Hijabs, Niqabs And A School Presentation

I decided to repost this article from 2016. I wanted to say thank you for all the positive direct emails and messages since posting in 2016. Many of you asked if I could repost the article as we reflect together on the national Canadian tragedies.

It is my personal bias that extremes make for great news, but the desired outcomes we seek are in the nuance of the systems around us. Understanding 4 key dimensions of those systems can help us to manage the levels of our conversations. To frame our reflection, the 4 key dimensions that I am referring to are institutional (The laws, norms policies), structural (The combination of the multiple institutions) interpersonal (The relationship and dynamics between people as a result of the first two, combined with personal beliefs) and the internalized (The feelings of the individuals about their placement within the systems). 

 If we are speaking to each other from or about different dimensions or levels, we run the risk of getting caught up in ad hominem arguments that attack each other and not the direct underpinning premises of the challenges at hand. This can be satisfying at times, but is often ineffective with regard to attaining new desired outcomes and a better co-created future. 

In the past we were taught only to look at one of the dimensions (interpersonal) to deal with racism. We were taught to instead only focus on meritocracy as our sole measure. While this can be useful, it is still incomplete, because it does not take the other dimensions into account. 

With this as context, the following article was written at the internalized and interpersonal levels or dimensions. 

The original article was written Dec 14th 2016:

I just gave a talk at an elementary school in Toronto. There is something happening in Canada that will be studied in universities around the world over the next 100 years.

As an innovation evangelist and future of education strategist, I help governments, boards, schools and parents understand big changes in the future of education and how they can use thinking frameworks to drive success. Today I am extremely excited to give a presentation at one of the schools in Toronto. Why? This is an area of the city where I lived back in 2001, and it had its share of gang problems. I have not been back since moving out in 2003. This is going to be my chance to “give back” to the community.

I start my morning success habits as I normally do when I have to present. I go for my 5am run and onto the gym. I come back and review my talk. Slides and notes are double-checked. I perform my other success rituals: a 15-minute hot shower to remind me of where I came from and where I am, and a 15-minute mindfulness practice. I put on my best crisp, white shirt and my navy custom-made suit (Empire Custom Suits in Toronto is simply amazing!).

The 40-minute drive to the school gives me enough time to visualize my presentation in detail, seeing every slide and thinking of all the points that I want to share, building the story elements in my mind over and over until I have absolute clarity and automaticity. My presentation is on Google slides, a key drive, the hard drive of my Mac, and on cue cards. I am extremely prepared and feel confident and ready!

I arrive to meet a very pleasant office assistant who takes me to the gym, which has 4 rows of chairs and enough room for 100 people. The principal, a young, black woman who walks with a high degree of confidence and poise, greets me. Shoulders back, astute and all business, she carries a warm smile and friendliness that is rounded out by her professionalism.

The principal discusses the logistics of the morning and informs me that the neighbourhood now has mostly “stay-at-home” moms and it is better for the community to have parent-type events take place during the day. I think little of it and go back to setting-up my presentation. Then it happens — the parents walk in and my perfect plan falls apart.

The first parent is a white male; nothing unusual to me. The second parent is a black male and again, nothing unusual to me. After that, however, the majority of parents are Muslim women, mostly donned in black niqabs and abayas. For those who don’t know, a niqab is a face veil worn with a hijab by women in some Islamic traditions. It is accompanied by a long, loose-fitting and enveloping garment, an abaya, that covers the woman’s body almost completely from head to toe, leaving just the eyes and hands visible.

As this is Toronto, I have seen women in niqabs and abayas before and process it how I believe most people in Toronto do; I chalk it up as “to each his or her own” and “none of my business”. Most people in our big-ish city just go about their business; we walk past each other with a quiet understood notion of “tolerance”. We pride ourselves on embracing diversity.

This, however, is different; this is my business! It is actually my business! I am here to do what I do for a living, which is aggregate social, technological, and academic observations and share, while providing strategies to deal with this convergence. I have done many talks in Canada and typically in business crowds; the audiences have mostly been Canadians of northern, eastern and southern European descent, predominantly male or a mix of mostly male and some female, with a small percentage being from other global descendants. The other typical presentation reality that I have experienced is extremely diverse, where there are people from all over the world and many different walks of life all in one room. When I worked as a teacher, my last class consisted of families that were descendants from 19 different countries. But this audience is different; this is an almost 100% homogenous audience, an audience made up primarily of women in niqabs and abayas, an audience that I have never had to present to before, with people I have never interacted with socially or professionally.

