My Take on Erasing Racism, Racist Label and NVC
by H. Holley Humphrey First Generation NVCer.
Creator of the Giraffe and Jackal Ears, 1990
Warning: This 8 page article might stimulate feelings and needs…
I am grateful to have discovered an on-line article in The Economist mentioning the efforts of two women of color, Saira Rao and Regina Jackson to encourage white women to become positive advocates for social change. The Economist article inspired me to rent and take notes on their 2022 film, “Deconstructing Karen.” (Prime Video $2.99)
In this film, I especially appreciated their raising awareness about not calling oneself color blind just because, “We all bleed red.” There are several quotes I hold in my heart as poignant because they speak the Pain regarding the horror and travesty of racism:
“The more you think about White privilege and racism, the more you get why White women don’t want to talk about it.” “In this country we created the criminalization of Black people and when your skin is seen as a weapon, you are never unarmed.” “How many of you would trade places with a Black person in this society?” “You walk through this world with a different experience because you are a White woman.” I hope you can find a way to watch “Deconstructing Karen” even if you might not choose to be a dinner participant.
What inspired this article:
Because this film seemed to have many overlapping ideas regarding what I believe is being promoted in our community as “evolved NVC,” I am choosing to use “Deconstructing Karen” as an opportunity to discuss how some concepts within the film align or do not align with NVC principles as I recognize them. With a need/hope to promote consistency and integrity, this article, “My take on Erasing Racism, Racist Label and NVC” is my opinion of how the work of Saira and Regina fits or doesn’t fit with Marshall’s life-long work which he named Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and I honor. Throughout this article, I use the term, “NVC,” as being the process I learned directly from my mentor, Marshall Rosenberg beginning in 1983.
My Intention:
Specifically, I am writing this article with the intention to add awareness and consciousness to situations where racist labels are being mixed with NVC in a way that does not fit with my understanding of NVC. I write this with a strong need to protect the value of NVC as a spiritually and heart-based language that has been making my world safer, more nurturing, more honest and more joyfully precious since 1983.
NVC invites me to come from (live in, lift myself to) a place of my Highest Being. MBR quote: “We are Divine Energy. We don’t want to ever lose that consciousness that we are Divine Energy. P.214. “When we do things that don’t come out of this divine energy, everybody pays for it, everybody. …Nonviolent Communication wants us to be clear, to not respond unless our response is coming out of this divine energy. And you’ll know it is [coming out of divine energy] when you are willing to do what is requested. Even if it’s hard work, it will be joyful if your only motive is to make Life more wonderful. P.21.
RIGHTNESS AND WRONGNESS - FEELINGS AND NEEDS
The beauty of NVC is the focus on connection, even while we humans speak in unconscious judgements, freely offering our opinions, diagnoses, and advice. The life-changing miracle in NVC is Marshall’s focus on translating thoughts, have-to’s and shoulds into learning about and expressing our “Feelings and Needs.” Marshall encouraged us to consciously seek connection by putting our attention on feelings and needs rather than on rightness, wrongness and division. This is the magic of “how” NVC brings people together. Once people can really hear each other’s feelings and needs, NVC skills and consciousness can transform separation and alienation into a willingness to let down walls of disconnection, hear each other and find strategies for resolution.
MBR quote: Long before I reached adulthood, I learned to communicate in an impersonal way… When I encountered people or behaviors I either didn’t like or didn’t understand, I would react in terms of their wrongness.” P.80. “People have been trained to criticise, insult, and otherwise communicate in ways that create distance among people.” P.77. In my opinion, this can stimulate a lot of pain and confusion if it happens in an “NVC learning” environment, because… MBR quote: “In our culture, most of us have been trained to ignore our own wants and to discount our needs.” P.77. Therefore, my request to anyone in an NVC training environment is to consciously check within, asking, “Are my needs for safety, self-care, respect, inclusion, connection, understanding and compassion being fed?” This is urgently important because as Marshall said, ”Our survival as a species depends on our ability to recognize that our well-being and the well-being of others are in fact one and the same.” P.69. “We want to be honest in Nonviolent Communication, but we want to be honest without using words that imply wrongness, criticism, insult, judgement, or psychological diagnosis.” P.79. ”The ultimate goal [of living NVC] is to spend as many of my moments in life as I can in that world that the poet Rumi talks about, a place beyond rightness and wrongness.” P.80.
