White men: time to discover your cultural blind spots | Michael Welp | TEDxBend

White men rarely, if ever, are required to examine their own culture. In this timely and provocative talk, Welp speaks to his own experience becoming conscious of his white male culture, bias, and privilege as key tools to effective partnership across difference.

Michael Welp, PhD. is a cofounder of White Men as Full Diversity Partners (WMFDP). For 20 years, Welp has led pioneering workshops engaging white male leaders to create cultures of full inclusion. He focuses on how to engage white men to become more passionate advocates for inclusion and how they can partner better with people of color and white women. Welp has facilitated interracial team building with over a dozen South African corporations in his work with Outward Bound. His research on how white men learn about diversity led to founding WMFDP. Welp is the author of the recently published book, Four Days To Change: 12 Radical Habits to Overcome Bias and Thrive in a Diverse World.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

In 1990, I traveled to South Africa
as part of my work with Outward Bound.

That was life-changing for me.

Nelson Mandela had just been released
from prison a few months before,

and apartheid was being dismantled.

I worked with mining groups
and banks and other businesses

facilitating interracial
team-building courses,

each lasting eight days.

The mining guys all worked
on the same shifts together,

and yet,

on the same shifts across race,

they never ate meals together,

they never shared the same dorm rooms,

and they never drank beer together.

One white miner’s wife told him,

“If you sleep in the same room
as a black man, I will divorce you.”

We started intensive team activities
minutes after they arrived.

At first, I was inspired and connected

with the black miners
from different tribal groups,

who would always spontaneously sing
and dance around the campfire.

Over time, I found that I had a lot
in common with the white men as well.

They were good guys one-on-one,

and yet, they were part of a system
that was oppressive.

They were in power,
and others conformed to their system.

I found over time

that I had more in common
with the white men

than I was comfortable with.

I looked into their eyes and I saw myself.

I felt compelled to come back to the US
and work with people like me,

other white men.

Back in the US, I spent
seven years researching:

How do white men learn about diversity?

What triggers our awareness

and our movement towards being
advocates for diversity?

In my dissertation research,

I found the white men I studied

learn almost everything
from women and people of color.

They didn’t turn to other white men,

and in fact disconnected
from other white men

and were angry at them.

I was presenting these results
at a national conference

and a black woman stood up,

and she said,

“If that’s the pathway to diversity
for white men, I’m exhausted.”

(Laughter)

“I don’t have the energy
to educate all of you.”

(Laughter)

And she was right!

Another colleague of mine,
also with an Outward Bound background,

Bill Proudman,

had an idea to break that pattern.

He said, “Let’s get in the room
with a group of white guys

and spend four days examining ourselves.

What does it mean to be white
and to be male,

and for many of us, heterosexual?"

We called it a white men’s caucus.

The first white men’s caucus
we did was 20 years ago.

Since then, we’ve done hundreds of them,
with thousands of white men.

Over time, we found that white men
don’t know three things.

One, we don’t know
that we’re part of a group,

and that we have a culture.

Two, we don’t know that others

are having a different experience
in the world than us.

And three, we don’t know

that the process of learning this
is actually life-changing for us,

and we gain so much in the process.

Just to be clear,

white men are not the only people
in the world that don’t know things.

(Laughter)

All of us have learning and work to do

around how to partner
more effectively with each other.

I’m just talking today
about the white-male part of the equation,

which is often not articulated.

So let’s go back to the first thing
that white men don’t know.

We don’t know that we’re part of a group,
and that we have a culture.

When I look in the mirror, I see Michael.

I don’t see myself as a white male.

Others, women and people of color,
may see a white male,

but I just see Michael.

This is partly a result
of how diversity is framed.

When we look at race, for example,
we often focus on people of color.

When we look at gender,
who do we usually talk about?

Women.

When we look at sexual orientation,

we often focus on gay,
lesbian and bisexual.

We don’t examine being white,
or being male, or being heterosexual.

It’s like an invisible part of myself.

I once worked with a SWAT team commander

who came back and said he applied
what he learned the first day on the job.

He was in a situation that usually ends
in a fight or an arrest,

and he was able to avoid both.

Seeing himself and recognizing himself
now as a white male, he realized,

“This stranger does not
know me personally.”

And he didn’t have
to take anything personally.

He shifted from defensiveness to inquiry,

and he was able to take
an explosive moment

and turn it into a moment of partnership.

