Header: Common roots Intro: White people walk into diversity training convinced they aren't racists.

Black people walk in thinking, oh no, not this again. But there is real value in being culturally aware and open on a deep level: a heightened consciousness, and a finely-tuned and more alive psyche. When her boss called Kate Reilley into his office to discuss her role in an upcoming project, she felt cornered. 'He started to ask me all sorts of questions that I felt hinted at a lack of competence on my part,' she says. 'It was totally unfounded. Every time I've been in charge of a project, I've excelled. He was calling into question stuff that he knew I could do, and I walked out of there feeling completely demoralised and bullied.' Kate is an Irish American woman working in the marketing department of one of the bigger banks. She is the only white woman on her team, she says, and the only non-Muslim woman. Kate's interpretation her boss' character may have been grounded in his behaviour. But her assumptions about the culture of her office may also have meant she was stereotyping her Muslim colleagues. Not being alive to the complexities of the dominant culture meant she interpreted the other women's behaviour as submissive and perhaps overcompensated. On the other hand, with her long, thick brown hair and fashionable, alluring way of dressing, Kate herself was being judged by her appearance and behaviour too. Zizi Setswayo is a sales consultant for a medical insurance company where the dominant culture is Afrikaans. I can't speak Afrikaans,' she says. 'But I was hired because I can speak three African languages.' This means she can't understand what people talk about on the balcony during their coffee breaks. 'If I ask someone to speak English, they do it like the resent me,' she says. Zizi must catch three modes of public transport to work, and drop off a baby somewhere along the route, while the rest of her sail into work in cars. 'When I'm late it's the worst thing,' she says. 'From the start, I don't know how I'm supposed to put things right.' Both Kate and Zizi are single mothers to small children. Combining their pressurised work days with raising a child single-handed means both of them are stressed almost to breaking. On top of that, the teams they work in are not functioning well. Because none of the members on either side of these cultural rifts are making an attempt to understand the other, the fault lines are splitting open their individual and collective psyches, causing discrimination and hurt for all. SUBHEAD: Defining discrimination 'Every person's experience of discrimination is different,' says Isaac Matheta Swafo, managing director of Procorp, a company that, through their workshop Equality Matters, assists companies in managing diversity. 'There are also different types of discrimination indirect, for example ignoring emails, or direct, in the case of obvious victimisation.' But whether overt or subtle, discrimination is hurting us. 'Organisations are grappling with people who are being sent again and again through their employee counselling services, or even to psychotherapy, because of depression or apathy or lack of self-esteem,' says Isaac. 'But these problems are often caused by the daily discrimination they experience at work, which is not addressed.' Procorp, under the guidance of its chairperson Dr Dorrian Aitken (who, like Isaac, is a member of the Black Management Forum and is heavily involved in the Institute for Intercultural and Diversity Studies at UCT), is one of the companies at the forefront of managing transformation in South Africa where it is most needed, at the coalfront: in our places of work. 'It's normal to discriminate,' says Dorrian. 'We all choose to survive, and to survive we choose to be around people that are like us.' This is a very basic behaviour, she says, which