To start with transparency, Saira and Regina’s Race2Dinner business and their film, “Deconstructing Karen” are in no way claiming any association with NVC. I am simply using this film as a starting point for exploring how NVC, erasing racism and “evolved NVC” work together or not. “Deconstructing Karen” is a film of eight white women paying $250 to have dinner to discuss racism with Saira and Regina as moderators. In this film, what got my attention right away was the use of an icebreaker question, “Raise your hands, ‘Who here is a racist?’”
The concept of discussing racism would indeed align with NVC principles because Marshall asked us repeatedly to find ways to create social change. To Marshall, social change meant World Peace — Peace within oneself and Peace throughout the world. MBR quote: “Speaking Peace is a way of connecting with others that allows our natural compassion to flourish. I’ve found no more effective means of getting to a peaceful resolution of conflict. P.183. “To practice this [NVC] process of conflict resolution, we must completely abandon the goal of getting people to do what we want.” P.184. “…talking about what happened in the past not only doesn’t help healing, it often perpetuates and increases the pain. It’s like reliving the pain….I’ve learned over the years that you heal by talking about what’s going on in the moment, in the now. Certainly it’s stimulated by the past, and we don’t deny how the past is affecting the present, but we don’t ‘dwell’ on it.” P.180.
For transparency and hope for connection, I want to let you know that I too have a serious interest in what I call, “Erasing Racism.” I started by working with the Black community in North Philadelphia in 1965 as a member of VISTA, the domestic Peace Corps, raised my children for a number of years as the only white family in the Black and Brown community in SE San Diego and taught at inner city schools. I have a keen interest in the Brown community as well after living in and studying Spanish in Mexico spanning 50+ years. I cherish Marshall’s urgency for bringing NVC to People of Color (POC.)
USING THE VERB “TO BE”
Back to Racism and NVC: the use of the word racist along with the verb “to be” in the quote, “Who here is racist?” would not fit with NVC for a few reasons. First of all Marshall warned us many times about using the verb “to be” as in saying, “I am a racist or anti-racist.” “You are a white supremacist.” reduces the possibility of bringing people together. MBR quote: “As soon as I’m thinking what this person ‘is,’ it detracts from my ability to purely connect with what they’re feeling and needing. That [to purely connect] requires that I not bring any labels, any diagnosis, to this moment. When we [even] think that way about people, we have jackal eyes.” P.95. ”… I say, ‘What needs of yours are not being met?’ “I’m a failure.” See the difference between the question I asked and the answer I got? —“I’m a failure.” As long as you think of what you “are,” get used to being depressed.” P.136.
He warned us that using the verb “to be” is dangerously static - frozen, unmovable. It tells someone “What they ARE” - often making them wrong about something. NVC prefers wording that invites trust, offers safety, connects us to our shared-humanity and motivates people to live in their hearts. MBR quote: “Never put yourself in any box with the verb “to be.’ That’s too limiting to you as a human being to ever think of what you are.” P.93. I can’t recall seriously learning anything by being told what I am. I’m interested in learning that’s motivated by reverence for Life… And what fills me with great sadness is any learning that’s motivated by coercion. Learning is too precious to be motivated by coercive tactics. P.213
VALUING PERSONAL “AUTONOMY”
Back to the question; ‘Who here is a racist?’
