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Words Matter. Lately, while applying for open learning and leadership development positions, I’ve noticed a troubling trend in Human Resources in which these vital organizational departments have rebranded themselves as Human Capital. The term human resources is bad enough as it often connotes humans as resources with the goal of protecting the organization from you and not resources for the actual humans who compose, who give life to the organization. And human capital is human resources’ darker ideological sibling. The term human capital draws on a long history of human enslavement and exploitation, and as a former literature and writing educator, reminds me of Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place (1988). In A Small Place, Kincaid travels back to Antigua, her home before moving to the United States as a child. Kincaid catalogs the harms enacted by the British Empire on this twelve-by-nine mile-wide island as she taxis from the airport to her hotel. In particular, Kincaid focuses on how slavery and capitalism (another set of ideological siblings) shaped the island’s culture and Antiguan’s understanding of both themselves and the dehumanizing machinations of capitalism. Indeed, Kincaid writes: You [white North Americans and Europeans] will forget your part in the whole setup, that bureaucracy is one of your inventions, that Gross National Product is one of your inventions, and all the laws that you know mysteriously favour you. Do you know why people like me are shy about being capitalists? Well, it’s because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were the commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this is so strong, the experience so recent, that we can’t quite bring ourselves to embrace his idea that you think so much of. (36-7) Here, Kincaid deftly links our modern concept of (human) capital with the objectification and dehumanization experienced by Africans violently removed from their homelands, barbarically ferried across the Atlantic, and casually sold like commodities to support the endless consumption of capitalism. Kincaid connects human capital with its lived and entwined histories of enslavement with banking and commerce systems (Barclays, for example). Words Matter. And choosing to name your human resources department human capital draws on the dark histories and legacies of enslavement, dehumanization, and exploitation in North America and throughout the Global South. Words Matter. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. If you have questions, curiosities, or are interested in learning more about inclusion and leadership possibilities for yourself or your organization, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Musgrave Pencil Company 600 News [Wood Pencil] If you are curious about my approach to teaching A Small Place, check out “My Favorite Essay to Teach: Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place.
And for a look into my former life as an academic, check out “Educational Archipelago: Alternative Knowledges and the Production of Docile Bodies in Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place and Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis.” Both pieces were published by the brilliant Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies.
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Fellow inclusion and belonging facilitators, I am begging y’all – please stop using the iceberg metaphor in your DEI workshops. Whether intentionally or not, you are communicating to your audience that those unseen aspects of ourselves, which lie out of sight below the water, are potentially dangerous. A better visual metaphor is prairie grass.
Iceberg as Visual Metaphor Of particular note, Freud (yes, that Freud) is the one who gave us the iceberg as a visual metaphor to understand the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious minds. He mapped onto the iceberg the conscious mind (thoughts and perceptions) above the waterline, preconscious mind (memory and knowledge) just below the waterline where light still penetrates, and unconscious mind (instincts and fears) deep in the darkness below the waterline. As with any novel metaphor, Freud’s use of the iceberg evolved over time into the trite visual aid we see today in too many DEI workshop spaces. As anyone who’s watched Titanic knows, the danger posed by icebergs lies below the water’s surface (where Freud's unconscious mind with its fears is located) with a small piece jutting visibly above the ocean’s choppy plane. In many DEI workshops, facilitators ask participants to map onto a blank iceberg those visible parts of themselves onto the smaller part of the iceberg above the waterline. These observable parts often include race, (apparent) gender, actions, language, style, profession, etc. Then facilitators ask participants to map the invisible, the unknown parts of themselves onto the larger below the water portion of the iceberg. These unobservable parts can include age, disability, religion, culture, sexual orientation, morals and values, etc. By mapping these invisible parts of ourselves, which are meaningful and impactful aspects of who we are, facilitators are intentionally or unintentionally communicating to their workshop participants that these unseen parts of our identities pose a risk to the safety of others and are potentially dangerous. Prairie Grass as a More Meaningful Metaphor A better metaphor for the seen and unseen aspects of our identities is prairie grass. Prairie grass is often as tall above ground as it is deeply rooted below ground – creating a mirror, showing the visible and invisible as equally meaningful and impactful. Unlike the grass in your front (or back) lawn, which has shallow, superficial root systems, prairie grass’s roots reach deep into the earth, grounding each stalk, allowing it to grow equally as high into the air. We can still map the visible and invisible parts of our identities onto prairie grass with the stalks representing what others can easily observe about us and the roots demonstrating what is unobservable to others. And the roots are the key to this new metaphor. Unlike the solitary iceberg floating alone in the ocean, prairie grass roots reach out to each other, interlocking, creating stability and community. The interconnected roots communicate that no one is a lone reed (yes, I am referencing You’ve Got Mail), that we exist in community. We gain strength and nourishment from these unobserved parts of ourselves. And these unobserved parts of ourselves are not dangerous, but instead they ground us and offer opportunities to more deeply connect with those around us. Prairie grass’s stalks and roots work collaboratively to sustain the whole plant – and no part (consciously or unconsciously) of the anatomy of prairie grass (as metaphor) communicates the unseen parts of ourselves are dangerous. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. If you have questions, curiosities, or are interested in learning more about inclusion and leadership possibilities for yourself or your organization, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Musgrave Pencil Company My-Pal 2020 [Wood Pencil] |
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