Context is Everything. And Everything is Context.
Photo from Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey (March 2021)
In an adjacent conversation on a recent train ride, a duo sitting next to me dove head-first into a heated conversation about Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. One of the two women made an impassioned argument about how Meghan Markle is an awful human being. Her argument went like this: because Meghan was not directly involved in the conversation where an unnamed royal family member inquired about the skin tone of the child (Archie) that Meghan and Harry were expecting, Meghan’s perspective wasn’t credible. Meghan, she said, had completely misconstrued this family member’s words and intent. Perhaps, my fellow rider suggested, the royal family would be happy about a darker skinned child because that child would be less susceptible to melanoma skin cancer. And because we (the public) were not a part of the conversation, we can’t know the tone and inflection in this person’s voice, or the additional context and discussion that ensued. Therefore, she concluded, Meghan’s feelings were misdirected or mistaken, and her experience is invalid.
Wow!
I’ll begin to unpack this by saying certain elements of this woman’s argument are true: 1) Meghan wasn’t there to hear the discussion, including its tone and delivery; and 2) context does matter. However, digging a bit deeper, there are also major gaps and omissions in this argument. Principally, her argument considers a shallow local context that starts and ends with the tone and inflection of a single conversation. There are layers of context to consider that delve well beyond the tenor of the royal family’s remarks in a single instance. In other words, her argument fails to acknowledge that words have meaning in both a local and historical context.
Everything is contextual
The local context — meaning the immediate conversation or environment in which something is stated — is only one consideration. In our sound bite-driven culture, how many times do we hear and see people extracting phrases or full sentences from a broader conversation? Taken out of context, a phrase or sentence may not capture intent and can undoubtedly inflict harm. In Meghan and Harry’s situation, the media stated that the royals “voiced concern”. More importantly, Meghan herself has even greater context living among the royals for multiple years. Based on Meghan’s personal account, I’d argue that these remarks shouldn’t be equated to casual, misconstrued conversation. These remarks are part of an identified pattern and indeed have a clear undertone.
Beyond the local context, words and conversations exist in a global — or historical — context. We have to consider how our audience, stakeholders, team, or wider universe of people will hear, interpret, and (re)act to the words they hear. As I am becoming increasingly aware in everyday settings like my workplace and in community, operating within a local context isn’t enough.
Prior to the start of a recent virtual ‘All Hands’ meeting with nearly 100 team members at my workplace, a few people were chatting about travel. Casual comments about personal travel stories and travel restrictions due to the coronavirus soon led a team member to chime in about airline protocols: “Has anyone heard about airline protocols in India? They are using pesticides to spray down the interior of aircraft while passengers are on board….they are spraying passengers with pesticides!” As an off-the-cuff remark this person’s casual, and perhaps seemingly harmless, statement wasn’t received well by many.
The team member’s statement was factual. However, those factual words were heard very differently depending upon when people entered the virtual meeting room; those who were part of the entire conversation heard one comment about an airline in the context of a conversation about global travel, while others who joined later heard a flippant remark that dismissed the gravity of the crisis and overlooked the wellspring of emotions felt by people watching it unfold from afar — possibly impacting family and friends in India. In a global context, this person expressed little empathy toward India’s hardship. After all, India’s daily average included 321k people per day contracting the virus and dying from COVID-19. (This led to an estimated 4 million people who died during the recent covid surge in India this spring.) In a more local context, this person’s comment didn’t consider the virtual meeting room: content, purpose, timing, delivery, and tone. Therefore they came off as both insensitive and inappropriate. While I want to refrain from suggesting that we act as the “tone police” among colleagues, I offer this as one everyday example where context, both local and global, matter.
While Meghan was not directly a part of the royal’s immediate conversation, she heard and experienced their words in a broader global context. Their remarks were made — and must be heard — within the historic arc of the royal family. England cannot deny its own history of colonization, division, and racism. And this history is inextricable from the royal family and the monarch. Viewed through this lens, it is valid for Meghan to interpret the royals’ words as hurtful, condescending, and indeed racist.
If we don’t have awareness of the context — local and historic — that we operate within, we don’t know how our words land with others. Further, we risk alienating our colleagues and peers if we don’t care to understand how our words might be received. You may be familiar with the phrase: intent versus impact. Intent refers to the aim, while impact refers to how people actually hear and interpret the words you say. While this distinction can be nuanced, a local and historic understanding can help us avoid these pitfalls.
Our Words Matter
In our media obsessed culture, it can be easier to critique external situations and celebrities — like Meghan and Harry — than it is to look deeply at our own conditioning. But if we turn to critique rather than reflect, we miss a source of real learning in everyday interactions. Consider for a minute, a common phrase we often hear in the workplace: “Let’s divide and conquer!” On the surface, this phrase is benign. In a local context it means we are dividing the work into manageable pieces, rolling up our sleeves, and getting down to business. However, placed in a historic context the phrase takes on new meaning. Merriam-Webster says that divide and conquer means: “to make a group of people disagree and fight with one another so they will not join together against one.” In other words, this is a political strategy, used to colonize and subjugate. It is not something that communicates unity, solidarity, and cooperation.
Consider other phrases like “crack the whip, let’s get moving on this,” or “he/she is a real slave driver.” These phrases have deep roots in American history that includes colonization and slavery. While these common words seem innocuous when divorced from their context, they have real and painful meaning when heard, seen, and experienced in a wider historical realm. These are simple words we might unknowingly, mistakenly, or even purposefully use in everyday conversations — in the workplace, in our communities, and in our relationships. However, these are simple reminders that the impact of a violent and divisive past exists in the present. Without a wider lens, these seemingly small micro-actions have the ability to influence and impact our relationships with colleagues from different backgrounds and origins and perpetuate a culture of domination and violence. And when people are negatively impacted, workplace and community culture suffers and our container for belonging cracks.
A friend recently remarked that any time she hears someone use the phrase “more bang for the buck,” she gets dizzy, meaning this phrase evokes a visceral reaction in her body. It makes her cringe and distracts her from the topic or subject she is focused on. When using this kind of value-laden language, how do our words land with our colleagues, peers, and audience? What do people actually hear? It’s probably not the brilliant idea being shared or the impassioned argument being advocated. Without careful attention to the words we use, we risk continuing to talk past each other because we don’t actually hear what’s being said.
Mean what you say, and say what you mean
It’s not enough these days to put the onus on others to interpret what we do or do not mean when we use certain words and phrases. It’s important that as communicators (e.g., any person leading teams and functioning in groups) we are mindful of the local and historic context we operate in, and how our phrase and word choices are steeped in meaning. Using awareness, we can get curious about these everyday phrases that we use without fully understanding. Then, taking a step further, consider how these word choices impact how we move, converse, live, work, and show up in the world with our peers, colleagues, and community members from diverse backgrounds and lived experiences. These choices influence the culture we create in our workplaces and communities. So, choose your words mindfully.
Courtesy of Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/@alex_tsl)