In NVC we do not presume to KNOW how or what someone “is.” We value curiosity and autonomy. We use the power of empathy to help people discover how they might feel and what they might need in any given moment. We acknowledge that we do not KNOW about another person. We can guess when we’d like to know more. Basically in NVC we recognize each person as their own and only authority. NVC does not tell someone HOW, WHO or WHAT they “are.” A core value of NVC is ownership - that each person take responsibility for their own thoughts and actions. By emphasizing ownership and autonomy, NVC makes it easier to find our commonality in feelings and needs. MBR quote: “NVC fosters a level of moral development based on autonomy and interdependence, whereby we acknowledge responsibility for our own actions and are aware that our own well-being and that of others are one and the same.” P.254
“LABELS” AS JACKAL LANGUAGE
In English, it is very common to use labels to speak authoritatively of another person as if we had sovereignty over them. Someone in the film, “Deconstructing Karen” said, “All White people are racist.” I believe Marshall would have considered this “Jackal language.” Jackal language is the language many of us grew up with. It is the language of guilting, shaming, blaming, criticizing, name-calling, judging etc. Unfortunately we are subjected to it all the time on TV and other media, even on programs for children. Blaming, judging and name-calling etc. can be extremely difficult to erase from our way of talking and thinking. While telling someone they are a racist can appear to have a powerful impact, it is NOT what I understand as consistent with NVC. In my experience, it stimulates guilt and shame. MBR quote: “Anger, depression, guilt, and shame tell us we’ve lost connection with Life. We’re not connected to our needs. We’re up in our head, thinking in a way that creates great pain on our planet. P.133 The basic mechanism of motivating by guilt is to attribute the responsibility for one’s own feelings to others. The main thing is that I be conscious that I’m never the cause of the other person’s pain, but I do want to take responsibility for my behavior. P.253.
JACKAL LANGUAGE - ENEMY IMAGES - “US versus THEM”
Jackal language originates in our thinking which stimulates us to see people as “other.” Marshall calls this “Jackal thinking” because it creates enemy images. MBR quote: “Enemy images are the main reason conflicts don’t get resolved. When we understand the needs that motivate our own and others’ behavior, we have no enemies. …It’s getting past the enemy images that’s the hard work. It’s getting people to see that you can’t benefit at other people’s expense. Once both sides get over the enemy image and recognize each other’s needs, it’s amazing how the next part, which is looking for strategies to meet everyone’s needs, becomes pretty easy by comparison.” P.164.
When we speak from the head, our judgements come out and we can easily get caught in an “US versus THEM” mentality. In NVC, we offer empathy to help people translate their (head) thinking to their (heart) feelings and needs. Jackal thinking is not in harmony with NVC principles because it separates and divides rather than increasing connection, cooperation, understanding, and compassion. MBR quote: “When we judge others, we contribute to violence.” P.81. “People who speak jackal are caught in this tragic bind that when they need nurturing the most, they use language almost guaranteed not to get it. P.16. If you’re not really in touch with your feelings and needs, you’re not in touch with Life.” P.17. “Blaming is easy. People are used to hearing blame; sometimes they agree with it and hate themselves - which doesn’t stop them from behaving in the same way - and sometimes they hate us for calling them racists or whatever - which also doesn’t stop their behavior. People do not hear our pain when they believe they are at fault” P.155 “Time and again, people transcend the paralyzing effects of psychological pain when they have sufficient contact with someone who can hear them empathically.” P.176. Note: If you are experiencing psychological pain around the label “racist’ we, First Generation NVCers would like to offer ourselves as a resource for Empathic Presence concerning this pain or other concerns. Contact: First Generation NVCers <firstgennvcers@fastmail.com>
GIRAFFE LANGUAGE - BEING WITH - HEARING NEEDS
In NVC we use what Marshall calls, “Giraffe language” because the giraffe has the largest heart of any land-based mammal. NVC is heart-based versus head-based. MBR quote: “If you have Giraffe ears on, you can’t for one second imagine that you can be the source of another person’s pain. P.15. Giraffes are not nice. Don’t think that to be nonviolent requires you to be nice. Much of the violence in the world is created by nice people who sit back no matter what’s going on. Giraffe requires you to either be expressing your pain or your joy or hearing the other person’s pain or joy. You let it be known. But, you scream in Giraffe, you don’t scream criticism. P.16.
NVC seeks to connect with our shared humanity through the discovery of our universal human needs. MBR quote: “Effective social change requires connections with others in which we avoid seeing the people within these structures as enemies — and we try to hear the needs of the human beings within.. So whatever social change I attempt, if it comes out of an enemy image that certain people are wrong or evil, I predict that my attempts will be self-defeating. P.248
NEED FOR “CONNECTION”
The strategy in NVC is to use whatever we can to bring alive our Presence in order to connect. MBR quote: “People heal from their pain when they have an authentic connection with another human being. P.177. This might mean using self-empathy if we hear difficult messages, simply offering our most conscious Presence or offering to hear that person’s feelings and needs, out loud or silently. MBR quote: “When we are fully Present to another person, there is an extraordinarily beautiful energy that works through human beings that can fix anything. But when we… think it’s our responsibility to fix it, we block that energy. P.159
“We don’t need to talk about what happened. We need to talk about what’s alive in us right now about what happened. That’s where the healing takes place. So the fewer words for the observation the better. The real focus of the message needs to be what’s alive in us right now, our present feelings and needs. P.180. The more you talk about the past, I will suggest, the more it gets in the way of reconciliation and forgiveness. P.181. “I never try to connect a person’s pain to forces outside themselves. I’m gonna connect the pain immediately to a need.” P.113.
