PERSONALCOM


John Stewart (2017). Personal communication and racial equity:                                        A humane technology for developing                                                  anti-sterotyping relationships with people who                                    are different from you (2nd ed).


Stewart is a PhD in Communication and is also the author of the popular and long running interpersonal communication book, Bridges not walls. 

Personalcom uses research, quotes, and author stories to describe a 9-fold process of helping make our communication as personal as possible (as opposed to the US cultural push toward the impersonal) especially with people culturally different than us in age, race, class, religion, sexuality, and ability.


Of the many practices in the book, the following ideas stand out:

being curious when we feel reactive/defensive in response to what someone said/did instead of retreating, attacking, or freezing, 

staying humble in our own truth (mindfully holding our own cultural identity) AND simultaneously open to understanding others' beliefs and ways of doing things (we need not agree but we strive to understand from their perspective), and finally, 

taking time to sincerely get to know someone's life stories...

these all help make our communication as personal as possible. 




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