Black lives matter vs. All lives matter.
Gay pride vs. Straight pride.
These are a couple battles we've seen crop up on social media within the last few years. This is assuming you can call them battles, of course; they're really a one-two punch of reactionary movements. Black Lives Matter is a reaction to the resurgence in notorious cases of police brutality against blacks. To proclaim the oppression of one race, though, attention must be called to the race of the oppressor, and here, it's not just whites. Last year, for example, saw a Latino police officer shoot a black man several times despite the fact he was already neutralized. So the Black Lives Matter movement rose to put the spotlight on the challenges blacks have with our criminal justice procedures. The conflict arose when attention was called to the oppressors' races. People have a psychological tendency to be defensive about groups they are part of, including race, because an attack on a group is easily perceived as attacks on all the individuals within that group. And that feeling of marginalization is what causes people to speak up, expressing their need to feel validated as well. In this case, many people proclaimed "All Lives Matter." The response to the response was, as I see it, well summarized by rapper Andy Mineo on Twitter.
In other words, you guys don't need a movement like these guys do.
A similar situation occurred between the Gay Pride movement and the reactionary Straight Pride movement. To be sure, this is a different situation from the Black Lives Matter movement. While Black Lives Matter calls attention to injustices, Gay Pride celebrates victories. Indeed, no minority has ever experienced monumental victories with the rapidity of the LGBT community (as illustrated by a series of graphs in this Washington Post article). In the midst of Gay Pride celebrations last week, Straight Pride made its voice heard.
Needless to say, Gay Pride hits a lot of moral and religious nerves, but Straight Pride is a peculiar way to express moral or religious disapproval. I imagine moral disapproval of a lifestyle would emphasize that those people in the parade shouldn't have pride being gay rather than emphasizing one's own straightness. When one proclaims Straight Pride, I think they've left the moral and religious area of discussion. It turns into a sentiment like, "Hey, I should be celebrated too!"
Last week week, during the numerous Gay Pride parades around the country, #HeterosexualPrideDay began trending on Twitter. As expected, the Gay Pride community and its supporters spoke out against the Straight Pride reaction. Responses ranged from musings about its necessity...
So, at the end of the day, after the speeches and the marches, what is accomplished? Certainly those within a group feel more solidified, in harmony with others in the group. Those within a group feel encouraged. But does the celebration really help different people come together to solve sociopolitical problems?
#blacklivesmatter movement doesn't mean other lives DONT matter! All lives DO matter but all lives don't experience the same treatment.
11:38 AM - 19 Aug 2015
A similar situation occurred between the Gay Pride movement and the reactionary Straight Pride movement. To be sure, this is a different situation from the Black Lives Matter movement. While Black Lives Matter calls attention to injustices, Gay Pride celebrates victories. Indeed, no minority has ever experienced monumental victories with the rapidity of the LGBT community (as illustrated by a series of graphs in this Washington Post article). In the midst of Gay Pride celebrations last week, Straight Pride made its voice heard.
Needless to say, Gay Pride hits a lot of moral and religious nerves, but Straight Pride is a peculiar way to express moral or religious disapproval. I imagine moral disapproval of a lifestyle would emphasize that those people in the parade shouldn't have pride being gay rather than emphasizing one's own straightness. When one proclaims Straight Pride, I think they've left the moral and religious area of discussion. It turns into a sentiment like, "Hey, I should be celebrated too!"
Last week week, during the numerous Gay Pride parades around the country, #HeterosexualPrideDay began trending on Twitter. As expected, the Gay Pride community and its supporters spoke out against the Straight Pride reaction. Responses ranged from musings about its necessity...
Really? #HeterosexualPrideDay What's next, #BreathingAirDay ?
1:34 AM - 29 Jun 2016
...to discrediting straights' right to voice pride.
#heterosexualprideday, a summary:
9:40 AM - 29 Jun 2016
A reporter even noticed the same connection I did.
Political scientist Robert Putnam identifies two types of social capital. "Bonding capital" refers to trust and appreciation within a group, and "bridging capital" refers to trust and appreciation between groups. I propose that most of our effort to increase bridging capital actually reduces it and instead increases bonding capital.
