Learning to respect differences, hmmm.  This is something that has been bothering me for some time.  Specifically within the world of powerlifting.  As you may or may not know, I'm a social worker and a therapist.  A giant part of my job is respecting cultural differences between myself and my clients.  Just because I feel a certain way about something does not give me the right to impose my opinions or judgements on someone else.  Instead, I listen and gather information, ask questions, and we tend to meet somewhere in the middle, with my understanding and theirs.  From there, I can help guide them to making decisions, etc.  Imagine if I didn't ask questions and just assumed that they were exactly like me? What a disaster.

Anyway, I thought about writing this for a while and I've gone back and forth with how to approach it, and I think I've finally got something good for you.  I'm going to talk a lot about culture, and while it may not make sense to use that word at the moment, I think you're going to see the relevance rather quickly.  When thinking about culture the first thing that comes to mind certainly isn't powerlifting.  But, I'm here to hopefully help you assholes become better people. Let me preface by saying: I am not a saint, I am human, and I'm not better or worse than you.

At my agency I've been tasked with creating a cultural competency training with my co-worker.  This immediately made me uncomfortable. What do I have to offer in this area? I'm a 24 year old, middle class, white woman from the suburbs.  And then, through discussion, I realized, what better person to educate about the topic, than me.  In fact, due to cultural differences, I think it's quite effective that the information come from me.  Not because I know everything, but because it shows I have much to learn, and while I certainly may never be "culturally competent", it's important to role model how to break through cultural barriers.

So, first, what even makes up culture?  Everything.  Of course the basics, gender, ethnicity, socioeconmic class, religion, all of those things.  But what you might not realize is that your upbringing, family dynamic, education, friends, sports, career, etc. ALL make up your "culture" as well.  So, powerlifting has it's own culture, does it not? Which you then incorporate into your personal culture, which then makes up who you are as a human.  I think in terms of powerlifters, ya'll tend to forget about all of the other things that make you who you are, or maybe you don't, I wouldn't really know honestly.

At this point I am pretty removed from the powerlifting world that I was once completely immersed in, and let me tell you I have never felt more free.  To watch you guys tear each other down, writing articles bashing or making fun of other groups, seeing people post Facebook status' about the rude comments they've received, etc. is just sad. This goes for humanity in general too, what was the latest?  Lady Gaga being called fat or something?  Good God.  And then you all want to post about your opinions, and then someone gets mad or disagrees, and then here we are in a downward spiral.

Listen.  Clearly people have blatant disregard for others.  I am in no way supporting this, as it's unkind and has a negative affect on others, so this message is for all of the internet trolls too. But, imagine a world where we all could respect each others differences and point of view.  I wonder what that would be like.  I'm going to bring up race for a second, because I can and because I think it's an awesome example.  I was talking with a co-worker about race, regarding this cultural competency training, as she is black and I am white, and we got into a really good conversation about individual experiences.  It went something like this:

If someone asked me, a 24 year old, middle class white woman from the suburbs if racism still existed, I would say something like, well not really.  Because I mean maybe in some instances, sure, but overall I like to think that we as a society have overcome this.  BUT, if you ask a 30-something, black woman from the city about her personal experience with racism, she will say it is alive and thriving.  And we an disagree and I can bash her and we can get into this whole argument, OR, I can listen to her experiences and be open and we can have a great dialogue.  I chose #2 obviously, as I am eager to learn about other's experiences in the world.

It was after this conversation, and many more like it, that I realized something about humans as a whole.  We all want to believe that our point of view is right, that what we think and believe about the world is "right", but what if we could all accept that it's not.  The way you perceive the world and the people around you has EVERYTHING to do with your culture, how you grew up, what you were taught, your experiences.  Some of those things, your beliefs, are there to protect you, some of those things aren't necessarily true.  If you've always been in the same environment and experienced the same things, you create generalizations; sometimes these help you, sometimes these hurt you.  Generalizations form judgements, judgements form bias, and bias then has the ability to translate into discrimination.  But I hate that word, so let's just say it turns into you treating other people like shit, and the worst part is, you might not even know you're doing it.

In my initial interview with Elite FTS last March I brought up self-awareness.  Not that I am the most self-aware human on the earth, because I'm certainly not, but because I believe it's SO important to have a handle on why you do the things you do and why you are the way you are.  THIS, this topic, has so much to do with that.  I challenge you all, I mean really challenge you to start thinking about things before you post them, before you say them, etc.  Why do you feel so strongly about it?  Whatever it is that bothers you about a group of people or a person, really examine that.  If you're outraged by an overweight woman in powerlifting, or the woman who has, in your opinion, taken too much gear and isn't feminine anymore, etc etc. take a deeper look at that. These are specific to powerlifting, but let's take it a step further, when you're out in public and something about another person disgusts you or you feel the need to make fun, pay attention to that.  Or maybe it's simply you making a generalization or assumption about something you see. It's your own shit. It's the way you perceive the world and what you think is right or should be, but what you fail to realize is that we are all human, we are all different, and we all have different reasons for doing the shit we do.  Respect the differences.  I'm not saying you have to agree, I'm not saying you have to be friends.  Be open to learning about why someone is the way they are, chances are they're going to surprise the hell out of you, as your perception may be "off".  It is not someone's responsibility to explain themselves to you, it's your responsibility as a human to learn about people, ask questions, get to know someone etc.  There are so many tiers to this and I think I could literally go on for days and go even deeper into the whole culture thing, but I'll keep it simple for now.

Everyone has bias, everyone makes judgements and generalizations.  The question is, do you know where those are coming from?  If you do, can you put them in check, push them to the side, and be willing to learn from someone else?