NVC offers a heart-full, spiritual connection from my humanness to yours. When offering to connect via empathy, I do my best to get myself out of the way to hear what is alive in you after I have touched in with myself to find what is alive in me. This is about valuing your needs as well as mine. Empathic connection is a way we can use NVC to serve Life. Empathic connection does not require that I agree with you. It doesn’t mean I am obligated to do whatever you request once I have deeply heard your needs either. It is about connecting human to human… simply a “Being With” in an energy of NVC consciousness, compassion and diligent care. MBR quote: “The Presence that empathy requires is not easy to maintain. Instead of offering empathy we tend to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling.” P.118 “The process of Nonviolent Communication helps us to connect with one another so that we come back to what is really the fun way to live, which is contributing to another’s well-being.” P.93
“This being fully present also requires that we clear our consciousness of whatever preconceived ideas or judgements we may have been harboring about the person speaking. I would not want this to sound like I am advocating suppressing or repressing one’s feelings. It is more a matter of being so focused on the feelings of the speaker that our own reactions do not intrude. Even a diagnosis I’ve had of this person in the past will get in the way of empathy.” With empathy we don’t direct, we follow. …just be there. P.117.
“Empathic connection is an understanding of the heart in which we see the beauty in the other person, the divine energy in the other person, the Life that’s alive in them. We connect with it. It doesn’t mean that we have to have the same feelings; it means we are ‘with’ the other person. P.119.
HAVING AN “AGENDA”
When asked by one of the participants in the film, “What are you wanting from us?” Saira’s reply was, “to LISTEN.” At the end of the film, “Deconstructing Karen.” the question was asked again, “Who here is racist?” When each woman raised her hand without hesitation, the comment from Saira was, “We DID it.” To me this implies having an agenda. With all due respects, Saira said they wanted the women to listen, yet there seems to be an element of shared success when the participants instantly acknowledged they were now decisively labeling themselves as racist. I wish I could ask them, “Did you raise your hand because you were convinced to accept this label, afraid NOT take on this label, were believing you had generational guilt or perhaps were even feeling racial shame? MBR quote: “While we may not consider the way we talk to be “violent,” our words often lead to hurt and pain, whether for others or for ourselves. In NVC, all names [in the sense of name-calling] are tragic expressions of unmet needs. An NVCer asks himself when names are coming at him, “What is this person wanting that they’re not getting?” Tragically, they don’t know any other way of saying the need except to call the name.” P.92
Several of the eight participants in the film refused to respond to a request for follow-up. My guess is that they discovered a lingering discomfort in their body about what had occurred. They may not have been able to name it and still I believe it stimulated them to refuse more participation. MBR quote: “We are conscious that we only want people to do things willingly and not do things because they think they’re going to be punished, blamed, guilted or shamed if they don’t.” P.86; “We are led to express ourselves with honesty and clarity, while simultaneously paying others a respectful and empathic attention.” P.5; “Criticism is never honest. The more we use words that imply criticism, the more difficult it is for people to stay connected to the beauty within themselves” P.87
NVC invites us to connect without having any outcome in mind. The intent is to have curiosity so that LIFE can happen between people, whatever that Life might be. To persuade someone to do something, admit something or believe something is considered having an underlying agenda or intention. Arguing, over speaking, persuading or trying to convince, intentional or not, is not within the values of NVC. MBR quote: “If you go into a meeting with people - if you think of them as bad, evil, maintaining the domination structures or whatever - then you’re not going to connect; in a sense you’re part of the problem.” P.248
NOTHING IS MISSING IN NVC
To me, the only person with the authority to alter someone’s life work is the author of that work themselves. People have been “adding on” to someone else’s life work for generations… New religions have branched off of old ones for ages. Each time a group decides they prefer to do someone else’s life-work “better or differently” they become known by giving their group a new name, thereby not interfering or creating confusion with those folks who like the way their group has been existing, whatever it is. MBR quote: “If our objective is simply to change people’s behavior or to get what we want, Nonviolent Communication is not the language for us. P.11.
