But Also Red and Blue!

Photo credit: Malii Watts Carolyn (NYC, 2017).

A client has developed a fun assessment that paints the picture of a person into 3 primary colors: Red, Blue and Green!
 
By far, my primary color is Green. Which is code for a person who has a number of exceptional qualities—that can also be experienced less positively by others.
 
I’m a fan the Diversity Icebreaker®—both the product and the process built around it—because it helps workplace groups do better what they do together by simplifying inherent differences. In processing the learning, we reveal new models of work relationships that work to produce profit in ways that match our values. I’m excited to lead a workshop centered on the tool this month!
 
’But Also Red and Blue!’ acknowledges that each of us is more than one identity.

​What if the core identity among us all was collective; that if we are anything, we are One? The motivating force behind the practical work I do with organizations to advance the power of shared purpose is rooted in this principle.

I remembered this idea when reviewing an updated version of my so-called “DNA Story” this week. Apparently, my genetic info actually determines that I am 12% Irish/Scottish/Welsh (previously 13% when first tested in 2016), 16% British (previously 2%), 16% Beninese/Togolese (previously 4%) and 35% Cameroonian (previously 18%).
 
What does this mean? First, the “Kiss Me, I’m 13% Irish” t-shirt that I had made before traveling for work assignment in Dublin is no longer accurate.

Second, it turns out that the ex-boyfriend who moved on because I was not Cameroonian like him underestimated by bloodline.

And, identity is relative.
 
What if the core identity among us all was collective; that if we are anything, we are One? The motivating force behind the practical work I do with organizations to advance the power of shared purpose is rooted in this principle.
 
Though I have some reservations about NPR, I recently listened to an interview of a medical anthropologist[i] who cautioned that “taking what’s a really small behavior and turning it into an identity” can be “really dangerous.”
 
When asked why, she added that, “When something becomes part of your identity, it could be really hard to let go of it. It could be really hard to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to change my mind,’ because it’s so much part of what’s been defined as the core value of your community.”
 
Identity is flexible, changing, contextual—and serves us when we think and act accordingly.
 
A well-known mid-century novelist-playwright-activist teaches us through his legacy and his writings that, “Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one’s nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one’s nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one’s clothes.[ii]”
 
The author of these words, James Baldwin, was himself considered an influential emigrant writer, having departed his native land to gain perspective on his identity as a Black person and a gay man.
 
Call to action: Let’s open real conversation. Let’s strategize about our shared identity—across the differences—that advance our organizations, and the risks that are worth taking in order to reach world-class results.
 
Click here to book your 20-minute initial consult with me—free of charge and without obligation.
 
Virtually yours,
Malii Watts Carolyn


[i] “Medical Anthropologist Explores ‘Vaccine Hesitancy’” as heard on NPR’s All Things Considered program (Feb. 13, 2019).

[ii] From The Price of the Ticket: Collected Non-Fiction, 1948-1985 by James Baldwin.