Celebrating festivities in diverse communities
The holiday season is upon us! And for many of us in leadership, it is important to recognise the diverse ways in which people celebrate.
Over the years it has often been my role in the communities I have led to mark and recognise the celebrations that are important to community members. It is important to take the time to acknowledge community festivities at Hanukkah, Christmas, Diwali, Chinese New Year… and recognising that there is in fact a huge number of celebrations and that I will never be knowledgeable enough to know all of what is celebrated, in latter years I have taken to inviting as much community participation as possible (in effect, crowd-sourcing information) so that all voices are recognised and my own limitations are mitigated by the wisdom of those around me!
I have also seen the positive impact of a particular group within a community being recognised in this way, especially if this recognition does not often happen in society at large. When one group can share their celebrations with others, the whole community is lifted. Seeing this celebration reminds us all of our own customs and traditions, and that such traditions – whichever group is marking them – are important, and contribute to the community as a whole.
There can sometimes be a temptation to reach for ‘generic’ ways of expressing such celebrations, presumably in fear that highlighting one group may act to exclude other groups. However, such fears are generally not well-founded, and the effect of trying to be generic is often to (inadvertently) erase individual identities. In the late 90s, Birmingham City Council in the UK used the term ‘winterval’ to describe the various festivities happening in different parts of the community over the winter period. While their intention was to be inclusive, there was plenty of backlash to what was seen as an attempt to be politically correct at the expense of recognising what is actually important to people. Clearly it behoves us as leaders to choose language with care so as to honour rather than disrespect the people we serve. However, generic language does not honour anyone. If you know that something is happening in the community you lead that is important to one or more groups, the simple act of marking the (specific) occasion and extending good wishes to those celebrating is always worthwhile.
As one group celebrates, we can all share in what makes the celebration special – and it opens up the conversation about what is special to each of us, and who we are in relation to each other.