Intent and Impact

Shabbat Shalom.

Growing up as a member of this socially conscious congregation, I heard many messages about my identity as a Jew in America. Foremost among these messages was that my people have been persecuted for thousands of years, practically everywhere in the world, and consequently, we Jews inherently understand the suffering of those who are less fortunate in our own society. The prototypical Ashkenazic Jewish immigrant didn’t just lift himself up by his bootstraps in the face of discrimination but also instilled in his offspring the importance of sympathizing with others who encounter similar challenges, regardless of whether they too are Jews.

This is a message that inspires liberal American Jews to work hard to be our best selves, to be active, model citizens. It is also a message that, paradoxically, can cause us to fall victim to our blind spots related to justice, equity, and empathy in our increasingly diverse society. This is what I’d like to examine with you this evening.

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A bit about myself: In addition to being Jewish, I am white, male, upper middle class, able-bodied, and gay. As a gay person, I spent much of my life feeling like an outsider, feeling misunderstood and marginalized by people around me and by the culture in general. At the same time, as a well-off white male, I have benefited from my membership in groups that are considered the norm, the default, groups that have the power to set the standard for everyone else.

In the sociology course I teach to eighth graders, called Frameworks of Identity, we refer to such groups as “culturally dominant identities.” Each of us is a mix of some dominant identities and some nondominant ones, and the type of group we are in matters in a number of ways.

For example, members of nondominant groups tend to be viewed as representatives of their group. Many liberal Jews have supported President Barack Obama, the first Black president, and believe sincerely that he reflects well on Black America. Yet we never hear George W. Bush referred to as the forty-third white president. And after Bush had bungled two wars, a hurricane, and an economy, no one saw this as reflecting poorly on white people. The very idea of it seems ridiculous.

Another example: Nondominant groups are often judged using the dominant group’s standards. Western culture emphasizes debate, the importance of “putting yourself out there” in a rapid-fire discussion, and consequently, we evaluate our students on how effectively they do this. The standard applies even to students from Asian cultures that value contemplative listening and thinking much more than spontaneous speaking―to say nothing of the advantage given to those who speak only English over their classmates who might speak two or three languages and are still learning English.

As for dominant groups, they are given the benefit of the doubt in ways that nondominant groups rarely are. Researchers at Harvard sent fictitious resumes to prospective employers, keeping every word the same except for the first name of the candidate: for example, some resumes listed “John” and others “Jamal.” Names that sounded white were fifty percent more likely to receive a callback. Researchers at Yale conducted a similar experiment, changing just the genders: “John” and “Jennifer,” for example. The suggested salary for male names was on average $4,000 higher than for female names. This type of study has been repeated many dozens of times over many decades, with consistent results. With all other factors held constant, white people and male people are presumed to be more competent. What’s more, this presumption is subconscious, rooted not in intentional racism or sexism but rather in the messages our culture sends us throughout our lives.

These examples, and our reactions to them, highlight the biggest consequence of being a member of a dominant group within a culture: You don’t notice the ways in which you are advantaged. It doesn’t occur to you that you are automatically judged as more competent, that you are given the benefit of the doubt in situations where others are not, that your accomplishments are based not solely on your hard work but also on your uncanny ability to be of the right identity at the right place and time.

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As American Jews, we have a unique and complex relationship with the system I’ve just outlined. The entire narrative of our people focuses on our oppression, our nondominant status in every culture throughout history. Yet in the Washington area in 2016, American Jews as a group are in fact quite dominant. Most of us are white. Most of us are at least middle class, with many of us much more privileged than that. Straight. Able-bodied. And let’s take as a given that most of us love a good debate. As a result of our cultural dominance, we often don’t notice the ways in which we are advantaged.

The community around us is becoming more and more diverse with each passing year. This includes our Jewish community specifically. Temple Emanuel’s Kulanu committee has provided leadership in this particular congregation as it welcomes gay and lesbian Jews, Black Jews, Asian Jews, multiracial Jews, transgender and genderqueer Jews, Jews from nontraditional family structures, Jews of lower socioeconomic status, Jews from non-Jewish cultures, Jews from interfaith families, and non-Jews with Jewish family members.

As we encounter and interact with a wider range of identities, we also risk initiating more moments that reveal our blind spots. This often happens in small ways: moments that seem inconsequential to the dominant group but are significant and at times hurtful to a member of the nondominant group. In our Frameworks of Identity course, we refer to this as a disconnect between intent and impact.

This often takes the form of statements by a member of a dominant group that are offered in a spirit of praise, curiosity, or connection. Yet they may be offensive to the recipients because the statement suggests an invalidation of their full humanity―through stereotypes, low expectations, or tired assumptions that members of nondominant groups hear over and over again. For Jews, classic examples of this include being told that we don’t “look Jewish,” or that someone in a bind should hire a Jewish lawyer. This type of comment, while offered as praise, implies that Jews are ugly or manipulative.

