Discomfort Is a Part of Progress

It started with a debate in the comments of an “Embracing Black Culture” Instagram post. The clip came from a McDonald’s in China, where owners banned people of African descent, fearing that they carried COVID-19. Righteously outraged, I turned to the comments, expecting structured arguments against anti-Blackness. Instead, the people flooding the comments seized the opportunity to generalize and berate all Asian people, regardless of nationality or their ethnic origin. The post left me in shock, and the comments worsened my discomposure. I expressed my concerns about the anti-Asian rhetoric in the comments, only to be confronted by an Atlanta-based television actress. She saw my argument as offensive to fellow Black people; I thought her perspective to be too one-sided.

We debated for hours. The conversation ended abruptly, neither of us willing to concede. Neither person was willing to learn from the other – to truly listen. Thus, the conflict persisted, though we were silent. Realizing that it is impossible to solve any social issue without respectful dialogue, I recruited people of African and East Asian descent and hosted a panel to discuss the inter-community conflicts.

This panel, filmed in April 2020, became the first video I produced as the founder of Divulge Alliance. We met via Zoom, with me serving as the facilitator. Toward the end of the discussion, I introduced the topic of interracial dating. While the rest struggled to articulate their complex emotions towards the topic, one panelist said something that has stuck with me ever since: “Discomfort is a part of progression.” I recalled every moment in my life when I confronted parts of myself to overcome obstacles. They were initially riddled with fear, but the subsequent triumphs brought life-changing revelations.

After seeing the positive reception of the video, I confronted my fears once again. This time, I decided to start a community organization focused on starting these cross-cultural dialogues, despite not feeling knowledgeable enough. Following a year of content creation, my team and I realized that demonstrating the conversation was only part of the process. We also needed to (1) teach people to have these difficult conversations and (2) provide a safe space for people to practice without the camera rolling. This realization led to the creation of our allyship training workshop and multiple strategic collaborations aimed at bringing people together and supporting small local businesses.

Today, Divulge Alliance, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that aims to teach teenagers and young adults to practice healthy allyship early in their professional and cognitive development, with the goal of creating a more harmonious society. While we still create videos, such as the “Distinguished Figures” video podcast series, we hope that our impact will span far beyond the screen!