Last month, I had the blessing of attending TEDX Toledo - a series of TED style talks by residents and leaders in the Toledo area. Each speaker was given up to 17 minutes to speak on an idea of their own worth sharing with the larger community. And while there wasn't a theme of the day, the speakers all had a few things in common and therefore their talks did weave themselves into a theme. One, they all call the Toledo area home. Two, none of them are what you would consider a majority voice. Whether it was their gender, their ethnicity, their race, their religion, their ability, their age, or a combination of multiple ones of these, each person was somehow in a minority while also being a business owner or CEO, a supervisor or in another leadership role. That combination led to a theme that wove itself through most of the day - othering v belonging.

 

Every person has an innate need to belong. Or put another way, every person has a need to be welcomed as who they are without having to hide, change, or explain away a part of their identity, their history, or their story. Belonging isn't essentially about sameness, it is instead about creating room with a defined "us" for there to be uniqueness and differences while valuing and protecting the inherent dignity and rights of each individual.

 

The opposite of belonging is "othering," or creating a set of parameters for identity within a group that places those who do not fit or meet these paraments outside of the group into a category of "other." Sometimes this occurs naturally when we separate children by ages for sports or have employee only areas, or even when we don't want to watch a sporting event with fans of that "other" team. However, when we start to place people into the category of other so that we can define ourselves apart from them, it becomes dangerous. Because if that separation becomes clearer and the divide wider, it becomes easier to denigrate the other, easier to make decisions on their behalf without allowing or hearing their own voice, easier to pretend they don't exist or matter.

 

One of the speakers was Tim Harrington, the CEO of the Ability Center here in Toledo. I had met him years ago when my mother worked for the Ability Center when I was in high school. As he spoke, he reminded me of the Ability Center's mantra. "Nothing about us, without us." For years the ability center has fought for people with disabilities not only to have a seat at decision making tables, but also a voice and the willingness for others to hear that voice. And having that voice valued and heard is why we a ballpark with some of the best seating for individuals with disabilities in the country.

 

That is one small example of what happens when we make a space to hear and honor another's voice. But to do that, we also have to realize that by welcoming the other, does not have to threaten our own voice, our own story, our own identity. Spending a day listening to voices I wouldn't normally hear in my day to day life and making space for ideas from people who have lived a different experience from me didn't change my identity. It didn't change my past or my story or my own sense of belonging. However, it did open my eyes to helping create spaces whether others can belong and how we can create a community where we celebrate and use our differences to help each other rather than continue to fracture further apart.

 

How can you listen and make space for the voices of others in your life? You might be surprised by what you hear and learn - especially because it might not really be as other as you thought!