Systemic Oppression, Personal Bigotry, and Jerkiness

Please forgive me, I thought the purpose of this topic was to refine your definitions. What are you looking to debate?

~Max

Again, done and dusted. No worries with having done so, but let’s not get bogged down into a discussion of having done so.

Well, that’s a problem then, if you’re going to go around declaring both of those things to be jerkiness.

I’d not declare either of those to be jerky. I’d declare them both to be bigotry per the OP’s (IMO reasonable) definition thereof.

The challenge is when does badly assuming the worst of 99% of a populace based on the bad acts of 1% change into the sensible caution of preparing for the worst based on the bad acts of 20% of them? or 40%, or 75%?

How many bad actors does it take to spoil a whole race or class or nationality of people?

A darn hard question to pin down, and not a very pleasant one to contemplate.

Perhaps that’s the wrong question to ask. Perhaps it should be about what you’re doing based on your fears or assumptions, whether you’re intrinsically within your rights to take those actions, and how or to what degree it harms the other person.

ETA: and you’re right, I should’ve said bigotry, not jerkiness. But do you agree that it’s a problem to delineate these categories and say they’re all bad, when you acknowledge but can’t delineate subcategories within them that might be justified?

Sorta.

There’s a logical conundrum in the center. Humans make decisions based on statistics and experience. Some of those statistics are suspect, or subject to sampling bias, etc. And everyone’s experience is itself a highly truncated and probably biased sample vs the universe in question.

Yet we want (or should want to want) to treat everyone as individuals, not as mere avatars of the median (or worse, as avatars of the worst outliers) of the group bearing their identifiable characteristics.

I think I’m morally justified in reacting differently to seeing an approaching human, dog, or mountain lion. Especially in the lion’s case, there’s not AFAIK a lot of individual variation in their behavior repertoire. And none of it is good for me.

I’m not real sure it is morally defensible to react differently to approaching humans simply on the basis of their evident gender or skin color. It might be practically useful from an individual perspective in extremis, but at what cost to society and the people we encounter?

If we’re building a moral taxonomy, which is I think what the OP is trying to do, defining distinctions within the taxonomy that serve only to excuse the things we’ve already decided are immoral is a mistake. it’s salami slicing towards “There’s nothing wrong with bigotry … As long as the right people are victimized.”

There is an element of the tragedy of the commons here. My decision to cross the street because the 3 black youths walking towards me on the same sidewalk make me nervous is a microagression to them if they are in fact going to the YMCA to shoot hoops, not muggers out stalking for muggees. All 4 of us are diminished by my selfish act. And thus the prejudice = bigotry problem is perpetuated.

Doing the morally right thing in any situation is often a courageous act. An act of courage sometimes rewarded with disaster. It’s OK not to be brave. Just be careful that lack of bravery doesn’t shade into moral cowardice. Or worse yet, moral indifference mislabeled as personal convenience.

I suppose part of the OP’s point is a call to action against moral indifference. Which if engaged with honestly, involves each of us staring hard into the mirror and seeing what’s really there. Then doing something about it.

I think you’re morally…fine?..in reacting with fear to a mountain lion as opposed to a dog or a person, but not because mountain lions are monolithic in their badness toward you. If anything, unless you’re a small child, they’re probably less of a threat to you than another person is. But you don’t have to worry about you and the mountain lion being diminished by your microaggression of crossing the street to avoid it because of your fear. That goes to my point about the harm caused by what you’re doing. You characterize the difference in Person A doing something to Person B, and Person B doing something similar to Person A, as merely a question of whether the “right” people are being victimized. But the same action that victimizes Person B when done by Person A may not actually victimize Person A when done by Person B. (As in your admittedly extreme example-- the mountain lion doesn’t care about your bigotry.) Or, it may harm them significantly less, such that on balance, Person B’s right to do the thing outweighs Person A’s right not to have it done to them.

Here’s a human example. In most white-collar professions, black people are even more of a minority than they are in the general population. Women have also historically been underrepresented, though that’s changing. If the first black woman hired by a particular law firm decides to take the second black woman they hire under her wing and mentor her so that she can avoid some of the difficulty the first black woman (hereafter FBW) endured, you have a situation that meets the definition of bigotry provided in the OP. FBW is making a value judgment about SBW; she’s judging her to be more deserving of help than the white guy who was hired at the same time. She is treating SBW better, and giving her a material advantage (realistically, this relationship is going to go beyond advising SBW which creepy old partner to avoid working late with and which specific AAVE phrases to avoid using, things that wouldn’t be much use to the white guy. Every new attorney would benefit from being able to talk to someone who knows the firm culture and the relevant areas of law.) And if you switched it up, and had a white man making sure to help all the white men the firm hired and no one else, that would not be OK. But do you think that what FBW is doing is equally not OK? Do you think it’s even a little bit not OK?

…huh. That definitely doesn’t sound like bigotry as I intended to define it.

