Cultural competency starts within you. Within all of us.
What is cultural competency? The ability to navigate through cultural issues where we are all different. True cultural competency is an illusion - we will never truly become fully culturally competent. We can only try. We can work on our internal views to understand how to best treat others with respect and dignity.
And if others fail in acting with respect and dignity, we can help show them the way through education and gentle redirection. Everyone wants to save face, so no one likes to be embarrassed about being corrected for something they may not know. Teaching others compassionately is often much more effective than shaming or alienating them. And if they still continue to act poorly? The social consequences are on them after that.
Never forget the past history, especially with how it's influenced the way the world is now. There are some things we'll never see or understand because of whatever bubble we may live in, or how our own experiences shape the way to view things. However, it's always important to take someone else's experience seriously, because history may have been kinder to us than to them.
