Why 80% of the “racism” is the “victim’s” fault…
Disclaimer 1 : Being racist is BAD and discriminating is also BAD for obvious reasons, and we should stop it.
The story began when I was talking with my friend whose parents from Asia. We went into a store to grab some snacks.
I found my favourite snack first, so I went to the cashier, who seemed like she is having a bad day, so she handled the transaction quite dispassionately.
I did not give too much tough for it, went outside and waited for my friend. She had come out with a reddish face.
I asked: What’s the matter? She responded:
She was an asshole with me because I am Chinese!
I could not verify or deny what happened inside, and we had other things to attend to, so we parted, and this encounter stuck in my mind.
And I could not get my head around this tough:
When you feel is someone is racism or discrimination you how can you be sure you can believe your thought?
Not counting in the obvious clear actions, when someone is racist, how do you categorize which action is racist and which action is just your projection, because somebody could have a bad day or be a general asshole, which does not mean automatically they have someone against you because you are a woman, black, gay, Asian, transgender, immigrant, geek, apache helicopter and all the other categories.
Disclaimer 2 : I am a 25 year old white male from Europe, so I did not experienced much direct racism/discrimination against me, not counting the few occasions when somebody thought I am a gipsy because of my skin. However this is why I think I can distinguish between real and projected racism.
And this is important for 2 reasons:
ONE: 80% of the racism is not really what your experience is not real, so we can focus on the remaining 20% together to eliminate.
TWO: You are doing the projected racism, and it’s quite hard to change another person. On the other hand, YOU are in the best position to change yourself and choose how do you react because you have the power to do so. (Meditation, NVC to give 2 methods which helped me a lot.)
+1: If you do not react to every input as it was a racist action, then you do not teach others to act a certain way which can trigger you. Because yes, you can shape others with your actions. (Don’t Shoot the Dog book is an excellent resource for that)
More on this with an interactive game on game theory: https://boingboing.net/2017/07/26/fun-interactive-game-theory-si.html (Do not believe me, check out the science! )
And to the ones who are whining about everybody is an asshole to them, then I have a surprise for you: YOU ARE THE ASSHOLE!
Summary
You are projecting a lot of labels which are not certainly true.
You should not believe everything you think, see the example above.
What else do you project which is not true? Test you assumptions :)
You have the power to change, how do you react!
