Hear Harm

A welcoming city examines how it defends itself from change

I posted some photos in social media earlier this year that reflected a wee experience that made me feel really good. A friend let me know that she was not comfortable with them being public and requested that I take them down. My first reaction (inside) was shame: How could I be so insensitive? Why didn’t I think of that? I’m so stupid, how will I ever have a good friendship when I screw up like this?

My second reaction: It was not my intention to hurt you. This reaction was my defence mechanism, one I often use when someone gives me feedback about how they feel about my actions. These are the words I use to distance myself from the discomfort I experience knowing that I have caused harm to another person. Here’s the catch: Not intending to cause harm does not mean that harm is not caused. I kept that second reaction to myself because she did not need to hear it. Instead, I allowed myself to hear her request: for me to remove the photos from my social media feed.

Defence mechanism

I use “It was not my intention to hurt you” as a defence mechanism when I don’t want to be challenged. I don’t want to experience the discomfort of having to revisit my sense of self, my identity, or having my plans knocked about. Letting in feedback means I will may have to change my assumptions about who I believe myself to be. I defend myself against having to learn and grow, and in doing so allowing others to learn and grow around me.

My third reaction, also to myself: This is a clear request and while I don’t know how to remove posts from social media, I am willing to invest a few minutes to learn how so I can take the action she has requested. It does not matter to me if the photos remain in my feed or not.

My fourth reaction: “I am so very sorry to have caused this upset for you. I will remove the photos this morning, and I will let you know when it is done.”

While the request was easy to accommodate in the technical realm, my emotional reaction was raw and challenging because I felt bad. I did not want to hear that I was capable of acting in a way that caused harm to friends, or that I put friends in the difficult situation of having to tell me I caused harm. It did not square with my sense of self: I am considerate and thoughtful, not a blundering idiot, oblivious to what friends need (and don’t need!!) of me. I was hurting because I hurt someone else.

MY hurt, not my friend’s hurt, triggered the defence mechanism in me.

MY hurt, not my friend’s hurt, triggered the defence mechanism in me. Even when I have a desire to help the people around me have their needs met, my own emotional state and reaction can get in the way. The same thing happens in our cities.

Unmet needs

A welcoming city examines how it defends itself from change. Welcoming citizens and organizations examine how we maintain the status quo by denying that we cause harm — even if not intended.

Two examples…

First, in my city of Edmonton, 53% of LGBTQ youth feel unsafe at school compared to only 3% of heterosexual youth. 44% of LBGTQ youth reported having thoughts of suicide, compared to 26% of heterosexual youth. 50% of LGBTQ students reported participating in self-harming behaviours compared to 35% or heterosexual youth (see Edmonton Community Foundation’s 2017 Vital Signs Report). While we are making efforts, in the form of Gay Straight Alliances in any school where requested by students, for example, we have not created a world safe for LGBTQ students. Most adults don’t intend to hurt LGBTQ youth, but we are. Pretending this is not happening allows the harm to continue.

Second, Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls has taken place and concluded. Beyond the obvious harm to the missing and murdered women and girls, I hear calls for improvement:

• I feel alone without the support of the police to find my mother
• No matter what my mom did, she’s still a missing person
• They lost the police report
• I just walked out of the police station — I felt let down
• The systems in place to serve and protect and help us — what are they doing about violence?
• The RCMP destroyed her belongings before anyone was charged with her death

(For a sense of what took place during the hearing that took place in Edmonton in 2017, I suggest this CBC article: I felt let down.)

The needs of people served by the police were and are unmet. It is not relevant whether the people working to investigate the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls; the harm done needs to be acknowledge. And the practices that cause harm need to be acknowledged and improved.

Citizen responsibility

As a citizen, voter, ratepayer, business owner, community volunteer, I have a responsibility to hear when I have caused harm and — whenever I can — meet the needs of other. But I can only do this if I am capable and willing to hear that others are experiencing harm.

Harm is not decided by the person causing the harm. Harm is decided by the person harmed. It is not up to people in power, or the people causing harm, to decide if their actions are justified. It is up to people in power, or who are causing harm, however, to listen well and allow themselves to be changed by what their hear.

Harm is not decided by the person causing the harm. Harm is decided by the person harmed.

Writer Sarah Schulman offers a vital perspective:

In my experience, it is the person who is suffering who wants things to get better, while the person who is repressing their own conflicts usually wants to be the one to feel better (Conflict is Not Abuse).

To all adults out there: if kids are asking for help and they have an idea about how to help themselves, get yourself out of the way.

To all the non-Indigenous / settler people out there, especially those of us in positions of power: listen well. Notice the power we have by virtue of being white, for example. Look for the biases within us that help us keep our power; just because the systems serve us well in the city (like policing), it does not follow that others are also well served. Our experience is only our experience.

It’s a bold and uncomfortable place to be, acknowledging that we cause harm. Bolder yet: go look for it, meet people with different experiences and accept their world as true, even if it is not recognizable. Welcome that harm happens, and work to improve — to not cause it, to not endorse it or support it and, most importantly, be willing to be changed. This is a good civic practice.

Be willing to be changed. This is a good civic practice.

Reflection

• How do you practice hearing feedback from others about harm they have experienced?
• How do you expose yourself to perspectives different from yours? How have you been changed?