountered in trying to introduce this new process of communication to? The resistance is from two different sides. I think the resistance from the ethnic group comes with are you now re categorizing us and giving the dominant group ammunition, which they can now utilize against us. All right. So there's some resistance that comes from Minority members of minority. We were blacks Hispanics and others because they are waiting for the show other shoe to drop it's interesting the reaction to the Spike Lee film school days, you know where one white man. I know if you know the film but it shows about racism or colorism in the black community and one white male went to see the film of the black associate and he said I didn't know there was any racism or colorism in the black community and she was angry at him said you don't know X about us. Since we're on radio I want that so she was angry that he didn't and another black woman came to me and said look what Spike Lee is telling them about us. So here is the Dilemma of black people, you know, angry that White's don't know about them and for are afraid that they might Or that they will so you always facing that issue. You know how much but can we get an afro Centric curriculum without knowing something about afro centrism and the culture. How do we make it a more responsible? So the other resistance is very much a wide male issue. White males now feel are the most unsettled group in the workplace if you're not if you still too comfortable you're too insulated. You haven't begun to feel the heat. Sometimes white male say okay, just give me the sentence. I want to avoid the trial. Guilty as charged. All right, what's this end? I think there is a process of resistance I think white males and now having been programmed for success. I think the the socialization of white males was hey, the world is your oyster your you can go as far as your individual initiative and your talents will take you right we don't understand our own privilege white male looks in the mirror and says, what do you see? I see a person I see an individual. Woman looks in the mirror and said what do you see? I see a woman black woman looks individual sassy a black woman. Right, we're not aware of our own privilege. The fewer number of things that we've had to take into account to get our own needs met is a good way of reflecting privilege. So it's that it's a sense of opportunity is my opportunity going to be there in this new environment and the interesting thing for white males is that they feel that even though they are still getting a significant number of those jobs that are available even though they are being shared more widely. That is not a consolation in terms of what they fear for white males a threat is a threat when you say you're going to do something. Black say hey thread is a threat when you make a move to do something wait for those numbers that change and then filled know why males already started feeling threatened when you say you're going to do something. Right if we understand that about us ourselves. That's important. So I think the uncertainty of the environment I think one one of the reasons that I would Advocate a white male group, by the way. Is to create certainty and predictability not to change the leveling of the playing field. And it would be viewed and perceived as a backlash movement. Right as an attempt to retain privilege, right, but that would be something that really needs to be looked at with at least would restore a measure of predictability and sort of. All right, you get one you get with you because what bothers wide males is when they don't know and they often apply and then that hopes are raised and they find out that the job went to someone other than a white male and all white males think that the job was wired even if it wasn't so that that becomes an issue. Thank you very much. Dr. Cochran.