In the next 3 minutes I come face-to-face with myself; for the first time I have to quickly examine my reaction and thoughts in a situation to which I have no schema. As I sit appearing cool and hopefully neutral on the outside, I look down at my crossed legs and realize one leg is shaking uncontrollably. Glancing at the clock, I am down to 2 minutes 57 seconds, I frantically try to identify my thoughts and internal reactions. My first thoughts are tactical in the sense that, as a speaker, I am constantly obsessed with making deeper connections between myself and the audience. 2 minutes 45 seconds to go; tick-tock, tick-tock … where was I? Yes, connections. I do this by looking for cues — in facial expressions, the movement of an eyebrow after a comment, or the relaxing of the shoulders when something resonates, movements in the forehead and mouth, position of hands. There are many gestures that give me clues about my ability to create connections with members of the audience, which is so important. 2 minutes 40 seconds to go; tick-tock, tick-tock. Now, however, I am going to be flying blind; I only have the eyes of much of my audience, which leads to another immediate concern.

Is it ok for me to look into the eyes of a woman wearing a niqab? I am not sure! I have never asked that question before. Remember the “notion of tolerance”? I have heard sensational reports on many news outlets, but no news outlet is a comprehensive, objective information source. I have learned that these outlets are selling the news and I should not expect an objective truth, but more of a product searching for a market. Again, I have no schema and … 2 minutes 36 seconds remaining; tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. I can feel the beads of sweat running down my back. My crisp favorite shirt is now feeling like a waterfall buried out of sight in the South American jungle. My perfect preparation routine now rendered useless as I spiral into a state of panic! 2 minutes 28 seconds remaining; tick-tock, tick-tock. I am starting to worry about the very idea of speaking. Is it ok for me, as a man, to speak to a woman dressed in a niqab? Is it against her religion? Will she get upset? Will her husband get upset? Does she have a husband? The questions rush to my consciousness at an alarming rate; my presentation slides are fading from my mind only to be replaced with fear. Why am I feeling like this? After all, this is my country, right? I am home in my country! Why am I feeling uncertain in a place where I believe that I should have certainty? To be honest I am sure that there was a time when a “Canadian” speaker walked into a room of Polish descendants and felt this way, or a room of Italian descendants and felt this way, or a room of black Caribbean descendants and felt this way. Focus Dwayne focus your time is very short before “go” time.

2 minutes 10 seconds to go; tick-tock, tick-tock. The principal speaks to the audience but I can’t hear her at this point as I am lost traveling down my mind into a realm of uncertainty, panic, and fear — an illogical fear that I would never admit to anyone. After all, I pride myself as an extremely open-minded guy, I mean, I have muslim friends right? I am a (young-looking) black male so I can fully empathize with the feeling and effect of being judged by my appearance, and the fear that is sometimes created in the minds of others if I walk by with my hood up on a winter night. But now here I am, dazed and confused. I am struggling to keep my brain functioning to the front in the prefrontal cortex as my mind is attempting to drift into the fear and flight responses of the amygdala in the limbic system. Is that right or is it the other way around? Focus Dwayne Focus. Be mindful.

Ahh yes! There it is, like a flash! All of a sudden, time is slowing almost to a standstill. I look around and realize the unique nature of the moment. There is a black female principal, who is the head of the school, a group of veiled, Muslim women, part of the broader Islamic faith, and myself a (young-looking) black male in a custom-made suit. This is a juxtaposition of world views, of stereotypes, of possibilities. This moment is extremely unique and there is a strange beauty and elegance to it. These women have come to the event, they saw me and they remained. They have come to learn something from a different perspective, a different viewpoint as they too deal with their cultural, sub-cultural and personal realities in a new geographical space and culture. My self-imposed question about me speaking to a woman in a niqab was based on premature conclusions around the illusion of monolithic imaginings, a social construction of deep complexity that was created to loosely and imprecisely describe an observed social phenomenon. A religion, collection of cultures and sub cultures that I know very little about.

I am remembering that as humans we desperately look for patterns to free up processing power in our brain. Recognizing patterns is extremely important to our species. However, the danger in this is that often we have a tendency to stop short of deeper exploration and come to a premature conclusion that we know is premature but fight against, because it is really hard to deal with looking for deeper understanding. In finding a deeper meaning we are challenged to create a shift in how we think the world is — very difficult indeed. I am learning something from a different perspective, a different viewpoint, as I deal with my cultural, sub-cultural and personal realities. I must deal with the tempting but incomplete monolithic construction right now.

