Race and Cultural Compitency; White intentions

A friend of mine suggested I write a piece on a common excuse White people use when in the midst of a racial or racist mistake; intentions.

For both Black and White people, some of these might sound familiar.

Example 1: Dear Sable,

The other day I was visiting my 1st grade son at school.  I was walking down the hall towards the classroom, when I heard the teacher shouting my son’s name.  She was obviously upset with him for the length of time it was taking him to wash his hands before lining up for lunch.  While talking to my son, she repeatedly called him “boy”.  The teacher is a white woman, and we are Black.  As soon as I went into the classroom she tried to immediately make a positive impression on me, but the damage was done.  Long story short, when I met with the teacher and principal after school, the teacher said to me, “I apoligize IF you were offended, that was not my INTENTION, I wold never say something hurtful to your child.”

Well she did say something hurtful, and I was deeply offended, no ifs about it.  As for her intention, does it matter what was intended or what was done?

Example 2: Dear Sable Verity

I am a Black male student in his second year at Princeton University.  One of the things I do on capus is tutor other students in math, which I happen to be very good at.  I got a new student a few weeks ago, and every time I see him, which is once a week, I can tell he is always really nervous around me.  Not only that, but he seems amazed at the things I know, or even just things that I do. 

He has asked me a plethora of questions that are borderline racist, but Iam patient because I can tell he has zero experience with Blacks.  Some of the things he’s asked; did you grow up on welfare; are you here on a scholarship; are your parents married; have you ever sold drugs; do you have any children; questions like that.  at one point he asked me if I like fried chicken.  I made a comment like “your ignorace is truly amazing sometimes”, and he said, “I’m sorry if you were offended, that wasn’t my intention.  I get so tired of that.  It’s like “well I didn’t mean to do it so it doesn’t count.  What is that about?  Why can’t we do the same thing?

Example 3: Dear Sable Verity

I am in a restaraunt the other day having lunch with my boss.  I’m pretty new to this company and it was my first boss/empoyee lunch and I was treating, so we went to, what I would describe as a nice restaraunt.  My boss is white, and I am Black.  I happened to notice that I was the only Black person in a fairly large restaurant with a healthy sized crowd at a place with really good food.  Lunch was great.  The boss loved it.  The waitress brought the check and set it on the table, and as she went to walk away, she looked at me and said “we don’t take checks.”  I was confused, “Excuse me?” I said.  She repeated herself.  I said I don’t want to write a check, I’m using my credit card.  She says to me, “I’ll need two pieces of ID.” 

Two pieces of ID?  For a meal that costs less that 70 bucks?  I knew what was going on.  My presentation be damned, I could be a thug in disguise, right. 

I paid and we left.  I got back to the office and called the manager of the restaraunt, explained what happened, explained how what she was implying was rejudiced and insulting and humiliating, and he says “Carrie is one of our best servers, she’s been here for years.  I am sorry you feel you had tht experience but I am certain that she would have never intended to offender you.”

Brush off.  I don’t give a damn about her intention, what about what she did?  It’s alright because her boss thinks she’s a great server?  And people think racism is dead…

Example 4:  Dear Sable Verity,

I’m sitting in class yesterday, at a school that calls itself a progressive community college, and we’re talking about Equity in the health system.  The bottom line on that is that people of color aren’t being served by medicine the way their White counterparts are.  It’s a long, sorted, viscious cycle that I won’t get into. The point is, we’re basically talking about racism in health care.  There are 40 people in the class; 3 or us are black.  1 was out sick that day and the other never talks.  Suddenly, our professor, who is a White woman, decided that I wast the expert on all things racist in health care.  She was calling me out, right in front of the class, in front of everyone.  She wanted to know personal examples I could give.  She wanted me to tell the rest of the students what they can say to ttheir Black patients in certain situations; it was totally insane.  I was caught off guard by it and pretty ticked.  Just because I’m Black doesn’t mean I’m an authorty on all things Black; that’s why I’m the student and she’s the professor, right.

I talked to her about it after class and told her I thought it was really unfair that she put me in that position and how it made me feel, and the perception it gave everyone else in the class, I really tried to explain why what she did was a major no-no, and I got that standard, “I’m so sorry if you felt uncomfortable, that was not my intention, I just think you’re so eloquent that perhaps you could give the glass a perspective I could not”…but she wasn’t asking the Asian students, or the American Indian students, or the Puerto Rican students, just me.  But that wasn’t her intention.  That was all she had to say.  Did she not get it, or am I the one missing something?

You get the picture.  It’s all about intention.

Why does one’s intention always seem to come up in this way, as a method of deflecting the mirror image one is being presented with?

Because racism has changed.  If a person is an overt, conscious, intentional racist, society deems them bad.  No one wants to be bad.  No one wants to be seen as hateful either.

People want to be seen as good, and even more than that they want their “goodness” recognized.  This is never more present than in a racial confrontation of some sort.  Someone offends another person based on their race.  Not good. 

And often, it wasn’t intended!  Accidents happen, we all say and do things we regret or by mistake, or whatever the circumstance may be. 

So when a racist mistake happens, the first thing the offender really wants to communicate to the victim and to everyone else is “I am a good person, I didn’t do it on purpose, it was an accident, I am a good person.”

Accidents, like mistakes, those happen too!  I accidentally broke my son’s favorite pencil the other day, and he was so upset he burst into tears.  But it wasn’t my intention.

I spilled coffee all over my daughter’s prom dress because I wasn’t paying attention.  But it wasn’t my intention.

I killed my neighbor’s expensive collection of tropical fish by feeding them the wrong food while she was on vacation.  But it wasn’t my intention. 

I burned my little brother playing with matches when we were kids.  He lost two fingers.  But it wasn’t my intention.

I caused a car accident that killed two people because I was distracted by my cell phone.  But it wasn’t my intention.

Some of these statements are mild, and some are severe.  They all have one thing in common; when harm is done, intention is irrelevant.  One must deal with what was actually done.

It is the same with race.

You can’t stick your foot in it and then say “I didn’t mean to do that.”  I guarantee you if you unitentionally step in some dog sh*t that you’ll clean your shoe; whether you meant to step in it or not.

So the intention does not matter.  What matters is what was actually done, that is the direction that needs to be sought when these types of situations arise.

After all, the road to hell is pave with the best of…