What Does It Mean To Harm Someone?
Shani-O (One of my favorites nom-de-nets, it sounds like a 50’s Motown girl group.), puts out a good counter argument to my contention that my assumptions don’t harm anyone:
I don’t think that assuming a successful, intelligent person is white is “no-harm, no foul” because it means that non-whites are automatically excluded. While the assumption may not technically “hurt” anyone, it does perpetuate the idea of success being a normal thing for whites and an abnormal thing for everyone else.
I would argue that it only perpetuates the idea if either of the following two things happen:
1. When presented with the evidence that I am wrong, I think less of the person.
2. I pass that stereotype to another.
Here is one of my core beliefs: ideas don’t hurt people, actions do. I get, I really get, that it isn’t right for me to hold this stereotype in my head. Which makes it incumbent on me to do my best to change my ideas while keeping my actions consistent. It’s all I can do as a man of good will.
3 Responses to “What Does It Mean To Harm Someone?”
Meh. I disagree with Shani-O.
If I have a bag of 21 of marbles, 11 of which are orange, 2 of which are yellow, 2 of which are green, 2 of which are blue, 2 of which are purple, and 2 of which are red, and someone pulls a random marble out of the bag and asks me to guess what color it is, what should I guess first?
The US is still a majority white country. Probabilistically speaking, any person you haven’t seen yet is most likely to be white. In 40 years, any person you haven’t seen yet will be most likely to be some shade of brown. If at that point you still initially visualize random unseens as white (or if the mere thought of a majority brownish population gives you the vapors), it’s a problem. Until then, it’s just a reflection of current demographics.
KD- thanks for the compliment. And I agree with you. If you’re going to actively live an anti-racist life, then it’s important to both celebrate the differences (”luxuriate in the deliciousness” as Cory Booker would say) as well as work to ensure that different doesn’t mean better or worse.
MouseJunior, thanks for the math lesson, but numbers aren’t the point. There are also more women in the U.S., but men are *still* considered the baseline. So it’s not just about “current demographics.” We live in a world that assumes Americans are white males. And that successful women are white women. It’s easy to say “meh” but that doesn’t really speak to any deeper issue.
@MouseJunior
This isn’t a combinatorial problem (I love using combinatorial in a sentence, reminds me of math class).
Let me restate the problem a little bit to see if we can hit where the issue is:
Same bag, same marbles. But one of the marbles inside is the best marble, and the color of the marble is what makes it the best. Which marble do you want to pick out of the bag?
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