FYI: I have been an advocate for Sandra Segal’s process called, “Human Dynamics” for years and have used it to build understanding with couples. When I approached Marshall about bringing “Human Dynamics” into NVC, he gave me an adamant, “NO!” He said, “If you want to bring in any other system or process when working with clients do not call it NVC. Offer it in such a way that people clearly know it is NOT part of NVC.” It seems obvious that Marshall wanted us trainers to protect the purity of his life’s work and intellectual property. I am confident about how extremely important this message/strategy is to Marshall because I heard him repeat it many times. I ask you to seriously ask yourself, “If Marshall were alive today, would any “evolving NVC” be happening? Do you honestly imagine that Marshall would support calling people names like racist and white supremacist or even call doing so, NVC? ” I am writing this article to help delineate what carries the consciousness of NVC as I understand it and what does not, in hopes that others will respect Marshall’s wishes.
I feel heartbroken about the seeming confusion that has been stimulated by people who, inspired by their understanding of Marshall’s life-work, have been wanting to morph it into something they call, “evolving NVC” (or ??). My wish/need is respect and integrity. My request to anyone wanting something different than what Marshall offered to us is to use their creative ideas under a name unassociated with NVC. My need is respect and consideration so that Marshall’s work can continue to do the radical and transformative work it has been doing for decades in its uncomplicated form. I sincerely and humbly request that any new group celebrate and honor it’s own uniqueness, so that it too can go forward in the world with it’s own Life-Force, reaching a much larger audience, doing whatever important work it has a need to do.
CONCLUSION
Persuading and convincing are valid and even useful strategies in certain circumstances. As I initially avowed, the film “Deconstructing Karen” is not trying in any way to say it is representing NVC — which I applaud. I also applaud their bravery, their passion, their motives, their herstory and their dedication in trying to bring awareness of systemic racism and request for action to the White community.
My experience with NVC is first that it really IS “Nonviolent” and secondly that it helps people to feel safe, included and heard. I wish Saira and Regina well because we are on the same team as far as Erasing Racism goes — we just use different strategies.
Once more; I have written this article with the intention to add visibility, integrity and clarity to the beauty of NVC, especially in situations where racist labels are being mixed with NVC. I write this with a strong need to protect the consciousness of NVC as a spiritually and heart-based language that has been making my world safer, more nurturing, more joyful and more sweetly precious since 1983. NVC invites me to come from (live in, lift myself to) my Highest Being. MBR quote: “Unless we as social change agents come from a certain kind of spirituality, we’re likely to create more harm than good.”
PS: My bias: I only acknowledge the use of the term NVC as the process of Nonviolent Communication given to us by Marshall Rosenberg PH.D. I respect and honor the life-work of MBR and therefore for me, there is one and only one Nonviolent Communication, AKA: “NVC.”
Request: FEEDBACK TO HOLLEY
If this article has added any support or clarity about how using the word “racist” to label someone does not fit with what Marshall taught as NVC and you feel like sharing, would you let me know in what way it has been valuable to you? Conversely, if you need more information or clarity to follow what I have written or are in disagreement with “racist as a label not being in alignment with NVC,” I am also open to hearing from you if you are willing to use the NVC process of OFNR and do not have any requirements of a response from me. My need as an 82 year old, is to carefully choose where I put my energy and attention. 3
My gratitude to you for reading this in any case.
Holley Humphrey, First Generation NVCer.
Email Holley: First Generation NVCers <firstgennvcers@fastmail.com>
If you would like to take a deeper dive into NVC with First Generation NVCers (those certified before 1990), please consider joining us for our on-line and in-person events. Details are on our website: https://sites.google.com/view/firstgennvcers
**All quotes are from “The Nonviolent Communication Book of Quotes”, compiled by Julie Stiles. My GRATITUDE to you, Julie. I use your book as an MBR resource frequently. BRAVO! This is such a valuable contribution to the NVC community and the world.