Using 'our' lens we intentionally employ to sharpen our focus on the ways in which help us to move in the direction that we think is right for us in terms of the meaning we make of the world. Now, can we step on other people's toes... others using their lens? Yes, and for some this becomes a practice because it works for them and their meaning. Yes, it may be negatively impact other people’s ability to make progress on the things they care about and/or preventing individual or collective action toward the achievement of a particular goal.
The purpose of using any given lens is to improve the predictability of our actions relative to a desired outcome. We believe we increase the likelihood of successfully reaching a given set of objectives when we consider what is happening and what action to take from multiple perspectives – if we examine situations, relationships, practices, and policies, etc using multiple critical lenses (inquiry, change management, adult learning, etc). Summarized from ~ https://nationalequityproject.org/resources/featured-resources/lens-of-systemic-oppression
All people everywhere live as described above because they live in a social imagination of their making. The social imagination is the only 'social' reality we all experience and or can ever experience because we live in an information universe. We are collectors of information, it composes us as much as we consume it. Its who we are and are not. We can share information but that does not mean it will have the same meaning or even be used in the same way by people in our place or theirs.
Over the course of human history in every human group this has applied and it still does as the use of present perfect suggests. You see, obvious physical differences as well as abstract concepts are all information that is agreed on and used in order to identify oneself in the group. This gives us meaning. So, the color of skin, beliefs and traditions, the location of the interaction between individuals in a place over time all create a framework of structure that seems to be working for the majority of like people in that place... this is a basic truth that exists in all human groups. This is often called, culture.
Within that structure exists a social hierarchy which supports the majority in the place. It could be a majority of yellow skinned people, red, white, brown, dark brown and black. As they find themselves in a place over time, they practice what works for them in the place where they are because it has meaning for them. Meaning is often beyond any 'imagination' even for those in the group; in the sense that it is difficult to describe while its understood.
When meaning is lost, the group's identity is lost. The group is unformed, disassociated, untamed and destructive lost in its own destruction. Why? Because, just as the National Equity Project tells us...Each of us views the world through a set of lenses everyday – it is how we read and make meaning of the world.
What happens when the majority in their place over time is disrupted? When its practices are subject to outside threats or dropped in least elements that seem to appear alien? They react in a way that is defensive. This is true for any group anywhere in the world including aboriginals in the Amazon or nomads in the desert, mountain dwellers, plainsmen, town folk, city dwellers, islanders, or coastal folks etc...
There is only one way forward in this situation for those attempting to become or integrate into the majority... become them or find a way to live along side them that does not dismantle or destroy them. That means leaving your meaning behind for making new meaning of the world. If that is not possible because you value your lens of meaning more...then, consequences will follow and no one will have peace, not them and not you.
Point being... someone has to give into the 'majority' meaning or your lens of meaning has to be attractive to them. It does not seem fair but that's how it is everywhere in the world. If you were the new kid on the block and wanted to be liked how would you approach the majority in your neighborhood? Slowly...its called the politics of accommodation which Booker T. Washington understood and proposed as the best means forward; especially in a fallen world where everyone thinks their lens of meaning is the best at least the best for them.
