Why Am I Expected To Defer To Others?
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Mar 21, 2018
I went to a networking event earlier this evening. Before I got there, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some medicine for my mother, who's been fighting a cold lately. I walked into the store close behind this young couple that was ahead of me.
 |
When we got into the actual store, there was someone coming from the left side of us. As the couple passed by him, he walked right in front of me. I stopped so I wouldn't run into him and, being a bigger guy, I didn't want to hurt him. He kept walking as though I wasn't even there... and I got irked.
As I was driving to my friend's house to pick him up for this networking event, I was thinking that for the overwhelming majority of my life, it's been me who's always stopped for others. It's almost always me who opens and holds the door for others.
I know where I got the second part from. My dad always held doors open for others. However, Dad didn't always stop for other people and allow them to walk ahead of them. He also didn't always worry about getting out of the way. He deferred to "elders"; that's how he was brought up.
For everyone else, he'd gauge whether he felt he was being treated fairly or not. Dad once stood up to a deputy in Alabama in the 50's who he felt had disrespected him. As dangerous as that was, when the deputy asked him who he thought he was, he said he was a staff sargeant and military policeman in the United States Air Force... and he was carrying a weapon. And he got away with it; yay Dad!
Most of the time, I don't mind deferring to others. I have my moments though, where I'll either get upset or I decide I'm not moving for anyone.
I don't knock people down; I stop and make them run into me. Half the time people apologize because they weren't paying attention. The rest of the time... they give me a look, not a nice look, and go around me. I've never had anyone say anything negative, but if looks could kill...
Sometimes I wonder why I'm always expected to be the one to get out of people's way. Can people feel my predilection for trying to keep the peace and decide to take advantage of the situation? Or is it possibly something else... related to diversity issues?
The hardest thing about being a minority in America is that you're never sure where bigotry and racism is occurring as opposed to people just being rude. For instance, is it racist if people don't notice you in a crowd of people when you're the only minority in the room? Is it racist if people react to you before you've said anything to them but don't do it to anyone else? Is it latent bigotry when they say "you're not what I expected"? Are we being sensitive if we notice these things and wonder if they ever do the same things to other white people?
I've been told many times over the years that I'm being too sensitive and I'm taking things personally that aren't meant to be that way. Who tells me this? White people. Very few black people have ever said this to me; that's because my experience is their experience. I went to Google and put in this question: are black people too sensitive? You know how many articles come up? 51,900,000!
Strangely enough, it included an article yours truly wrote in 2010 titled Black People Are Too Sensitive?; how about that! lol It was an interesting article for many reasons; I hope you check it out.
Am I sensitive? Absolutely! Am I 24/7/365 sensitive? Thank goodness, no! I'm not sure I could survive if I was that sensitive!
However, I do have times when I notice things aren't quite right. I calculate things quickly and I come to the conclusion that there's some kind of bias occurring; I don't want to say racism because most of the time that's more blatant. Bigotry, intolerance... it can be subtle, but I know it when I feel it... when I'm experiencing it.
Below I'm sharing two videos I did last week on this topic. I tell tales in each of these videos; what happened, how I felt. The first one received a strong reaction when I shared it; the second not so much, but they were only a day apart on two separate channels.
Once again, the funny thing is that the black people who watched it and commented said they've had similar experiences. One white person said I should accept my strengths... whatever that means. lol
Sometimes people aren't cognizant of the feelings a minority might have when they're the "only" in the room; sometimes they are. No matter which way they feel, I feel that issues can't be addressed if they're not talked about. That's why I did the videos; that's why I'm sharing the videos here. I hope you watch them, and then I hope you comment on the subject. I guess we'll see what happens:
https://youtu.be/7IHOA4c6OM4
https://youtu.be/Wy-eQ3hp05k
Mitch, this was a very good article. Thanks for publishing it.
Race is such a touchy subject, and so many people simply don’t understand how racism is woven into our culture. There is a very popular misconception that color blindness is the answer, which it isn’t…nor is it even attainable.
For example, the 2004 University of Chicago study which found that black sounding names receive 50% fewer calls for a job interview than white sounding names.
I remember in 2006, I had a phone call with a prospective employer and after he had asked me about my name, Adams, he concluded that I was white. He then said, “I need some good anglo people. I’ve got a lot of Mexicans, and while they’re good technically, Mexicans just aren’t management material, you know what I mean?” I said, “No, I don’t know what you mean. I’ve known a lot of very successful Mexican and Guatemalan business owners, as well as working with some highly skilled and competent Mexican and El Salvadorian executives at Autodesk, Wells Fargo, and GT Interactive.”
I didn’t work for that guy.
People don’t get that we’ve been trying to rid ourselves of racism for only a few decades, after hundreds of years of promoting racism.
The three-fifths compromise legally enshrined racism into the founding of this country.
Jim-crow extended the overt exploitation and terrorism against blacks for another hundred years.
In the meantime, all of the labor that was being exploited by means of terror was being done on land that had explicitly been stolen from Indians, using resources that too were stolen.
Even abolitionists, were white supremacists. They opposed slavery but wanted to remove all blacks to another country…while they formed no black states on land that they had stolen from Indians, in a genocidal campaign of terror.
