Responding to Cultural Insensitivity

While I could certainly write on the need for underrepresented peoples to respond to culturally-insensitive comments or actions, this guide is actually for those who have privilege and who say that inevitable faux-pas.

We all have the potential of abusing our cultural power, of course, so I hope that everybody can find these short tips useful. As an educated, physically "non-handicapped" male, I recognize that I have privilege in certain situations. As a queer person of color from a socioeconomically disadvantaged background, I am vulnerable in other situations. The list could go on. However, my disadvantage never makes the oppression of other people acceptable. Privilege is privilege.

With this in mind, please accept these tips with the spirit in which they are given. I hope they can be of use in the future.

1. Cultural confrontation requires courage for the recipient of the comment

Recognize that people do not always respond to an insensitive comment or action when it offends them. Many people will not say anything and simply accept that the environment is unfriendly or just leave after the slight. By approaching you with, the "offended person" is extending a hope that the conflict can be resolved, which requires a sense of trust. The alternative is that the situation has gone on too long and that the other person is completely fed-up with it. Also, by approaching you on the comment, the person if implying that you are part of a similar community in which this person has investment (otherwise, the person would most likely just leave since confrontation is really awkward and makes many people feel guilty).

I have been truly affected by comments three times in my life. Each time, the response is very visceral. It's like walking down a dark alley and suddenly feeling like you're in physical danger. While rationally I have realized that I would probably not get attacked, the feeling is still the same. Consequently, I have been stunned during the event and didn't collect my thoughts enough to respond right away. It takes an amount of empowerment and courage to approach someone after feeling this way.


2. The recipient of the comment is usually responding to more than this one instance

As a continuation of my first point, many individuals will not respond until things start to make them feel very uncomfortable. Your one (and potentially multiple) comment is probably part of a larger history of events that can be frustrating and disempowering. Of course, this doesn't excuse the insensitive comment. However, recognize that the other individuals are responding to something larger that you are a part of, even if unwittingly.


3. Responding to the encounter takes courage on the part of the "offender"

Many people will have the initial reaction of feeling accused by having a comment pointed out. Overcoming this initial feeling is one of the most difficult, but most important, parts of growing your cultural sensitivity. Recognize that what you said affected someone else in a negative way and accept that the event occurred. It is only by admitting this that you can truly change the situation and make it less likely that it will happen in the future... and it's crucial to the process of mending the situation.


4. Approach the situation with genuine curiosity; don't ameliorate impact with intent

THE MOST COMMON RESPONSE that an affected person will receive after someone points out an insensitive comment is a rationalization. The email invariably sounds like the following: "I'm sorry that I offended you, but when I made the comment I was actually talking about BLAH BLAH BLAH." When people get this response, we recognize it as a clever way to take the blame off the "offender" and place it on the "offended." This reply is a natural defense mechanism, but it unwittingly places the blame on the affected person by having it be their fault for misinterpreting your "true" intent.

Instead, apologize and save the defense for later. If you have an honest curiosity to improve, ask the other person to help you understand the impact that your comment had. Often times, you'll learn something very helpful and interesting! However, this process is also very exposing to the affected person. It's not their job to explain or fix this situation, but many people will be willing to help. After you have understood the affect your comment had, you can use the conversation to explain the original intent, but make sure not to invalidate what you were just told. Affirm the feelings that the other person has or had.

The term for the incorrect response is often called "Intent before Impact." Trying to rationalize a response right away simply belittles the impact of the event, which can sometimes be quite large without your knowledge.


5. Whatever you do, don't do nothing

Inaction is the worst response to this situation. If needed, get an experienced and trusted mediator. However, not acting to remedy the situation only reaffirms that exclusion is acceptable. Later on, someone else will see the same behavior or the community will gain a reputation for being a hostile environment.

Underrepresented people share and compare stories! Personally, I am invested in making sure other people don't have the same bad experiences that I have had. Think about a bad experience that you have had at a place of business or a community of your own. You talk with your friends and if they have had similar experiences, you start warning your friends. After a while, inaction can build resentment. If you have no or few underrepresented people, chances are that multiple people have found the environment hostile at one point or another.

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As someone trained in leadership and organizational development, I recognize that "diversity as inclusion" is an essential part of a healthy and innovative group. By keeping your organization open and utilizing/appreciating what diversity you have, it becomes easier to grow more diversity into your group instead of "tokenizing" individuals.

Good luck. It's worth it.

I've Found My Candidate

I must admit that I was fairly ambivalent about the 2008 election to this point. I must admit that I voted for a republican candidate in the primaries because I am focused on moving this country towards the procurement of civil liberties. I must admit that I had no particular feeling for any of the candidates and had grown weary of political deceptiveness of a two-party system.

I've changed my mind. I have my candidate.

