Joe Biden is now the President of the United States. We’ve been talking about joy on the Wake Up Call, and I’m personally feeling quite a bit of joy right now, knowing we have a person who, to me, is competent and compassionate, leading the U.S. And that we have a woman as second in command. A Black and Indian American woman. It’s something I always hoped I’d see in my lifetime, but wasn’t sure I would. Especially after 2016. So I’m feeling a lot of joy right now.
And I want to point to Biden’s messaging yesterday, at the inauguration, on Unity, because I think unity, which I agree with him is illusive, also really does point at joy.
Here on the Wake Up Call I often talk about “othering,” because we do so much othering in the law, and so a lot of you know what I mean: seeing the other side or opposing counsel or the other party as different, the problem, not worthy of our consideration, not even really worth understanding. Or even more powerfully, seeing the other side as the enemy.
I’ve done this myself. I’ve said disrespectful things about opposing counsel. I’ve taken the side of public defenders in seeing DAs as the problem. I’ve seen ICE as the problem. In the corporate realm, I’ve heard friendly rivalry between firms sound an awful lot like unfriendly rivalry - like ill will - and joined in that ill will my fare share myself back in the day. We grow up in an adversary system – we are quite frankly taught to other, almost as a matter of professional competence.
And of course we don’t have any corner on this market in the law. It’s ubiquitous: one professional dissing another, one profession dissing another, lawyers getting dissed in general, little kids, teenagers, adults saying terrible things about other people – “other” being the operative word. My old friend who used to take the old etiquette adage and turn it around and say, “If you can’t say anything nice about someone, sit by me.”
And all of this is just the ways we overtly other. There are also the ways we either covertly or unconsciously see others as different, difficult, the problem, not worthy of our time, our understanding.
Othering – the unwillingness or the inability, on a conscious or unconscious level – to see one another, and especially that unwillingness or inability as it relates to your out-groups – the groups you consider are not “yours,” like DAs if you’re a PD, or ICE attorneys if you’re an immigration attorney, or Black if you identify as white or white if you identify as a person of color – the unwillingness or inability to have curiosity about everyone, including those in your out-groups, to have compassion for one another – this is what begets racism, nativism, sexism, religious hatred, and all of the ways we look at another human or group of humans and say, out loud or to ourselves, they aren’t worthy of my consideration. It’s not the only thing that begets these difficulties but it’s one thing. It supports white privilege, white supremacy – maybe it’s the foundation of white supremacy – and as a mindfulness practitioner, you can feel in your body how “othering” feels, and how it pulls you away rather than brings you closer to other people, especially those in your out-groups, your “others.”
I want to give you a personal example of this that I’ve realized recently. I’ve been sitting with a small, Jewish group exploring white supremacy and Jewish identity, and realized that in my family – and others in our small group had a similar realization – that it seems like it was a relief, two generations back, when Jews began to be considered white, because then we ceased, in some instances anyway, to be considered “other.” Of course there are still people in this country and elsewhere who don’t know any Jews or many Jews and might – for that reason or for other, more nefarious reasons – see Jews as “other.” But because Jews are mostly, right now anyway, in the US where I live, considered “white,” I feel relatively safe showing up as Jewish most of the time – safe that most of the time, I won’t be “othered.”
So unity: if I’m understanding President Biden, he’s not saying our goal is to not see our differences, not be members of in-groups and out-groups. He’s a devoted Catholic and I have to imagine he sees that other Christians, and Jews, and Muslims, and Hindus and Buddhists and people following or inspired by Indigenous religions and spiritual paths, are different. Instead, what I think he’s saying is that unity is about honoring, showing curiosity about, and ultimately bridging those differences.
Law Professor Rhonda Magee writes in her wonderful book, The Inner Work of Racial Justice, about how two of the most foundational elements of mindfulness, insight coupled with compassion, which she calls ColorInsight, can support us in seeing our differences and then caring about one another in the midst of difference: staying awake in the midst of difference, staying curious to what we see and hear and come to know and understand about one another; staying kind, no matter what. The elements of ColorInsight are, (1) the desire, will, and courage to turn towards race and racism and really look; (2) developing a deep, nuanced, capacity to perceive and understand how race and racism operate in our lives and the lives of others; (3) deepening our ability to be with others as they engage in this exploration as well, without judgment and pointing towards healing; and (4) doing this not only for our own benefit but also to heal racism in the collective, systemic sense.
I love this model. And, I wonder if unity might not look a lot like ColorInsight expanded and applied to all of the ways we “other.” The ways we lawyers “other” in the adversary model, but also as human beings, in terms of the ways we “other” in general: in term of immigration status, sexual preference and orientation, religious affiliation. Gender. National origin. Privilege and lack of privilege. Class. Caste. Political affiliation.
And I wonder: what if what’s needed for unity – and it feels to me like this is what’s needed, is simple – simple but not easy: insight plus compassion – perceiving and understanding our own biases, developing a deep and nuanced ability to understand those biases, nonjudgmentally and kindly supporting family, friends, and colleagues as they do that same work, and pointing, always, in the direction of not only individual, but also of collective and systemic, healing and liberation?
And if so, we can start today. Or as my teacher, James Baraz said in the first meditation I ever heard him lead, in 1993: we can begin now. And now. And now. We can start – and RE-start, the practice of insight plus compassion, in each moment. Becoming more and more interested in one another, curious about one another, compassionate towards one another. And maybe, just maybe, more unified, in an illusive kind of way.
