Stories
Being heard and listening is valuable. Some people get too few opportunities to explore stories of who they are, the places where they live, the changes they have processed and their experience of new arrivals
When space is made for such stories, it can inspire positive change.
Empathy
Holding conversations can provide time and space to discover stories together.
Angela and Ray* shared anecdotes that revealed to them, and others, a strong inclination to reach out to, learn about and empathise with people who are different.
In Angela’s Rotherham neighbourhood, there had been racial tension. But she talked about noticing and helping a young “boy in the front garden, really upset” by a piercing burglar alarm. His family, newly-arrived asylum seekers, had been housed and had no information about the alarm. Angela worked out how to silence it, relieving the child, who had:
come from somewhere war-torn. That brought it all back. He's in this panic state. To give ‘em a house and not care, I thought, that is disgusting.
My Dad fought in World War II and I think that twisted him up to foreigners. A lot of his friends got killed in front of him.
"That's Bang On!"
Ray told stories of division and violence being imposed on people from outside:
It’s older men putting guns in younger men’s hands, has been from year dot.
He also told stories of warmth, captured in responses to an England v. Pakistan Test Match:
There were taxis going around, English flag out one window and Pakistan flag out another. I thought, that’s bang on, that, fantastic!
Ray understood well the challenges of adapting to change; and was delighted to see this sign of optimism:
‘I support Pakistan but I’m English’. Brilliant! We need more of that.
What We Learned
One of the reasons we were invited to work in Angela’s and Ray’s communities was a perceived tension with newer arrivals. The stories that emerged revealed that reality is more complex. New discoveries are happening in people and communities all the time.
Angela wasn’t sure about how her place was changing; she was also compassionate. Ray understood his Dad’s “racism”; he also embraced difference.
* all names have been changed
Sometimes, talking and listening create space for people to notice their story and how they really feel. Changes and revelations can happen during a carefully-held conversation:
What We Learned
One of the reasons we were invited to work in Angela’s and Ray’s communities was a perceived tension with newer arrivals. The stories that emerged revealed that reality is more complex. New discoveries are happening in people and communities all the time.
Angela wasn’t sure about how her place was changing; she was also compassionate. Ray understood his Dad’s “racism”; he also embraced difference.
* all names have been changed
Sometimes, talking and listening create space for people to notice their story and how they really feel. Changes and revelations can happen during a carefully-held conversation:
Moments of Change in Conversation
- People living near Doncaster realised none of them had ever met a Muslim
- Residents in part of Barnsley noticed that violence could exist in their community, just as it could in gypsy / traveller communities, and in many others
- Young people in Rotherham challenged one another about the validity of Stephen Yaxley Lennon’s arguments
Some Moments of Change in Conversations
People living near Doncaster realised none of them had ever met a Muslim
Residents in part of Barnsley noticed that violence could exist in their community, just as it could in gypsy / traveller communities, and in many others
Young people in Rotherham challenged one another about the validity of Stephen Yaxley Lennon’s arguments
Read all four resources in It Comes Up (in conversation) …