is embedded in us from before birth through generations of social conditioning. 'But the problem comes in when our choices cause loss or dehumanisation in others.' That small joke at work or that secret handshake after a meeting can have far-reaching effects on those at which it is directed against - but also on those privileged by it. 'The most detrimental effect of all this,' says Dorrian, 'is that we don't speak up. We witness things that we disagree with on a deep level, but we choose to let it go. This is devastating.' SUBHEAD: Where to now? We need to start talking. Through self exploration, dialogue and discourse on diversity across cultures, we can become more aware,' says Nolitha Tsengiwe, a counselling psychologist at the Centre for Conscious Leadership in Johannesburg. But the first step to understanding each other, is to understand the systems in which we are functioning, the heirarchies - and where the power lies. 'People do things like discriminate, to survive within a heirarchy,' says Isaac. 'Black people have internalised issues of heirarchy, so have white people. Women have, and so have men. We try to help people understand how this happens, and how we can move on.' SUBHEAD: Dismantling stereotypes Stopping harmful discrimination and stress around diversity starts with seeing how we stereotype each other. Like the submissive Muslim woman; the loud-mouth American feminist; the uppity Xhosa woman who is always late; the stubborn Afrikaners who refuse to speak English, all of us hold certain judgements of people who are different from us. Director of the Unisa Centre for Applied Psychology, Juan Nel says that to label someone usually refers to only one aspect of that individual'. In the stress of deadlines and under work pressures and politics, it is easy to short-cut to stereotypes. But, he says, 'when we describe people in detail, we find more admirable qualities in them.' We also find commonalities that we might not expect. Once we get past the stereotype, the road to reconciliation is a lot more complex, but also a lot more open. SUBHEAD: Finding our humanness Many cultures share similar ways of doing things, says industrial psychologist Etienne Nel. The challenge is to build on similarities that unite us as human beings. 'We need to speak to our humanness,' says Isaac. 'We all want to survive and flourish. We all need to be valued for who we are, not as a black person, an Indian person or a white person - or because of our sex or gender orientation.' 'Once you understand this on a deep level,' says Dorrian, 'it affects your behaviour, your team's behaviour and even your society. It means every system from the individual to the group becomes more conscious of complexity. It's massively alive.' What evolves is an atmosphere that acknowledges diversity, is culturally open and aware, and provides a platform for more robust debate - without being blurred by our preconceived ideas around petty differences such as sex, ability, etiquette, race, religion, education, class, language and so on. It is easier, then, to get to the root of an issue. For Zizi, the root of her problems were around language and transport. 'After the diversity training, I raised the issue of transport with my team. Luckily, one of my clients was on the workshop with me, and she offered to give me a lift from my child's creche three times a week,' she says. 'We got talking, and we both realised we had mothers who were ill. We are now quite close friends and it's like she's a bridge between me and the rest of the team.' After some help in the workshops Sharief and I began to see things in more similar ways, says Kate. We have a platform now, for raising other issues. It's more complicated, but also easier.' 'When we get past all the stereotypical cultural assumptions, says Dorrian. We make intelligent decisions and adopt forward-thinking practices because they come out of a humane base.

SUBHEAD: A more complex consciousness It's essential that we make this journey to understand each other - not only because it is stipulated in our laws that we do so, but because it is in line with global shifts. 'If you can't contemplate and understand that there are many centres of possible truth,' says Dorrian, 'then you're missing something.' Dorrian is completing her second doctoral thesis, on adult psychological development, a relatively new subject in the study of psychology. 'As adults, for us to develop, we need to grow into complexity,' she says. Outlining the six levels of adult psychological development, she says that the majority of us function in the workplace at very low, immature levels of complexity. But as we dedicate more time to 'being able to be in the presence of the other and be curious, with an open heart', we become more conscious. We become more excited by our commonalities, by the aliveness of the organism that is our humanity. Our potential for change and growth accelerates. 'There is a very warm feeling after our workshops,' says Dorrian. 'There is a real feeling of 'it's been a pleasure to really try to know you these past few days'. We want people to leave the room and, in small ways, bring about greater understanding and change.' Diversity training in South Africa has been acknowledged as having 'global significance'. But Dorrian insists the answer at the root of it, is simple: 'We are all seeking peace. We all want to live with each other in ways that feel fair. We want the same things.' SIDEBAR: How to manage a cultural faux pas or confrontation 'Having an advanced consciousness does not mean tolerating immorality,' says Dorrian. 'But it does entail suspending our very deep assumptions around minor things like etiquette [such as telephone and email manners for example, or a tendency to interrupt or challenge while someone else is in mid-stream] as well as accent and body language.' If you witness overt discrimination, or suspect that you may be on the receiving end of it, don't let it go. Identify what it is that is bothering you about the other person's behaviour Establish how it makes you feel Identify what stereotypical cultural assumptions you think are behind the behaviour Know your rights in the situation Talk to other like-minded people, or those who you feel may also have been offended Then, it's time to confront the issue. 'You don't need to be aggressive,' says Dorrian. Say things like 'I am feeling humiliated by what you said or did, and I'd like to know how you feel now about what I'm saying.' If the person responds aggressively, say 'I detect that you are feeling aggressive, but I really want to improve our relationship.' Keep calm, focus on the one issue at hand. That way, she says, you diffuse the conflict slowly, and retain the moral high ground. If you still have no joy, bring in a mediator or someone who has been trained in diversity to help you get to the root of the issue.