Acceptance is not endorsement
We’ve been talking and thinking a lot about change recently, both within the team at CCI and with our clients. DEI is, to us, inherently about change, not for the sake of change, but in order to shift towards equity and inclusion.
Change work, however, by necessity involves grief work, which by necessity involves acceptance work.
It seems paradoxical that change work would involve acceptance work.
Isn’t change the opposite of acceptance?
I don’t see it that way, because acceptance is not endorsement, at least the way I define it.
Acceptance doesn’t mean you like it, agree with it, are ok with it, or are ok with it staying that way.
Acceptance means that you acknowledge and are willing to work with what is as the basis and starting point for change.
Acceptance means being willing to acknowledge and work from the truth.
Acceptance means being willing to step out of denial and see things as they are SO THAT you can shift towards how you wish things to be.
We need the realists and we need the dreamers, and we can and must if not do both, then at least hold space for both.
I liken it to having a map. You can’t get to where you want to go if you don’t know where you are.
However, it’s not as simple as it sounds.
White supremacy culture is built upon the lie that white people are superior. In fact, the very concept of whiteness was constructed in order to perpetuate this lie and the advantages in power and capital that could be upheld as a result. While many well-meaning white as well as BIPOC people, certainly of the “liberal progressive” variety, likely genuinely abhor this lie, our systems still uphold and perpetuate this idea. The advantages and disadvantages that result are real, tangible and well documented.
It doesn’t take racist people to uphold a racist system.
But we can’t dismantle something we can’t even acknowledge or accept as what is.
A lot of our work involves uncovering the truth. It takes uncovering the truth about dominant culture to uncover the truth about what is really going on in an organization that is causing inequity and disproportionate harm for some more than others.
It means discovering over and over that we have a faulty map and having to redraw and reorient ourselves to a newer and deeper understanding of reality in order to chart a sustainable path forward.
The truth is painful but it will set you free. It’s a cliche but I’ve found it to be true.
I’ve also found it to be true that, in the context of the workplace, the truth often has to be discovered incrementally. That’s where patience comes in. Organizations and the individuals within them are rarely able to handle the whole truth all at once. That’s not to say that a scorched earth approach isn’t sometimes necessary, but generally, grief and change are processes that take time.
What truth are you avoiding? What are you gaining from avoiding it? What could you gain from confronting and accepting (not endorsing) it?
Banner image by Unsplash+ in collaboration with Getty Images
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