What we’re dealing with now is the built-in racism of language and assumption regarding people with brown skin. People don’t know it, but it is racism when for decades, brown kids would commit violent crimes and the response was “personal responsibility,” but now that the media is covering white kids are being violent and shooting classmates in school, the 2nd amendment has flip-flopped from personal responsibility to “but he was a victim.”
The same is true of the current opioid epidemic. I am glad they’re finally realizing that we need to try and redeem addicts…but it did take large quantities of white kids having drug problems for the country to decide that we should stop locking drug addicts up and throwing away the key.
Racism is alive and well…albeit well hidden, but in plain sight for anyone who is looking.
Good article!
Now that’s an epic comment! You’d give my friend Holly a run for her money with this one. lol
I often hesitate to call every bit of bias racism, mainly because I see racism and racist acts as overt, whereas most of what I see is either inadvertent or, as you said, a bit of color blindness that no one who’s underfoot of such acts is immune to seeing it. Doesn’t mean it hurts any less, but it’s not intentional; those folk are the ones I feel can be reached with articles like this one.
It’s definitely endemic in American culture, but it’s not just the United States. It happens all around the world; in some countries it’s been reversed, as we see South Africa doing some things that would make Mandela turn over in his grave if such a thing could occur. It’s always whoever the majority is that acts this way; maybe in 100 years it’ll be Hispanics and Latinos who are in charge unless white America pulls the apartheid card… and I’m not feeling so sure about America these days, if you know what I mean.
Still, I have my say, which most people ignore, because the truth hurts and throwing it people’s faces is scary. I thank you for your words; one of these days a few more people might see the message and help out.
I used to shy away from calling it racism, but over the past few years, I’ve had a pretty big change in my perspective on this.
It is built into the language and assumptions. People claim to be color-blind and then they give high-fives and figure they’re done. They’re on the right side. Their work is done. They ignore that this society has never made reparations for the generations of trauma and exploitation that has been inflicted on people of color.
I hear what you’re saying about South Africa, and it is troubling, but I gotta be honest. I see it both in the context that you are sharing and in the context of 20 years after the end of apartheid, a small minority of white colonists continued to own more than 80% of the productive land and control roughly the same quantity of the nation’s wealth.
They literally had two decades to make things right and they chose not to, which resulted in the current situation. It is my observation that people don’t want to be in conflict, and unless they are kept desperate for long enough, they will generally just try to survive. In this case, the racism persisted for long enough that the tables ended up being turned. I don’t know the solution, but I feel like the cause is plain as day.
I’d love for my country, the USA, to learn from these mistakes, but we’re not doing so. We’re so slow to move away from our degenerate past and quick to celebrate it as an example of freedom.
I’d never say that people who have been successful didn’t work hard for their success, but I will also assert that their success has usually been built off the benefits they derive from the exploitation of others. The US Gov. has broken close to 400 treaties with Native American Nations, and then subsequently stolen their land, while forcing them, literally at the point of a gun and under threat of starvation, to negotiate new treaties in which the Indians gave up even more of what had been promised to them. If this were to happen between two citizens around a contract, the new contract would be considered null and void, because it was won through coercion.
All of that said, I think that human nature does lean towards abuse of power and a tendency among the powerful to not only exploit those without power but to also view them with disdain.
First, you need to watch the first 2 minutes and 7 seconds of this video; you’re going to be amazed that Dr. King said pretty much what you said: https://youtu.be/2xsbt3a7K-8?t=13m45s
The thing about South Africa is that Mandela set it up for things to be the way they “were” until recently. In a way, it explains why I’m bad at forgiveness, because sometimes just forgiving someone isn’t enough, even though people say we forgive others to make ourselves feel better; pbbft!
I’d love to say black people deserve reparations, and I’d take my bit happily, yet I also know that the overwhelming majority wouldn’t know what to do with the money. For there to be true equality and fairness, those too old for school need to have opportunities to learn trades so they can make more than minimum wage. For those young enough to go to school, initiatives must be made to make sure that all schools are equal as it pertains to education. We both know that doesn’t happen; kids in poor communities aren’t taking home laptops or even homework (I know that one from experience).
Still, I find that we’ve moved beyond my initial premise of having to defer to others in a real world context. We can talk about some of these other issues, but bringing the truth to the masses is a much different thing. I always believe that nothing can be solved until all sides are talking to each other. It’s the reason I write these diversity posts that almost no one reads. At least the first video in this article’s got close to 100 views; that’s saying something. 🙂
I find that I’ll easily get off topic these days…or more accurately, grow beyond the topic.
I appreciate your posts, and I appreciate that you post on diversity.
I’m terms of racism, if you will email me, I’ll happily correspond on that topic via email. I just saw that clip earlier today with Dr. King. I was taken with his saying such similar things.
Here’s a post I wrote for project management dot com about diversity
Actually, if you click on that link underneath my picture that says About Mitch Mitchell you’ll find my email address there. I’m always easy to reach. 🙂
BTW, it only gives a snippet of your article unless you become a member of the site.