In the comments section of my post last Friday on women in science, a couple people were confused by the idea that bigotry and discrimination could be something done, for lack of a better word, accidentally … even subconsciously. I can understand why that’s confusing. Most of us were raised understanding that discrimination was a bad thing, done by bad people who thought that they were superior to the people they discriminated against. It’s logical to look at the way we learn about discrimination and say, “That doesn’t describe me, so I’m OK.”
The truth, sadly, is a bit more complicated.
Good people—people who aren’t supremacists of any sort—can and do act in ways that support systemic discrimination. We do this, not because we’re full of hate, but because we’re full of other lessons we learned as kids … things like, “Girl stuff isn’t as cool” or “people of that race aren’t like me, and that’s bad.” We might not cosign those ideas if they were expressed directly, but they can still quietly influence the way we act. And, if we happen to have been born into a non-minority category, we have the privilege of not even noticing when those old lessons direct us to do things that discriminate—because, from our point of view, the world still looks fair.
Case in point: That post on women in science, itself. Several hours after I hit “publish”, I realized that I’d managed to put together a panel on diversity made up of nothing but white people.
I didn’t set out to do that. But it happened, nonetheless. And it still furthered discrimination, by making it appear as if there aren’t women of color scientists worth talking to, and by implying that their perspective on the issue wouldn’t be any different from a white woman scientist’s. Neither of which is true. Without intending to, I left out the people who didn’t look like me. And because I have the privilege of seeing myself reflected in the media often enough, I didn’t notice the point of view that was missing until after I’d already published the story.
I’m writing about this now with the hope that it makes it more clear how discrimination happens, even in situations without big, evil villains. Sometimes, people with the privilege to not think about diversity don’t, and they make decisions that leave out people not like them. When that same situation happens over and over and over, the people who don’t look like the privileged end upmarginalized. It’s simple. And, frankly, it’s a lot scarier than big, evil villains, because it’s harder to change. In the future, I’m going to try harder to think past my own privilege. And, whether your privilege is based on gender, race, wealth, sexuality, or culture … I hope this post will remind you to do the same.
Image courtesy Flickr user fireflythegreat, via CC
—–end boing boing post—–
Three: the moral. We can all easily recognize and publicly abhor overt bigotry when it’s Trent Lott’s post hoc endorsement of Strom Thurmond’s segregationist campaign or even Don Imus’s blisteringly unthinking “nappy headed hos” comment about the Rutgers Un
iversity women’s basketball team (and, boy, is there ever a metric crapload of examples for just about any minority you care to recognize; these two just came to mind first). People even do a pretty good job of it when they’re in the majority but think about the statement or situation a little.
But when you’re going through life and thinking “I’m going to put together some scientists’ statements about this idiocy” or even “I’m going to invite kids to my child’s birthday party” it is a hell of a lot harder without someone pointing it out. And the reason is easy to see: most people who do this aren’t bigots, by any useful definition of the term. There is no intent and it would be unlikely that a thoughtful, mindful action would produce such a result.
Hopefully most of us have stood on the minority side and felt (or tried to feel) what it’s like to look at some grouping and realize there’s nobody there outside the majority, at least as an intellectual exercise if not in reality, or to hear someone casually dismiss a minority as unimportant or nonexistent.
Too often the reaction to pointing out this sort of unintentional bigotry is some version of “they didn’t mean it that way” (usually with a helping of “get over it” or “toughen up”). It’s often entirely true and almost always beside the point. That people mindlessly make decisions or say things or act in ways that perpetuate bigotry is bad enough; it may be worse when they try to rationalize or minimize it. Far better to react like this, and say “Yes, I did wrong without meaning to.” The call to learn from the mistake has the potential to turn it into a net positive, and we should all aim for that.
(Before anybody gets the pitchforks to “encourage” me to get off my high horse: I’m guilty of this, maybe moreso than most people. I am, after all, judgmental and critical and obstinate and blunt, plus probably more traits that make my stated goal of mindfulness so damned hard to achieve even briefly. I can round people up into a pen and brand them with the best cowboys that ever strapped on spurs, and I can give you chapter and verse to justify the corraling and the singeing. I can only hope that when I am called out on it, I can recognize my error and make half as good an explanation as Maggie did here.)