Posted by Or… I ain’t problematic, I have a [group name] friend!!
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about in-person exposure to a particular race, religion, ethnicity or socioeconomic category during one’s formative years. To what degree is it important in shaping one’s views of that group. And how much/if at all can such initial opinions be changed.
If your experience of a group has mostly come from outside sources and not in-person, their very existence & aspirations will remain abstract. It’s easy to say that you don’t stereotype people when there has been no one around to break the vision that you’ve already constructed of them in your mind; as opposed to living, breathing, often imperfect human beings with their own voices. Their ‘sudden’ appearance later in your life could be jarring, to say the least.
Empathy gets in the way of academic debate
It’s even easier to debate a topic calmly & dispassionately when it’s not your life and group in question. And because no group is ever monolithic, you will be able to find Other members of that group who will validate your point.
To debate is human. But to look into a friend’s eyes and empathize with their pain and their point of view and to let that empathy enter into your heart when the point does not appear to correspond with what might benefit your personal life or your long-held worldview – that is divine.
Empathy is more difficult than sympathy.
He ain’t heavy. He’s not really Mozlam, baby…
When I was younger, I naively thought that people who grew up with Muslims like me, for instance, would have more sympathetic attitudes towards them because of that in-person exposure. “Maher is alright; maybe Muslims aren’t so bad.”
The aftermath of 9/11 and every election since, most notably 2016, put paid to that notion! It actually felt like the opposite. It was almost as though some folks felt their singular experience of me gave them cause to cancel all Muslims. “Moe isn’t really that Muslim; we have to protect against Those People – the real Mozlems!”
For instance, folks would calmly suggest to me that forcing Muslims to register with the US government was the right thing to do. And for them, such topics were grand theoretical experiments. But not to me. That was eye-opening. Perhaps it was more comforting to view the ‘dangerous’ ones as representative of Muslims rather than the one sitting in front of them practically screaming to be heard.
When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression
More recently, I find myself considering the notion of a diverse & inclusive society. For me, that’s just a fact in my version of the USA. But those not personally implicated in such a project, well, they can go on their merry way as if its effects are immaterial. Because it doesn’t really impact them. Or they push back because they feel they’re losing power so they have to grab whatever they can. An arms race to the bottom.
I would still like to believe, naive though it may be, that it is difficult for anyone with even an ounce of empathy to tell a friend that their perspective is incorrect or their presence at the table is not needed or wanted.
So instead, people will dress up disagreements and invalidation in the most logical ways possible. Thus, when the person(s) in question is still emotional because the ideas aren’t just academic to them, they can be dismissed as being overwrought and illogical. “It’s only an opinion! Why so pressed??” This rejoinder has an air of “Fuck your feelings!” to it.
I do consider myself lucky to have had a few wonderful friends over the years who have really attempted to empathize and make me feel as though I am valued.
I have known many who were raised in very religiously conservative climates (including Muslims in the USA). How they had grown up with some rather uncharitable and rigid attitudes as a result. It was only when they went to college and interacted with others that their attitudes began to change. This process happened slowly and, in no small part, because the new people in their life treated them with compassion and not with condescension. What if they had been met, not with patience, but with cynicism and hostility.
I’ll cop to blind spots and weaknesses in my own experience as well. Growing up around white folk and the power of their institutions is enervating. And due to my immigrant upbringing, there are parts of the American experience, both economic & cultural, to which I have been an outsider. What I’m saying is that I also have to work to generate empathy.
Not everyone has the capacity to change, or even to be empathetic when faced by someone challenging them. It is a credit to them for being open-minded but also a form of grace that they were dealt with carefully and patiently so as not to be forced deeper into their rigid beliefs. Now, I have a hard time picturing them as anything but staunch and amazing allies.
Breathing is the Hardest Thing To Do…
When I feel myself retreating into condescension and meanness, I try to picture my various friends’ smiles, their laughs, the lines on their faces… their humanity, so as not to make a caricature of them or their group. There are times when I fail at that task. I’ve been a jagoff when it wasn’t necessary.
Being outrageous and mean-spirited and divisive for the sake of cheap laughs or feeling superior is an unsurprising trauma response, especially when it comes to religious, racial, ethnic or sex discrimination. But it’s not always a healthy response. Not even when it’s punching up. And certainly not when it’s punching down or sideways.
And yet, a wise mentor once told me that they view (white) people neutrally or suspiciously until given reason to believe they’re not good. Keep them at arm’s length. It’s a solid enough survival mechanism. It’s what you do when you’ve been left gasping one too many times because people are stealing all the air in the room for themselves. And then blaming you for wheezing.
Get over it, right? Well, I’m tired of suffocating and then having to move on to a different room. As Lauryn Hill once said,
“You might win some, but you really lost one
You just lost one, it’s so silly how come?
When it’s all done, did you really gain from
What you done done, it’s so silly how come?”