Another realization hits me. My needing to see the rest of their faces is set in a series of patterns and habits that I have created to help me make sense of the world. The niqab and this presentation has broken that pattern, which was a keystone habit that I learned to develop as a child. In this moment, I am forced to learn something new: to connect with just the eyes and look for even more subtle cues of connection to the audience. The idea of this is extremely challenging and creates a high level of excitement. I am placed in a position to learn something unique and to collectively create something new with each member of the audience.

My audience and I are part of a social experiment that Toronto, Canada, has been working on for decades. Within the moment I start to see the opportunity and the singularity of what I am witnessing. Many parts of the world wrestle with the idea of large streams of immigration, wrestle with the question of how the different cultures will integrate with one another and how they will impact one another; here at this little school, in this moment, I see a reality that answers many of those global questions. The school is thriving, the head of it is a black woman, many of the teachers are white and from different cultures and religions, and many of the students are Muslim and new to the country — yet, here it is somewhat working. Not a perfect solution, but making the hard progress needed. 

There is a sort-of social compromise, a negotiation as different realities meet and start to create something that has aspects of each, but is something that is different from its individual components. The reorganization of systems. People coming from other places are no longer exactly the same as when they left, once they arrive. People from receiving places like Canada are no longer the same as before the new Canadians arrived. This truth cannot be denied; however, as you watch our children you see that some new social phenomenon is forming with a massive potential to be more inclusive and creative, having key elements of the past and new elements for the future. There is a subtle beauty in this, a historical and evolved elegance.

30 seconds to go; tick-tock, tick-tock. The waterfall running down my back stops, my foot stops shaking, my slides start to return to my imagination and I am calm again. But now I am experiencing happiness for honestly facing myself, my biases and my misconceptions. Have I expelled them all? No, but I am aware of my premature conclusions and can deal with them as they arise, from an honest place and not a contrived, politically-correct place. I have an opportunity to look and connect more deeply. 20 seconds to go; tick-tock, tick-tock. I decide I am not going to be overly sensitive; I am going to speak my truth and present from an authentic place. I am not going to be guarded; I am going to share parts of myself as a first move to connect not with a monolithic group, but with individuals in the audience that have layers of unknown complexity. I am going to share what it is that I came to share. From this experience I am also going to learn. I am not sure what I am going to learn, but I am going to keep my eyes open for it. Learning something new as an adult can be terrifying (Ever seen an Ontario grade 6 EQAO standardized test question? As an adult it is humbling!) I am not certain about this approach in terms of how it will be received, and there is a chance I will stumble and be offensive, but I owe it to myself and to the audience to meet them from an authentic and somewhat vulnerable place, where I face my fears, deal with my shortcomings, and realize there is a lot that I don’t know about this current evolving social reality and neither does my audience. However, there is a beauty and elegance to moments like these because of the hard global questions they answer, because of the opportunity they give us to grow personally into the type of person that we would like to meet, because they help us to raise our children better than we were. 

I went on to give the presentation from that excited and authentic place, and connected with my audience by sharing parts of my past experience as a teacher, a strategic planner, an executive director scouting for future technologies for the Fortune 500, a VC partner at a secondary fund, and an entrepreneur who had failed and been successful. I shared experiences as a father and a husband. At the end I asked for questions, and the room was silent. Then suddenly, it happened; after saying thank you and closing out the presentation, many people left but a few came back to ask questions, share experiences, and then a few more after that, and a few more after that. I stayed back speaking with returning parents for almost 60 minutes!

Lots of parents later connected with me via email as well. It’s a start! They learned something new and I learned something new. The experience has changed our lives forever.

This is the end of the original article. 

Over the last few days many Canadians have reflected on the soul of our country and the stories that we were told about who we were in the past, who we are now, and how all of this came to be. Many voices have been left out and the effects of that have been fatal and detrimental to personal and national prosperity. 

Extremes make for great news story drama, but the desired outcomes we seek are in the nuances of the systems and semiotic structures we use to inform them. 

Moving forward our children need to see and understand systems and semiotics. One of the biggest challenges of dealing with these systems today is that many can’t see the dimensions or edges of the systems. We were not taught to see how semiotic structures act as a filter to create our inter subject realities. Many sense something around them, but it’s hard to get an eagle’s eye view if you have not been taught to see from above, so we get stuck in tactical one dimension only conversations, policies and initiatives that focus on the two dimensions of the interpersonal and the Internalized.  

While these dimensions are important, they are just 2 dimensions and alone cannot create the changes we seek. After all a two wheeled BMW, is in fact a BMW, but regardless of how amazing all the parts are, if two wheels are missing, it will be ineffective in getting us from point A to point B. Are we preparing students for 2019 or 2030?