Sharing the Same House

?Looking ahead from Black History Month 2024??

In the 20+ years that I have lived in the United States, I’ve come to understand some key differences between American society and the African community where I spent my childhood. I am thinking, in particular, about how we experience race and class.???

In my city neighborhood in Togo, there was a rich-poor spectrum similar to towns in America, but unlike in America, everyone shared a proximity of experience. My family was well-off and enjoyed comforts like indoor showers and air conditioning that many of our neighbors lacked. This disparity was not hidden from me but was a presence in my daily life.??

Here’s what that looked like. When I stayed over at friends’ homes, we all walked together to the well to fill water buckets for bathing. I ate in their kitchens next to the sparse cupboards, and I played soccer barefoot in our unpaved streets because many of my teammates lacked the money for shoes. At school, kids from rich or poor families sat next to each other and built friendships. Some of my own classmates could afford only one meal per day; we banded together and pooled our pocket money to make it through the day.??

This shared experience showed me the adversity my fellow citizens, my neighbors, my friends and cousins lived with. It also gave me a truer picture of the economic and social dimensions of my own country.???

Over time, I came to understand that most Americans don’t get an opportunity to have this experience. Much of America is segregated by race and stratified by class. Some of this is the result of historical and systemic practices like redlining, which kept loans and resources away from communities of color. Some of it is self-selected where people want to live in the neighborhood they grew up in or choose communities that look like them. But the result is that much of America has little shared experience with their fellow citizens outside of their own demographic. They have gone to different schools, lived in separate neighborhoods, and had different experiences.??

Not only do we not share in the lived reality of other Americans, but we may not even be aware of it—and that gives us an incomplete understanding of our own country.? I include myself here. I am an American citizen now but I have a lesser understanding of the country where I live than the one I left more than 35 years ago.?

I’ve been thinking about all this as I reflect on Black History Month. A country’s history is a unifying force for its citizens and gives us a foundation for making progress. I recall the great advance in racial consciousness that took place after the murder of George Floyd. Floyd’s killing was one of those rare instances where all of America saw the same thing – we all lived it together. The result was not just outrage but an outpouring of empathy for Black people and a genuine desire by individuals and corporations alike to do more to change these adversities.??

I believe humans have an enormous capacity for caring for one another, even for people we don’t know. But often that empathy is activated only when we personally witness the suffering ourselves. Floyd’s murder activated the hearts of Americans the same way living in integrated neighborhoods did for me growing up and still today ‘activates’ my quest to help in Togo.?

So what happens when we all do not see the same thing? The U.S. today is even more polarized, to the point of separate groups having their own sources of information and versions of truth.? In these divided states of America, how can we activate the empathy necessary to continue to make progress?? What are the necessary components to moving forward????

I think about the approach that journalist Isabel Wilkerson discusses in Caste, her Pulitzer Prize-winning account of social stratification in America. She talks about America being like an old house, beloved and beautiful, but with buckles in the joists and cracks in the foundation. She advises us to be honest in our assessment of the house, but without focusing the conversation on blame or guilt. None of us was here when the house was built. But we all live here now,? and we have a stake in making it better.? And we understand—or should understand—that structural issues are the most serious, deserving of the most urgent attention and providing the most long-term benefits.??

As a businessperson, I note that businesses are, for the most part, very good at doing this.? A smart business is able to assess prior strategies and actions and dispassionately analyze what has worked and what has not. It is able to focus its efforts on a defined goal and use performance indicators to drive change and improvements. That is literally what businesses do week in and week out – and that’s what drives advances in quality and productivity and innovation over time.???

In other words, a business is able to evaluate its own past and present in a way that is best suited for moving into the future. This ability is one of the things that makes American business and technology so outstanding; we have been willing to replace the good with the better.???

I am not sure America will ever be a place where all classes and races live in close enough proximity that we understand the experiences and struggles of our fellow citizens. But we can take the approach of business, which is to dig deep, do our research, be clear-eyed about the realities, impatient with imperfections, and eager to make improvements, even when big and structural.????

These are some of my thoughts as I look ahead from Black History Month 2024.? In considering the future of our American house, I note that the first Black History Month was designated 48 years ago in 1976. The designation was made in the year of the nation’s bicentennial, celebrating our first 200 years as a nation -- an unmistakable symbolic statement that Black history and American history were linked together as one.???????