I am, by nature, an observer. I notice how I react to people, how they react to me, and how they react with others.
In my 50+ years on this planet, I've noticed a few things. Like:
- the physics professor who won't answer any question from a female student;
- the woman who is driving along a city street, sees a black man on the sidewalk, and locks her car door;
- the colleague who, when interviewing candidates for a position, always seems to hire the tallest one;
- the boss who thinks he is being "forced" to accomodate someone with disabilities, or
- the TV pundit who blames poor people for being poor.
The thing is, I'm white, male, upper middle class, fair-haired, not disabled, and tallish. And I've benefited from all of this. Not all the time, to be sure, but I have most certainly benefited. That is the point of this essay. There is, in this country (or in most of it anyway) such a thing as white privilege, male privilege, and lots of other privileges too.
It isn't always obvious. I get a better interest rate on my credit cards than is typical for the young or for the poor, and it is easy for me to not notice. I can walk into buildings without a second thought and not notice that it does not have handicap access. When my questions in physics class are answered, I may not notice that others aren't treated as well. Not very many people treat me as a threat to their safety when I walk by. And most people I meet professionally take me seriously. Shorter people often aren't so lucky. I see others doing the same thing. I believe that many of them are good people (as I believe I am), and I believe that they are not doing it consciously.
I am NOT trying to imply that all women, minorities, short people, the disabled, the poor, etc. suffer from this subtle discrimination all the time, or from all people like me. I'm sure they don't. But it DOES happen, and much more often than you might think.
If what I am writing makes you feel defensive, please try to set aside that defensiveness for a little while and try to just observe other people. You will see it too. You may see it in your actions sometimes. I know I see it in mine. It is probably there a lot more than I realize. And I sometimes feel guilt and/or shame because of this. But I try not to, because guilt makes me defensive, and as Byron Katie says, "defense is the first act of war". I do the best that I can, and I try every day to do it a little better.
As I learned in 12 step, you first have to recognize that there is a problem. One of the problems that many members of target groups experience are these subtle isms, that are largely unnoticed and unacknowledged by the non-target majority. It is crazy-making in the extreme to have these things happen to you and be told to your face that no problem exists. And some on the right of the political spectrum are making it worse by claiming that the non-target group they belong to is the one that is being discriminated against.
So I ask you, if you are a member of a privileged group, and someone in a non-privileged group throws an ism at you, try to take a step back, take a breath, and then take a look at your actions and see if maybe, just maybe, they're right. Please. If you do that, the world will be a much better place.
Thanks.