Page 46 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

When participants of Community Conversation talk at length they have an opportunity to

experience issues deeply and therefore when the moment arises have ample opportunity to express

feelings and concerns with open candor, group support and transparency of viewpoint. In doing

so, challenges to differing perspectives can also ensue, causing varying levels of disagreement or

stress seen among members within the circle. As comments among dialogue group participants

result in tension or disagreement, such an ‘atmosphere of conflict’ may compel members of the

group to address what can appear as an epiphany of the moment which can manifest a new group

dynamic breaking through explicit or implicit stereotype perceptions by members in the group.

Today’s understanding of social identification is firmly grounded in self-stereotyping

principles (i.e., assimilation to the ingroup prototype). However, I argue here that Community

Conversations may allow for a more integrative approach to understanding and integrating identity

and beliefs contrasted with other participants in dialogue. Core beliefs and self-stereotypes can

reveal itself in a dialogue when it is assumed that members of a group have in common shared

characteristics that limit the perception of the individual to that identification. Some examples of

stereotypes are the belief that all police officers like donuts. An explicit stereotype is the kind that

you deliberately think about and report. As a recent real life example of reflective reactivity to

explicit self-stereotyping, during the Zeidler Institute facilitator training I participated in, a fellow

trainee an African American female in her 30s talked about how she went to a new Asian salon

and while her nails were being worked on she really disliked how they were being done, but she

was afraid to speak out fearing she would labeled in her words as ‘uppity’ or as a ‘black bitch’ for

complaining. Instead, at the register while giving payment she grimaced a smile and gave an

extraordinarily large tip as to not be perceived as unappreciative or seen as cheap and while she

was telling us her story she choked up and with difficulty told us how she ended up crying in her

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