Comparison, Competetition and Categorization

I'm an only child.

I don't have siblings to be compared against- therefore, I am simultaneously the best and worst at all I do.

My accomplishments and failures are often augmented/ blown out of proportion, but never used to determine my value or as a tool to compare me to others.

I became independent at a young age. 

in·de·pend·ent

ˌindəˈpendənt/

adjective

1. 1.

   free from outside control; not depending on another's authority.

I respected my parents' decisions, but I was empowered to make my own choices whenever possible.

I wish to magnify my experience of being an autonomous individual to everyone. My parents realize that there is only Kalen Russell. That of Earth's 7.8 billion people, I am unique. I process information differently, I have a distinct sense of humor, passions and needs that are mine alone.

Though equal, I am incomparable to anyone else.

Each person on Earth is the result of their personal experience and characteristic disposition. There are no means to ever compare two people- nor is there a need to.

Far too often one person is used to represent the ideologies, beliefs and mannerisms of a group. This mindset is often referred to as stereotyping.

stereotype 

A generalization, usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.

Stereotypes rob individuals of their uniqueness, value and sometimes their potential. Stereotypes derive from laziness, as our brain evaluates an entire community based on one individual.

Stereotypes are frequently placed upon minorities, because they are they have a smaller presence in a population in comparison their majority counterparts.

A few populations frequently stereotyped in the United States include:

• Muslims
• African-Americans
• Hispanics
• Disabled persons
• Veterans
• Immigrants

Stereotypes are detrimental to our humanity, reducing beautifully complex individuals to a generic assumptions. 

Removing stereotypes from our ways of thinking is difficult, but definitely possible and absolutely necessary.

In addition to being stereotyped by others, minorities may also suffer from stereotype threat.

Stereotype threat refers to being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group    

Stereotypes are harmful, to both the person stereotyping and the one being stereotyped. Getting to know someone as an individual requires effort, but the rewards are tremendous, and odds are you will learn something new and maybe make a friend.

I try to limit the extent that I allow societal stereotypes to influence how I view myself and what I assume about others, and you know what they say about assuming..... Don't do it!

What are some days to challenge stereotypes in our daily lives? Comment below.

The Restrictions of Religion

I hail from Muskogee, Oklahoma- the county seat with a population of around 30,000 kind, traditional and somewhat conformist individuals.

I had 114 in my graduating class. Of these 114 people there was little religious/ spiritual variety. Last weekend in a conversation with my mom, we discussed how most students and staff from my high school attended one of two local churches.

Churches can be great places to grow in one's spiritual journey, but can also hinder personal growth.

When choosing a place of worship, many individuals seek a place where they are comfortable, where their beliefs are confirmed, ideologies and methodologies repeated- things which are not negative within themselves, but it can impede one's tolerance for different ideas and viewpoints.

The problem with my high school classmates all attending the same church, is that they all thought the same way about religion and spiritually. They all viewed religious practices as absolute, with their's being right and deviation from the social norm as wrong.

These thought patterns are humanistic, and as human I too am guilty of occasional narrow-mindedness.

I attend a church where I feel welcome, loved and able to grow. As I mature, I know that all people seek these same things, but may go about it in different ways. It is my love for others that prompts me to respect and support others in their spiritual journeys without judgement.

Really churches are just buildings.

The true value of a church comes from edifice’s function of fostering spiritual growth.  The grandeur of a cathedral is not in its religious appearance, but in its spiritual potential.  -Kalen Russell, The Majesty Within

Religion oversimplifies the human experience and discourages diversity and inclusivity.

I find spirituality to be more inclusive. Within Christianity, differences are accepted, celebrated and add to the strength of the group.

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many." 1 Corinthians 12:12-14

So if diversity within a religion is good,  why would diversity of religion be considered bad?

Many religions are founded upon the same principles- love, unity and service to others, event those who are different.

Like me, most pictured in this photo have attended their whole lives. 

The church is one of the strongest echo chambers, and sense religion is so closely linked to identity, these echo chambers are difficult to dismantle.

I try to find my identity from within, from who I am. Not where I worship.

Lessons in Leadership

"Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing." Tom Peters.

Anyone can manage a group's output without much skill or effort, but leading a group and enhancing the strength of each individual is rare/.

Leadership is not stagnant, but adaptive to the needs of a situation and a group.

For example, even if you make the world's best peach cobbler, you can not use a peach cobbler's ingredients to make a cake. It doesn't work.

A new varsity girl's basketball coach was hired my sophomore year of high school. He originally coached boys at a smaller school and had an amazing coaching record.

The whole school was excited to have a new coach and looked forward to building a better basketball team.

During his first months on the job, he pushed us past complacency and pointed out faults that had gone unnoticed for years. Players were improved individually and team was more cohesive than ever.

He continued to push the team to new heights, but not without a cost. Our record was at a higher than ever, but the morale of the team was low.

"Coaching boys is different than coaching girls," my dad knowingly remarked. "Girls get upset and will quit if they feel wronged, while most boys will get mad and play harder."

As if clairvoyant , my dad was right. After a record setting season, star players began to quit.

Coaching is the ultimate example of leadership because there is little direct input into the team's outcome. A coach observes and trains each player to be their best, minimizing individual weaknesses to amplify group strengths.

This was an amazing coach. His only flaw was in not adjusting his leadership style to meet the needs of his team.

Leaders must adapt to the dynamics of a group. 