Please don't get me wrong. I am still firmly dedicated to the vision that government exists solely to transact the maximal safety and liberty of its citizens. I still think that a candidate working within the two-party system is inherently biased towards political device. Despite my VERY STUBBORN way of looking at politics, I recognize a great man when I see one.

I, as of today, support Obama for president of the United States of America.

Obama may not win the presidency. In fact, he is in close race with Clinton right now. When it may have benefited him to let a divisive comment about race relations fade away into the mulch of political battle, he made one of the most important speeches about modern politics that I may know while I am alive. President Bush can pose for as many pictures in front of rubble as he likes, but he will never make the impact on American culture as Obama did yesterday.

A speech like the one given today, and potentially the reasons for giving this speech, is what distinguishes a great man from a normal candidate.




I recognize my philosophy on leadership in his speech. I voted for someone else in the primary because, in the end, a president shouldn't be chosen because of his policy. A president shouldn't be chosen because he supports a detail of legislation, even if that detail excludes gay-rights. A president's job is not to create laws, but rather to lead the American people, whether this leadership is domestic or during times of war. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention before I cast my primary vote.

Obama is a leader. More important, I believe that Obama is capable of leading the American people in a time when some crucial decisions must be made.

I've found my candidate.

GRE - The Happy Eugenics

As many of you know, I have a certain beef with the entrance exams for graduate school, or the GRE. Admissions committees use these scores to assess whether a college student is capable of continuing on to PhD or Master's level study. There's only one problem, the test is both horribly exclusionary to underrepresented students and they're completely misused in most instances.

Ok, so that's two problems.

I'll try to not go into too much detail, but I believe the GRE is the direct offspring of the Eugenic movement's search for the intellectual superiority of white people. You're first reaction to that statement might be surprise or defensiveness, but this search was a real occurrence that happened about one century ago. The search for racial intelligence differences could even be traced back to the 16th century. However, back then, the search for these intelligence differences seemed no more controversial than GRE scores appear to us today.

Francis Galton, a relative of Charlie Darwin, wrote about psychometrics and eugenics in the late nineteenth century. He began to observe that people of African descent knew so much less than the average, cultured, Victorian white person. Maybe it was the slavery, poor living conditions, and lack of access to "proper" education, but African people seemed down-right stupid to Galton. As the unity between biological heredity and intelligence strengthened, people devised new and more refined methods of detecting someone's intellectual stature. Read the wikipedia article on this if you ever get a chance.

I don't think I have to emphasize the direct relationship between the search for intelligence, the assignment of quantitative assessment of relative academic worth, and the GRE. Both the early eugenic concept to intellectual superiority and the GRE are based on the same principles. Yet, people still use this method knowing of this racist flaw.

Of course, mentioning this discrepancy provokes a very rote response: "there is simply no other standardized way to judge people's intelligence." While being still based on the same eugenics-born mentality, there are even more flaws to that logic, even if we simply ignore the deeper context to the response. Let's take the example of a History of Science department that still uses the GRE scores to judge students. Let's assume that they have chosen to accept someone who has excellent verbal scores, but sub-standard logical reasoning scores (read: math). While I haven't looked very closely at actual numbers of times this occurs, every person who has applied to graduate school that I've spoken to has told me "admission committees don't really care about your quantitative reasoning (read: math or logical abilities)." (If you're on a History of Science admission committee, I challenge you to tell me that you haven't accepted an application that had a low logical reasoning score in the last two years because the applicant's verbal score was higher.)

Ok, so this theoretical department just made a judgment that verbal scores are more important than logical reasoning, even though the GRE is a whole test that has been broken down into constituent, scored elements (ie, verbal, math, writing, etc). Now, as I've seen, logical and methodical thought is fairly important in academic work. Yet, a committee would completely disregard a whole aspect of this test because this aspect of the test doesn't resonate with the qualities that they were assessed on when they entered graduate school. Let's be even more generous and say that someone with high verbal skills and low logic skills is more likely to fit into a department than a person with high logic skills and low verbal.

Either way, let's just hang a big sign outside the department and say "we only accept people who are like us." Of course, the department might make an exception, if you're lucky, but the message still remains, "if you're like us, you get higher priority." Even if this might not be the case, in a very rare instance, the message still remains, and those messages have their own power to exclude.

So, yes, I'm bitter about having to take the GRE. No, I didn't do poorly, either. While my verbal wasn't in the top 10% like I had hoped, it's almost there. I'm just bitter because of being forced into taking a test that makes me feel dirty. There's an element of humiliation that I don't think mainstream people feel about taking the exam. In my GRE prep book, I was informed that having an "upbeat attitude" towards the GRE makes you more likely to succeed. People who are negative or "adversarial" towards the test tend to do poorly.

Does it ever alarm them that a big chunk of those people who feel negatively about the test are under-represented students?

Which came first, the chicken or the excluded student? You decide.