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Do You Feel Invisible?

NOTE: Jim Morris provides today’s inspiring blog story with personal insights regarding a yes response to the question, Do You Feel Invisible? 

Jim Morris has been leading and working in purpose-driven organizations his entire career. Jim now works with leaders to develop and hone their inclusion skills, while helping their organizations make sure their work sticks at a systemic level. He facilitates, speaks, and writes extensively on the topic, and delivers workshops and keynotes to corporate audiences globally.

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Do You Feel Invisible?

Jim’s Story: Becoming Invisible ~ What Being a Cancer Patient Taught Me About Privilege

I grew up in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. Our neighborhood was full of people who looked like my parents and me. Only 10 miles from the U.S. Capital, I remember learning there were two main groups of people and that they were in “parties,” which didn’t make sense to me: Republicans and Democrats. I started to learn about privilege when it was pointed out to me that I was white. I also learned that some of my schoolmates’ fathers had been indicted in the Watergate Investigation. I was told not to ask them about it because doing so was impolite. 

In the opposite direction, heading towards Route 1 was a small community. It was where almost all of the black children who attended my school lived. I asked my mother why the kids who looked like me lived all over the area, yet all the black kids mostly lived in one neighborhood. 

“Why is that?” I asked, and she said, “Because we’re white.” she answered, “It’s not as easy or as safe for their parents to live where we live; many of them don’t have as much privilege as you do.”

At an intellectual level, it took me the next 20+ years working with kids from different races, ethnicities, and cultures to fully understand what my mother told me. 

It was another 20 years before I finally understood what privilege or systemic advantage was at a visceral level. It happened when a lump in my throat turned out to be cancer. 

As we rushed to begin treatment, I had only a few days to contemplate the end of me before my dual treatment of chemo and radiation went into high gear. As I learned to deal with waves of nausea, mouth sores, and a permanently sore throat, I held on to the words of my radiation oncologist as he looked down my throat that first day and said, “Oh yeah, I can stop this cancer.” 

I’ll never forget the feeling of going for a 25-mile bike ride with my friends the day before chemo started, only to discover I didn’t have the strength to make it to our mailbox the day after that first treatment. I then realized how much I had taken my well-body privilege for granted. I finally began to develop an empathetic understanding of a whole other world that many people live in for a lifetime. 

Even more revelatory was the awareness that my not being well resulted from a tangible physical ailment. At the same time, millions of people experience a lifetime of disadvantage due to nothing more than a shared mental mindset and a culture that upholds it. 

I was ashamed to discover the symbolic pink elephant of racism, sexism, ableism, and heterosexism (to name a few) that I had been aware of but was largely invisible to me for my entire life. And now the importance of the question, do you feel invisible, and the answer was evident.

Now I was the guy without hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes. But I did have yellow and drawn skin on display that people tried not to stare at in the grocery store. I suddenly noticed all the people who looked like me also had some other visible physical condition or ailment. I remember thinking, “Where did all these sick people come from”? They had been there all along but had been invisible to me. 

In 2020, the DEI firm I worked for came under scrutiny when the President issued an Executive Order banning federal contractors and agencies from teaching their employees about privilege, sexism, racism, whiteness, or bias. They named a little-known academic theory the culprit of our curriculum: critical race theory (CRT).

We knew so little about CRT that we had to hire experts to teach us what it was so we would know what we were being accused of teaching. It turned out to be a brilliant strategy: use a credible-sounding but unfamiliar word trio (critical-race-theory) as the anchor to make false claims about how teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion and the actual history of discrimination and racism in the U.S. Label it as un-American, unpatriotic, divisive, and psychologically damaging for students of all ages. Outlaw it.

The Order felt like a gut punch. Ten years after my cancer “learning experience,” I finally found my voice and learned ways to help others like me move from passive agreement or resistance to active participation. 

More gut-wrenching was watching the reaction of colleagues who were people of color.

They hadn’t chosen to learn about diversity, equity, and inclusion; because of the color of their skin. But learning about it was essential to their survival. And now their President was telling them to stop talking about their lives – their real experience – as if they were invisible. By then, I knew something about what it was like to feel invisible.

The same people who crafted the original strategy came out with a field guide in 2021 to help supporters of the plan disrupt meetings, challenge school curricula, and call into question references to difference, bias, civil rights, or discrimination everywhere. Remarkably, no one had developed a field guide or resource to counter their false claims (gaslights) or coded language meant to throw people off (dog whistles).  

Visit:  “Gaslights and Dog Whistles”

Until Now

In July of this year, we finally filled the void with the release of “Gaslights and Dog Whistles – Standing Up for Facts Over Fiction in a Fearful and Divided World.” The book guides people who believe that racism and sexism aren’t the random act of people with ill intent and that hate and bias exist in the policies, structures, and practices of some elements of U.S. culture. It explains how to counter the claims of those who answer yes to the question, do you feel invisible?

In Conclusion: Do You Feel Invisible?

It’s time for each of us to ask and answer the question, ‘Do You Feel Invisible?’ We learn some things in life that we can never unlearn. My privilege and my blindness to my privilege are one of those things.  

To paraphrase my Oncologist, ‘We can stop this cancer.’

Let’s.

For More Insights:   Visit Elinor’s Amazon Author Page

“Communicate to Attract Interest”

Be A Story-Teller

As the CEO of Smooth Sale, after her near-death experience, Stutz adapted the motto, 

 “Believe, Become, Empower“

 ” Nice Girls DO Get the Sale is an International Best-Selling and Evergreen Book – among the classics;

 HIRED! Helped many to secure the job they desired. 

Related Blog Stories:

Sales Tips: Do You Feel Invisible?

1. Only a teensy minority is in the ‘popular’ category, leaving the majority to answer the question, ‘Do you feel Invisible?’
2. In your quiet time, consider why you may feel invisible and double-check for the common thread.
3. A class on communicating diplomatically to state your position on matters of importance may help.
4. Rise to higher ground for many to hear you.
5. Put your purpose to work to have it seen and heard.
6. Collaborate with others who hold similar ideals.
7. Strive to extend your audience to have your voice heard alongside your colleagues.
8. Upon feeling heard, consider creating products and services to extend your messaging further.
9. Become the leader who teaches others how to lead and spreads the word on how to answer ‘No’ to the question, ‘Do you feel invisible?’
10. Celebrate Success!

Today’s insights are provided to help you achieve the Smooth Sale!

RESOURCES FOR PERSONAL AND BUSINESS GROWTH: 

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