So white men, we don’t know
we’re part of a group.

We also don’t know
that we have a culture.

We’re like a fish in water.

We rarely have to leave
our cultural waters,

and so we have the least
awareness of them.

The culture, our culture,
permeates our schools, our institutions,

Church, businesses, most places we go.

So we have the least awareness of it.

I love my culture,

and I’ve also come to see
that when I overuse its strengths,

those strengths can become weaknesses.

So what are some of the traits
of white male culture?

One is rugged individualism.

And I love that part of me.

I love that I pull myself up
by my bootstraps,

put my head down and work hard.

It has served me really well.

And I know I can overuse that,
as others can too.

Any of you ever know of white guys

who get lost and refuse
to ask for directions?

Audience member: My dad!

Michael Welp: And that happened recently?

(Laughter)

Just so, I’m modeling white guys.

You can actually read directions here.

So, also, I love the action orientation.

That’s another aspect of our culture.

And that action orientation
is about doing and getting things done.

I like to fix things,
I like to solve problems.

I can also overuse
that problem-solving mindset.

Any of you ever have
to tell your white male spouse,

“I don’t want you to fix this,
I just want you to listen”?

(Laughter)

Anybody hear that? As white guys,
have you ever heard that before?

Also, our culture teaches us

that we can’t be rational
and emotional at the same time.

So we leave our emotionality behind.

Other cultures don’t do that.

When I live in this -
invisible to me - cultural box,

I don’t even think of it as a culture.

I just think of it as being a good human,

or a good American.

And I judge others
by this invisible cultural box,

and that puts them in a place
where they feel judged.

Unconscious bias,
that’s what it is for me,

which is that it’s like a background
operating system on autopilot,

that I didn’t even know
was running in myself.

I might say I’m culture-blind
or I might say I’m gender-blind,

and that I just treat everybody the same.

I don’t realize that others hear that
as having to fit into my cultural box.

And I don’t even know that I’m causing
that assimilation in others.

Others can be frustrated

because they know they have to leave
part of themselves at the door.

And what’s even more interesting
is we do that to ourselves as white men.

We also fit into the cultural box,

and when we do that, we leave
some of our humanness behind.

The second thing
that most white men don’t know

is we don’t know that others are having
a different experience in the world.

Most of us just naturally connect
on sameness and commonality.

In fact, intercultural research shows
that when you engage difference,

most people either deny
or minimize those differences,

and that pattern shows up
for younger generations as well.

And yet, women, people of color and others
have different experiences,

and if I’m only connecting on sameness,

I’m not seeing another part
of their reality.

It’s not that my view
of the world is wrong;

more likely, it’s incomplete.

So, for instance, I don’t have
to think about my own safety.

If I go jogging at night,
most of the time I’m pretty comfortable,

even going alone.

I travel on business a lot.

I arrive late into airports,
and I drive to the hotel.

Sometimes I get lost.

And I’m not too worried about that.

It’s just not easy,

but it’s not unsafe for me,
for most of the time.

Many women would want
to arrive in the hotel before dark,

and would want your hotel room
to be off the ground floor

and not near an exit.

I was traveling with
my business colleague, Bill,

to Kalamazoo, Michigan,

to work with an executive team.

Well, right after I flew
into O'Hare Airport,

thunderstorms closed the airport.

Soon, I found out there were
no more flights to Kalamazoo,

and there were no more rental cars.

Bill’s rugged individualism kicked in,

and he propositioned a taxi to take us
all the way to Kalamazoo.

We got there 2:30 in the morning,
and by 8 a.m. that morning,

we are standing in front
of the executive team, proud,

and talking about how our adventure was
and we were going to get there.

Failure wasn’t an option
in that rugged individualism.

Well, there was one woman on that team.

She raised her hand, and she said,

“I would have never gotten into that taxi
and driven across rural America at night

with a stranger as a taxi driver.

And I would have made up an excuse

so you wouldn’t think
I wasn’t a team player.”

I looked at her, and I looked at Bill,
and I looked at the group,

and I said, “I teach this stuff,
and I’m blind to it at the same time.”

The word “privilege”
is a hard word for us as white men

because we don’t feel privileged.

We actually feel like
we’ve worked incredibly hard

for everything we have.

And I would say
a deeper perspective is, yes,

we have worked incredibly hard,

and there are things that we haven’t had
to navigate or negotiate or think about

that other groups are.

