The information below on seminars that feel cross-cultural and a place for someone to start. I’ve been in a discussion group called Hard Conversations on racism in America and prior to that a short course given by Patty Digh on racism that included The Color of Fear documentary that was very powerful.

In North America, black and white communities are held apart by the dominance and tradition of racism to the point of being almost separate nations over here. So we don’t really live under any unifying sense of shared culture, more a condition of a divided people living uncomfortably close. But a curiosity nonetheless and maybe more so as current divisions mostly promoted by fools here just CAN’T be sustained in a global economy. (Just occurred to me that one main weakness in America is the supposition that our power in the world is some kind of proof of how wasted an effort it is to know or study other cultures–we are the best, well…by being the best).

Anyway, my little knowledge of Arab / Muslim culture is of a fondness for discovery and the ability to assimilate what is needed and appreciate opportunity. Or at least that’s what my Muslim friends tell me when I ask how they came to settle in Canada’s north 125 years ago, organize an economy and run the town I live in. Alternately, even though my neighbors are Canadian citizens, they are also practicing Muslims, many of whom simply won’t cross the US border for the hurt they are made to feel from some Americans. Does that mean the US is closed to Muslims? Or maybe the question should be, is America worth the trouble visiting?

Enough! I’m starting to think about barriers, political situations that will be over soon and collaborations as impossibilities.

Expanded from posting by Mary Steller at The Art of Activism – Hard Conversations Alumni Face Book Group
Lee Mun Wah
Stirfry Seminars and Consulting
Innovative tools for Diversity Training
http://www.stirfryseminars.com/

Scroll Down this page for details on this seminar in Berkeley California:
Cross-Cultural Facilitation Skills for Diversity Trainers, Educators & Therapists: Five Day Intensive
http://www.stirfryseminars.com/events/

Excerpts of training films, this one focusing on “The Color of Fear” very powerful.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_eqXCQWALEvlukIIjR-5T00yR0TqUIU5

“We are crossing the river by feeling for stones” – Deng Xiaoping on difficult ventures.
from “Collaborating With the Enemy – How to work with people you don’t agree with or like or trust”. by Adam Kahane