What, Me Racist?

Understanding why your intentions aren’t the point

Image: Sutha Kamal, Flickr, CC license, with apologies to this guy, who I’m sure is not shrugging off racism in this picture

By now, we all know the routine.

Someone says or does something incredibly racist, gets called out for it, and then insists that we took them out of context, or are overreacting.

After all, they assure us, they have black friends, or once dated an Asian girl, or have an adopted child from Guatemala, or some such thing — so they can’t possibly be racist. No, indeed, not a racist bone in their bodies.

And as we all know, racism is a skeletal condition.

If you were offended by whatever they said or did, that’s only because you’re too sensitive. It wasn’t their intention, and their intent is all that matters.

Perhaps it’s a sign of progress that people are so quick to deny their racism nowadays.

It’s easy enough to imagine that many years ago, if accused of saying or doing something that betrayed bias against folks of color, most whites would have shrugged as if to say, what’s the big deal? I suppose it is a victory of sorts that we have evolved, socially, to the point where even the most bigoted persons typically try and keep up the pretense of racial ecumenism.

But even as the desire to deny charges of racism suggests a kind of social progress, the act of denial still proves hurtful.

To deny the pain of the injured by focusing on the intent of the injurer is to suggest that the injured is not suffering, or if they are, it is only because they are irrational — yet another insult heaped upon the original harm.

That we wouldn’t do this in other types of situations should be obvious.

So, if I were to step on your toe in the line at Chipotle and break it, I doubt whether you would care if breaking your toe had been my plan all along. I don’t think it would matter to you whether I had woken up that day and wondered if I might be capable of breaking someone’s toe while waiting for my Sofritas bowl to get topped off with corn salsa.

So too, if my careless driving results in me running you over on your bike, I doubt “whoops” would suffice.

In the eyes of you or your family, what will matter is the injury caused — the…