For instance, more examples
of how my life might be different

being heterosexual.

At work, I can have a picture
of a loved one on my desk

and not worry about
what other people think about,

or not worry that it might hinder
my next promotion or get me fired.

As a cisgendered person,

I can go out on the spur
of the moment with friends

and know that I can find
a bathroom that I can use

without being harassed or beat up.

As a white person, at work
people don’t look at me

and think I got my job
because of affirmative action,

and therefore have me feeling
like I’ve got to work twice as hard

to prove I’m qualified.

Or I can easily find mentors
of my race at all levels

in most organizations.

Or I can buy pictures,
postcards, greeting cards

featuring people of my race, easily.

Or I don’t have to have the talk
with my white kids

about how to literally stay alive
if stopped by the police.

So for me, the layers
of privilege go on and on.

Being able-bodied or, I might say,
temporarily able-bodied,

I didn’t have to figure out

how to negotiate my way
through this facility to give this talk.

Being Christian, people know my holidays,
and they align with time off.

So privilege is stuff
that I don’t have to deal with.

It’s not having to navigate
or deal with some of those things.

It’s not something I chose.

And what happens is others assume

we, as white men,
know about our privilege,

and that we see it.

And they assume we just don’t care
or want to hoard our privilege.

So they attribute negative intent
on to that privilege.

When we start to see our privilege
and own our privilege,

it removes the burden from others

to have to educate and prove to us
their different realities are real.

I can use my privilege honorably.

For instance, if I’m in a meeting,

and a woman shares an idea
and it’s ignored,

and a few minutes later
a man repeats that,

I can use my privilege to point out
to my male colleagues

that, hey, that was originally her idea.

If she was to do that, she might be seen
as having a chip on her shoulder

around men.

When we acknowledge
other people's experiences as valid

and let our hearts be impacted
by their experience,

we create more trust and more openness.

I saw this happen in South Africa,
and I've seen it happen around the world.

It's a shift from a partnership
that's based partly on fear

to a partnership based more on love.

Which brings me to the third thing
that most white men don't know.

We think diversity is about
helping other people with their issues.

We don't realize the process
of learning about our culture

and that others are having
a different experience

actually is life-changing for us
and gives us many insights.

For instance, when I discover
my cultural box,

I can continue to use
the strengths of that culture

and I have the choice
to step out of that culture

when it would serve me and others more.

For instance, maybe I want to be
in my head and my heart at the same time.

Maybe I want to be able
to ask for directions,

or ask for help or say, "I don't know."

Maybe I want to be able to slow down

and not try to fix something
I don't understand.

When I show that I'm willing to validate
other people's experiences,

it opens up space for new partnership.

One white man went back
to a black man at work

and shared his learning.

Initially, the black man wasn't open,

but a week later, the black man
came at to the white man,

closed the door, talked for two hours,

and he said,

"In 20 years, no white man
has ever asked me

what it's like to be black
in this corporation."

Another white man went back
to his son and apologized.

The week before the caucus,

his son had come from school bullied,

and he'd told his son,
"Don't cry and suck it up."

Well, during the caucus,

the white man learned
he was just training his son

to be in that white male box.

So he came home and he said,

"I'm sorry I told you
to suck it up and [not] cry.

It's okay to feel what you feel,
and you don't have to do it alone.

You can come to me
and I'll be there for you."

We can have other kinds
of partnerships at work too.

If I offend somebody,
which is going to happen eventually,

I don't have to spend time
defending that I'm a good guy.

I can shift, using humility
and inquiry, and say,

"How did I just impact you?"

That shifts me from a stance
of "it's not my fault"

to a stance of "I'm responsible."

So white men, what can you do
when you leave here today?

One, you can remember and realize
that you have a culture,

and you can start to see it.

You can step outside of it
when that serves you,

and you can notice more
when you impose it on others.

Second, remember that others are having
a different experience than you.

So use inquiry and curiosity

to get their world
and broaden your perspective.

Three years before Nelson Mandela died,
I wrote him a letter.

In it, I said,

"I was astonished to see you
emerge from 27 years in prison

and embrace, from a place of love,
the white men who imprisoned you.

You showed that love
is the greatest force for change,

and I want you to know

that it's the same thread
of love that I carry

that you passed on
to the white men in South Africa."

I ask all of us today
to carry that same thread to others

as you create extraordinary partnerships
with people around the planet.

Thank you.

(Applause) (Cheering)