Being accepted into the President's Leadership Council was a large component of my decision to attend UCO. I'm a required to be an active member of at least two campus organizations and complete twelve community service hours each semester.

In high school I was used to being a leader and having everyone follow, but being a part of a group where everyone was accustomed to being a leader was jarring.

Once again my dad reflected on my experience," It's like being on a college football team huh? Everyone is used to being the best."

He was right, and I adopted a softer leadership approach. I played up my interpersonal skills and affected change through one-on-one interactions instead of the dictator approach I used in high school.

It worked and I even made friends.

I currently serve as secretary of the UCO Black Student Association, which has also increased my leadership skills.

I discussed my leadership journey with the BSA President. She surmised that I would have still matured without BSA, "You would have been a leader anyway because of PLC."

I explained that I would have been the same leader because leadership skills are developed uniquely depending on each circumstance, and each circumstance necessitates different leadership skills.

How I lead in the President's Leadership Council is different from how I lead in the Black Student Association.

In both groups I use interpersonal skill, to accomplish tasks and encourage others, but I edit my delivery depending on the culture of the group.

Comparatively the groups are starkly different, but within each group their is a common culture, cultural cues, signals, signs, words and habits that affirm that one is a part of a group.

Depending on the group, I use certain  song references, jokes, cultural familiarizes and quotes.

In the duality of my interactions, I never lose my identity because I am the accumulation of my personal experiences and interactions that I have had.

We can all lead without changing ourselves, but our leadership can be misinterpreted if we don't adapt our delivery to meet the needs of the group.

Knowing the needs of a group comes from experience and interactions with others.

Being an influential leader takes effort, but the best leaders always manage.

Eeriness of Echo Chambers in Blogging

La Alhambra, Granada, Spain

Social media prompts users to live within echo chambers. Echo chambers are created by individuals with similar ideologies, reinforcing ideas and inhibiting diversity of thought.

            Within the many social media platforms, blogs are the most user specific. For every hobby, religion, food preference and random thought there is blog, which allows an individual to feel as though they belong. This belonging prioritizes group identity, restricting diversity of thought and preventing personal development. “Highly cohesive groups intensely reject deviant individuals,” or ideas that threaten the group’s values (Gilbert, et al).

            Humans naturally oversimplify complex ideas to make them easier to understand (Baranuik). Social media encourages and accelerates the simplification process encouraging: “tribalism, insulation” through a diverse selection of news sources (Baranuik). individuals can “cherry-pick” the information that they are exposed to (Baranuik). Interestingly, the increase is the diversity of media outlets has decreased diversity of thought because many social media users are not exposed to information that conflicts with their beliefs.

            The University of Illinois conducted a study over 1,000 comments placed on the top 33 blogs (Gilbert, et al.). The semantics of each comment were evaluated using a standardized assessment. Of the comments studied 49.4% of comments are neutral, 39.2% agreed with the author and 11.1% disagreed author (Gilbert et. Al).  The low controversy in blog comments shows that blog users rarely follow blogs that they disagree with.

With my study tour group in Cordoba, Spain

            Social theorist and utilitarian John Stuart Mill strongly believed diversity of thought to be “invaluable” to personal development. In an age of convenience, it is more necessary than ever to do what is challenging. To create a more equitable and inclusive society, social media users must step away from comfortable URLS and explore new ideas and ways of thinking.

With classmates in historic gypsy caves Granada, Spain

Sources:

Blogs Are Echo Chambers: Blogs Are Echo Chambers

Social media loves echo chambers, but the human brain helps create them

Give Me Gemeinschaft, or Give Me Greatness

gemeinschaft

[German guh-mahyn-shahf-tuh n] 

Sociology. a society or group characterized chiefly by a strong sense of common identity, close personal relationships, and an attachment to traditional and sentimental concerns.

We know the dangers of groupthink, the atrocities that occur, the prejudices it produces, the wars it wages and the inclusion it inhibits. 

Groupthink can be comfortable, it's familiar and builds a sense of community at the expense of the exclusion of diversity.

"Diversity, the act of thinking independently together." 

                                   Malcolm X

Diversity enables societal progression,  through accepting various realms of thoughts that contribute to a common goal. It is the nucleus of technological advancements, innovation, empowerment and word change.

Diversity makes greatness possible. Every new ideas inspires the improvement of past ideas, each suggestion adds allows us to become better individually and as a nation.

Nonetheless, we frequently accept and expect conformity. Citizens have grown so accustomed to remaining among like-minded individuals that conflicting views brings contempt, ridicule and even dehumanization of those who appear or think differently. 

The term gemeinschaft appeared in last Friday's issue of the New York Times, in the article The Internal Invasion by David Brooks.

Brooks describes President Donald Trump as, "the ultimate gemeinschaft man. He is all gut instinct, all blood and soil, all about loyalty over detached reason."

As President Trump assembles a cabinet composed of similarly interested and invested individuals, and advocates for a United States citizenship that agrees with him, dismissing and limiting the availability of opposing views

he prevents America from becoming great. 

A conformist mentality, especially by those in power, inhibits progression.

I would love to the American people become great, empowered to become the best version of themselves, each person acting, thinking and working independently towards a common goal.

The greatness I long for will never come from a place of silence and adherence to discrimination. Greatness cannot coexist with gemeinschaft, conformity, fear. 

Our differences can propel our nation into greatness or drag it into a homogeneous pit of fear.

How our differences will affect us depends on how we will choose to view them, as something to be celebrated or something to be condemned.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/opinion/the-internal-invasion.html?_r=0