Choosing to treat someone differently based on their race is NOT the same as making a value judgment. I’m not sure a better way to phrase this, though, and you’re not the first person to interpret it this way. Maybe someone can help with the phrasing?

Because sometimes–such as in this example–it’s totally legit to treat someone differently based on their race. A value judgment, IMO, is saying that someone is better or worse as a person, based on an irrelevant and/or innate characteristic.

I watched one of those stupid Facebook reels recently, where a comedian was all like, “Women don’t want equality, they just want the good parts of being a man, like equal pay.” That’s a value judgment about women, in much the same way as someone who says, “human males are a failed experiment” is making a value judgment about men and boys. Both of those examples are bigotry and both suck (although again, the former example strengthens systemic oppression in a way that the latter doesn’t, making the former example the suckier of the two).

Saying, “We need more male nurses, so we’re going to do a special outreach program for men” is not a value judgment; rather, it’s a strategy. Similarly, saying, “It’s hard to be a black woman in this office, so I’m going to choose her to mentor over that white woman” is a strategy. It’s not saying anything about the value of the person, but it’s adjusting behavior to recognize a historical and social reality.

A transwoman who chooses to be more cautious around cisfolk than around transfolk may not be making a value judgment about transfolk. When I said earlier that distinguishing between caution and bigotry was important to do, I intended as a corollary that certain kinds of caution ARE morally defensible. I apologize for not stating that explicitly.

I’m not sure I’m phrasing this distinction very well, but I’m confident there’s an important distinction to make here. Does anyone have an idea how to phrase that distinction better?

I see what you’re saying, but what about my counterexample of the white man who only helps other white men? Is that not bigotry?

She might be judging her to be more deserving of her help, or she might be judging her to be more needful of her help. They’re not the same thing. Even if all of the employees are equally deserving, the one who’s trying to overcome institutional bigotry is the one who needs help more.

That sounds just like a restatement of the affirmative action problem. Are the other new hires denied mentoring by the more senior employees? Maybe so, as there are only so many mentors available. Any time there are limited resources, decisions have to be made about distributing those resources. In any situation the answer of is it moral is going to be nuanced and depend on the details.

One of the details to take into account can be whether the decision on resource distribution is reinforcing or working to dismantle existing systemic oppression. Is the white man only mentoring other white men because of his own personal bigotry? Or is it because in this situation a white man is going to have certain experiences and insights which will apply to other white men, but not to women or people of color?

I understand what you’re getting at. I think the problem is that there is no bright line between caution and bigotry. One person with a high score on personal bigotry is going to see something as appropriately cautious, that other people would call clearly racism.

Interesting. I think it depends on his reasons. If bigotry is about value judgments, is he making a value judgment?

Consider Biff and Chad.

Biff thinks that White dudes are harder workers than Black women, and he doesn’t want to waste his time on a dud of a mentee, so he chooses only to mentor White dudes. He’s making a value judgment, and that’s bigoted.

Chad has no special opinion about the relative work habits --or any other trait – of Black women and White men. But he thinks that he doesn’t know how to mentor a Black woman, so he solely mentors White men, trusting that Black women will mentor the Black women. He’s not making a value judgment, and that’s not bigoted.

Crucially Biff and Chad are both contributing to systemic oppression, which is real bad. And that’s part of why I think a framework like this is helpful: we gotta be able to explain why Chad’s behavior is bad, even if he protests that he’s the least racist person in the world. It’s possible to strengthen oppression even without being personally bigoted.

It may also be helpful to consider Dahlia and Emily.

Dahlia only mentors people from Central American countries. She thinks they’re harder workers than American-born workers.

Emily only mentors lesbians. What can I say? She’s got a thing for lesbians.

Dahlia is bigoted, but not necessarily contributing to systemic oppression. Latino immigrants aren’t a historically privileged group here in the United States.

Emily isn’t bigoted or contributing to systemic oppression, but she might be a little creepy.

Maybe, maybe not. Suppose FBW soon comes to realize that SBW has got her shit so completely together that she’s going to be running this firm before long, if she doesn’t wind up on the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the white guy that was hired at the same time (hereafter CWD, for clueless white dude) clearly needs more help. He cracked a joke at his first all-staff meeting that landed with a thud. His first memo was turned in late and not up to par. He’s bugging IT with questions about how to use Westlaw that aren’t really technical issues so much as deficiencies in his legal research skills. FBW looks at CWD and decides she’d rather keep mentoring SBW, who’s grateful for the help even though she could do quite well without it. Now I think we can agree that, at the very least, FBW is not basing her choice on who needs it more, and perhaps we can agree that it is probably about who she thinks deserves it more. (And FWIW, in this scenario FBW is not a supervisor or engaged in any kind of formal mentorship program; she’s doing this entirely on her own, for the first time, because she wants to. So it’s not a matter of how the firm allocates resources.)