So here’s a quick rundown of some common statements that are offered with good intentions but that land with a negative impact on the recipient:

• • • referring to a Black person as “articulate,” which suggests that it’s noteworthy that a Black person can speak English well;

    • asking an Asian American person where they are from, which presumes that they are not from here and consequently that they don’t belong (and definitely avoid the dreaded follow-up question: “No, where are you really from?”);

    • telling a gay person that you know someone else who is gay and therefore the two of them should go out, which implies that gay people are desperately seeking love, not to mention that they are of course attracted to every other gay person;

    • asking the one Black person or Asian person or gay person who is present to inform everyone else of what Black people or Asians or gays think of a certain issue, which presumes that everyone in that group is a copy of everyone else―that they don’t encompass a range of perspectives.

Now, some of you may be frustrated at how unfair it is for me to vilify these very innocuous statements that people make all the time, and that you yourself may have made on occasion. After all, don’t you appreciate being praised as articulate? Don’t you appreciate it when someone takes an interest in your family’s story? When someone offers to help you, or asks for your opinion? These are good things, right?

Well, it’s more complicated than that. It’s complicated because it matters whether the statement is aimed at one of the recipient’s nondominant identities. To explain why, I’d like to suggest that we rethink one of the central pillars of personal interaction that we’ve all taken for granted our entire lives. I’m speaking of the “Golden Rule”: Treat others the way you would want to be treated. When it comes to intent and impact, the Golden Rule simply doesn’t work.

You, a white person, like it when someone calls you articulate, because it feels great to be complimented every once in awhile. Yet a Black person who gets called articulate time and time again by countless numbers of white people who go out of their way to point it out sees such a statement as an insult, an acknowledgement that it’s unusual for people like them to present well―a reminder that they are representing their race and must be careful not to disappoint.

Likewise, you, a white person, love it when people ask about where you’re from. It gives you an opportunity to talk about yourself without being boastful or rude. You might even find you have something in common with the person who asked. Yet an Asian American person who gets asked that question time and time again by countless numbers of white people feels the sting each time―the sting of being reminded that they will always look like a foreigner here, even if their family has been in America just as long as the family of the Jewish person who asked them the question.

So in our increasingly diverse society, it’s not sufficient to treat people the way you would want to be treated, because we all are different people who exist in different contexts and experience the world from different perspectives. Instead, we must aim to treat people the way they need us to treat them. And that means that we must educate ourselves about the experiences of nondominant groups around us and think twice whenever we find ourselves assuming that because we are Jewish, we automatically understand what someone from another nondominant group is thinking or how they will react.

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Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you are sitting there bristling at the thought that we should treat people differently on account of their race or ethnicity or sexual orientation or gender identity or socioeconomic status or any other social identifier. After all, it seems to run counter to yet another central pillar of personal interaction that we’ve internalized for so long: the belief that in order to exist in a diverse society, we must be colorblind.

That logic goes like this: Our culture has a history of prejudice and discrimination, so the way to end it is simply to stop pre-judging and discriminating, and if everyone stops doing these things, then it will all go away. Unfortunately, that’s not the way the world actually works. It’s not the way the brain actually works. We who have grown up within this culture carry inside of us the subconscious biases of this culture. The evidence is everywhere, and it shows up in all of the examples I’ve been offering here: the unexpected impressiveness of an articulate Black person, the curiosity about an Asian person’s origins, the yearning to help a gay person finally find happiness, the way fake John’s resume is prioritized over fake Jamal’s and fake Jennifer’s, and yes, the presumption that if you hire a Jew as your lawyer, you’re off the hook. As much as we may want to pretend we don’t operate with these stereotypes and biases, the fact is we do. (If you’d like to see for yourself, type the phrase “Implicit Association Test” into any search engine and spend a few minutes taking an online test of your choice from the Harvard Psychology Department to reveal the extent of your own biases.)

So instead of being colorblind, or blind to any nondominant identity, we must be conscious of people’s identities as we interact with them, treating people the way they need us to treat them.

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One of the many Yiddish concepts to outlive the Yiddish language itself is that of the “mensch.” A mensch is a person who treats others well, who exudes character and a sense of self-awareness. Being a mensch is seen as a point of pride. Yet menschiness is not an inborn trait. It’s not that some people are natural mensches and others are not. Becoming a mensch takes practice, determination, a willingness to mess up and learn from the misstep and do better next time―and if not the very next time, then the time after that. In our increasingly diverse community, none of us start out as a mensch. And we start further behind if we believe that we’re already there. Our Judaism does not necessarily give us unique insight into the experiences of nondominant groups around us, but it does call us to do the work necessary to gain some of that insight. And then, armed with our new understandings, our Judaism calls us to help educate those around us so that we all, before too long, may live in a society full of mensches.

Shabbat shalom.