Cultural competence vs humility - Anyone understand it?

[RethinkingLife]

I've been reading about cultural competence vs humility recently. Does anyone have any experience of it, please?

My context is healthcare but I'd appreciate a discussion in other sectors just to understand how cultural humility is implemented and the associated advantages/risks. Ditto, my strong interest is women's rights but other cases/examples are welcome.

https://www.betterup.com/blog/cultural-humility-vs-cultural-competence

If you were asked "what do you do?", and you said "I'm a firefighter", but then the person said, "no really, what do you do?", how would you feel?

Yes, because Ms Fulani was setting a trap. She dressed in a costume that was not hers (that's fine by me, I wear all sorts of things) and then did not explain but said she was from Hackney (true) but she had given the impression she was not by her dress. Her parents are from, I think, either Barbados or Antigua (also fine). Instead of saying, oh, 'I like this style of dress but I live in Hackney and I represent' whatever organisation it was, she took offence. The lady in waiting was doing her job. When people ask me where I come from and I say Leicester, then they say, 'no, you're a Londoner', I don't get furious because I know very well I have a London twang as I was brought up there, and I say so - probably before they mention it e.g. I come from Leicester but I was brought up in London. Lady Susan was in the right and Ms Fulani was playing the race card i.e. she was behaving in a racist manner. Lady Susan's only mistake - and it's a small one - was not to say something on the lines of: 'I saw you were wearing Nigerian national dress so I thought you might have some connection there...'

Option A: Someone said something racist. Someone who grew up in a time when people were openly racist without consequence. They asked a very common racist question. A very common experience where POC are told they are 'not really from' the western country they have been born in/lived in for decades/since childhood.

Option B: An elaborate trap, masterminded by someone stroking a cat, laughing an evil laugh.

Option B, I am afraid. Ms Fulani has form here and is a supporter of the Duchess of Sussex who has accused the RF of being racist, though there is no sign they are.

Me? I ignore all that shit, and go straight to an origins question as a way in to an empathetic and inclusive conversation.

I hope you realise that's a hate crime.
🙄

I hope you realise that's a hate crime.

🙄

If you want to know a person's family background, going back generations, it's perfectly possible to do that. Everything about that controversy rested on how she asked it and what additional meaning are implicit in how you choose to do that. If it's a "trap" it's easily avoided.

A much better follow up would be simply acknowledging she was born here, that it means their from the UK. You can still ask stuff like how many generations etc and other things about their life. I've never had a problem with that. I found people are generally proud/happy talking about their parents and family more generally, so long as you're trusting and respecting their answers.

My life is somewhat polar opposite in that people default to assuming, incorrectly, my family have always lived in UK (it used to be true, but not since Ireland became independent, which happened before my parents were born). People, somewhat insultingly, sometimes say "it's not really abroad", and I'm like "it's as independent from the UK as India or France 🤷‍♂️

Thre are different contexts. It tends to be a very bad idea to ask anyone where they are from. However if a doctor needs to know likelihood of a disease it can be a life saving question. Eg as saiod above South Asians and diabetes (I live in an India area and it is a massive issue). We also had some local girls from bits of Africa in the toilets at schools for ages because they had been cut abroad under FMG which is very unlikely to be done on british little girls but 98% of girls have it done in Somalia (I am not saying 98% of Somali origin girls in my borough have had it here in London of course). The we have sickle cell prevalence in some groups.

More generally on this interesting topic, medical professionals in the NHS probably simply do not have the time to spend a lot of it discussing with me why I chose not to have the covid 19 vaccine to learn humbly about my own "culture". They have a few minutes for each patient so cannot spend too long learning why a particular group does not agree with them on something that is scientifically proven.

The UK has had its biggest immigration rates of recent years and a lot of people with very different views on some medical issues - and some of those views may be better than ours and some worse. Always keep an open mind although cutting off the private parts of little girls and sewing them back up is thankfully a crime in the UK even if standard practice elsewhere.

But the answer is whatever you want it to be, isn't it.

Depending on the context, I might answer "I was born in Yorkshire" or " My mother grew up Yorkshire and my father is Irish" or " I was raised in Newcastle" or "I've lived in Waltham forest since I was 23" or "classroom M7, one floor up" or give the name of my street, or my borough, or my school, or talk about my mother being a child refugee with her parents, o whatever is appropriate for the conversation I am having

It is only complicated if you make it complicated

Asking people where they're from, is one of those questions that it feels you can't really win on if you're somebody who often asks white people where they're from, as I do as I have lived in various parts of the country and also travelled around quite a lot. If you treat people from ethnic minorities the same as white people and ask that question, then you risk it being seen as a micro aggression, but if then if you don't ask the question then you're treating people differently on the basis of their ethnicity, which is arguably racist. I guess the answer is that you need to be sensitive in how you ask it, and make it clear that Tottenham is as good an answer as Nairobi, and if you're sensitive to how it's asked and perceived then maybe you just live with sometimes it's going to offend people.

The Queen used to say at functions - "have you come far today?" which is quite a good neutral question and hopefully offends no one. Where are you from is rarely a good question unless you want to put your foot in it. We are all after all out of Africa if we go back far enough, united in our African origins as homo sapiens.

..although even that is best not gone into with some groups eg creationists and plenty of others with different beliefs than most of us. The Book of Mormon for example has some unusual views about native Americans. The Scientologists think we came here in a weird way too. Perhaps we should all fall back on the good old English weather for conversation - "Colder day today" is probably going to be okay.

I wouldn't feel anything, I'd say, what do you mean?

But I've read the transcript of the conversation, it's pretty clear what was being asked was her relation to the event they were at.

It's not the question that's potentially offensive, but the asker's response to your reply. "No, really, where are you from?" is rude. Genuine interest is not rude.

Those of us being asked "Where are you from?" often know exactly what's being asked. If we answer "London" or "Head Office", for example, it can be a clear signal that further questions into our ethnicity or origins are unwelcome.

I know. Most people are sensible enough not to ask the question.
Even if everyone at an event were in national dress it would be better say - what country is that dress from or even safer to say - Cold day today.

I read that entire article and I'm none the wiser. No idea what cultural humility is and if the writer does, they aren't very good at explaining it.

I didn't read it but guessed what it might say. I presume it is suggesting we accept different cultures. Most of us are not against that until the culture does something that is against our law or we feel is damaging. Being too kind to bad other cultures is what got Rotherham little girls trafficked etc. We certainly should not pussy foot around cultural sensitivities in all situations.

@Xenia why not just read? Expressing an option on something you haven't read is a terrible idea. Imagine the other way around, you put a link on something and someone else dismisses or criticizes it whilst refusing to read it

links dont work for everyone and not everyone wants to click on links, two of many very good reasons not to read it

@nextdoorneighbours not reading is fine, not reading and expressing an option regardless is, politely speaking, ignorant