I guess the term “value judgment” has some baggage. But I don’t really see how a decision to treat two people differently can be anything but a value judgment. Maybe your judgment isn’t that this choice or that one has inherently, objectively greater value in all circumstances, but if it’s what you prefer, then that’s what you value. To OP’s phrasing question, I think perhaps you meant to exclude justifiable discrimination from your definition of bigotry–i.e. if you have a good reason to treat one person better than another, then it’s not a subtype of bigotry that’s OK, but rather it’s not bigotry at all. But I don’t think the term “value judgment” is narrow enough to accomplish that. Perhaps you need to say something like “unfairly devalue” a person based on superficial characteristics. (Calling those characteristics “irrelevant” maybe creates more confusion than clarity. Who decides what’s relevant? To the white partners of my hypothetical law firm, skin color should be irrelevant in deciding who should get to make partner. But to FBW, skin color is relevant to her decision about whom to mentor, and I’m not prepared to say she’s wrong for that.) But I still think you have the problem that you can’t set these parameters to be completely neutral as to who’s in power.

We all have a certain sphere of positive rights–things we should be free to do and decide for ourselves. But we also have a certain sphere of negative rights–things we should be free from having done to us, or decided for us. And it gets tricky when our spheres overlap with others’. As a professional, you have the right to help newer colleagues, or not, as you see fit. No one is entitled to your help if that’s not part of your job description. But the newer colleagues do have sort of a vague negative right not to be treated unfairly. It’s not terribly unfair for a more qualified black woman to get more help once in her life from another black woman who wants to give it to her, while a mediocre white man flounders. But it is unfair–and perhaps the way it was described as enforcing systemic oppression is the best explanation of why–for white men to exclusively look out for their own. But that doesn’t mean white men have zero right to decide how to allocate their time and efforts. It just means their circle of positive rights maybe sometimes needs to contract a little more to make room for the negative rights of others.

??? Of course it can be. I can and do treat my own daughter differently from an old man in Ukraine. That doesn’t mean I’m judging the value of my own daughter as greater or lesser than the value of him.

To insist that all differential treatment of people is due to value judgments, and then to tie those all into the “value judgment” phrase I used in the definition of bigotry, is not helpful.

But don’t you personally value your daughter’s life and well-being more than you value an old man in Ukraine? You can step back and objectively assess that neither person is worth more or less, but isn’t one of them worth more to you? I’m not sure the term “value judgment” makes that distinction. I also think that distinction can get muddy. It’s conceptually simple to acknowledge that the people I love are worth more to me, but not inherently worth more; it’s easy to understand and name my feelings there and see how they’re separate from an objective reality. But think about social or political causes you’re passionate about. Are you confident that you can separate your personal feelings about which issue matters most from some universal value system? Perhaps we can agree that cancer research is more important than the march for the cure for hangnails. But is cancer more important, more worthy of your donations, than other potentially fatal diseases? Are you sure you can so cleanly distinguish what matters to you from what matters, period?

It absolutely makes that distinction to me, but if it doesn’t make it to you, can you please suggest a different term that does?

I’m happy to clarify my terms, or even to take advice on how to rephrase them. But I’m not especially interested in going back and forth on whether I mean what I say I mean.

I actually don’t think that contradicts my premise. Maybe SBW really is that competent… but that doesn’t erase the unjust obstacles that are in her path due to her race and gender. Maybe she’s so competent that, even with those obstacles, she’d still end up running the company, but that means that, in a fair world, she’d end up running the company even quicker. By mentoring her, FBW is helping to offset those obstacles, and bringing the state of the world closer to the fair state.

And this is especially true, because in the real world, one of those specific obstacles is often that minorities of various sorts won’t receive that sort of informal mentoring that cis het white men will receive from the “old boys”. Clueless White Dude probably will get a certain level of help, despite his cluelessness, from other men who consider him to be “one of us”. First Black Women probably doesn’t need to help him because someone else already is.

That’s the thing, I’m not sure this is a terminology problem rather than a conceptual one. I’m really not trying to play games here, and I’m sorry if this is frustrating for you. Maybe you could help me understand your perspective. Do you believe there are ever any differences between the inherent worth or value of two people, or is any such perception just bigotry? If you believe there can be such a difference, e.g. between Charles Manson and Fred Rogers, not between black people and white people, how do you know whether you’re judging them objectively, vs. based on what you value personally?

“Inherent” adds a weird quality to it, so I’m going to take that out, and say yes, of course there are times I make value judgments about people. If I say, “He’s terrible at flirting,” that’s a value judgment. If I say, “I don’t want to date him,” that’s not a value judgment.

Does this distinction seem clear to you? If not, can other folks chime in? I don’t think this is conceptual vagueness, but if nobody sees any difference between these two, I’ll reconsider.

Edit: and to clarify, “He’s terrible at flirting,” while a value judgment, isn’t based on an irrelevant characteristic, and so it’s not bigoted. “He’s terrible at flirting because he’s Belgian” is, so it’s bigoted. “I don’t want to date him because he’s Belgian” is gonna raise some eyebrows and questions, but it’s not a value judgment, nor is it (to the best of my knowledge) feeding into a system of oppression, so by itself that decision is neither bigoted nor oppressive.