Let's explore what might be the most commonly used tactic for eliminating racial discrimination: affirmative action. Simply put, affirmative action designates a group of policies that intentionally try to increase ethnic diversity within a group. Scholarships for ethnic minorities are one example of affirmative action. This might help the group to have a more diverse member base, but does it actually help people embrace diversity, embrace people unlike them? Affirmative action present two well-discussed problems.
First, it prioritizes arbitrary traits like race over traits such as expertise and work ethic, despite its very mission of eliminating treatment based on arbitrary traits like race. I know someone who experienced this first hand and has never forgotten it. Despite having stellar grades and coming from a lower-middle class family, he received much less scholarship money than others he knew who had poorer grades, didn't take school as seriously, and came from a family with plenty of money. It's true; this sounds a lot like the racial discrimination we saw in America a hundred years ago with the roles reversed. Celebrating differences by rewarding the minority actually can widen a gap between groups. Second, affirmative action can incidentally discredit minorities. If a school or business has a policy to have a certain representation from minority groups, no one can be sure if a minority was brought in because of their ability or because of their skin color. Trust in the organization actually goes down.
The last evidence of the danger of celebrating differences that I'll address here has occurred on the largest stage in our country--the presidential stage. When President Obama was elected, many people were elated to see a racial minority given such grand authority, which seemed unattainable for many racial minorities through American history. At his acceptance speech shortly after his first election, he acknowledged as much, saying, "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible... tonight is your answer." Even many who disagree with most of President Obama's promises and policies found themselves moved and encouraged for that very reason. Throughout President Obama's time in office, he has proven to be incredibly sensitive to civil rights issues, one of the most concerned in presidential history. I'm convinced that half a century from now, he will be remembered more for facilitating the victories of the LGBT community more than he will be remembered for introducing Obamacare, which, as the name suggests, was long assumed to be the core of his legacy. President Obama has been the perfect president for those who wish to celebrate differences within American culture.
Let's say I'm right and celebrating differences causes more problems than many assume. Does that mean we let the status quo stand, and let any majority oppression stand? Absolutely not. I suggest we take a different approach. Rather than celebrating our differences, what if we ignore our differences and celebrate what we share, what unites us? People have much more in common than differences--we are all human beings with innate worth, striving to have a good life for ourselves and our loved ones. That common identity and common goal carry far more weight than skin color, sexual orientation, and the unique ways we each struggle.
I'm not saying we shouldn't disagree, differ, or debate. I'm saying that when you realize we're all similar people in this race called life together, it becomes much easier to encourage rather than condemn, to compliment rather than complain, to discuss rather than dismiss. In his popular work The Righteous Mind, moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt devotes a section to group theory, in which he explains that an effective collective works like a bee hive. Just as bees don't have much hierarchy and are united by nothing but their shared goal of a having a functional hive, people must shut out the arbitrary.
Despite the long-windedness of this discussion of a difficult topic, I'd like to close with a simple encouragement. It's brief, but if it was good enough for a lawyer, it's good enough for me.
Serve God, and serve your neighbor. Do this, and we will live.
If my hypothesis is correct, that celebrating differences actually drives apart groups more than pulling them together, then we would expect to see a loudly antithetical figure rising against President Obama and what he stands for here. Where President Obama celebrates change and the future, this figure would mourn for the death of the past. Where President Obama preaches inclusiveness, this figure would express skepticism. Where President Obama stands for the minority fighting an uphill battle, this figure would represent a privileged king resting on his possessions. Where President Obama came to authority by the will of Americans who looked to the future, this figure would fight for power through the will of those who wish to remain inside their comfort zones. Where President Obama wished to break barriers, this figure would promise to build walls.
See where I'm going with this?
In this way, Donald Trump's successful Republican nomination (assumedly, by all odds) shouldn't be a surprise to Americans. To put it simply, this decade-long celebration of differences ticked off the people who weren't different. In response, they voted for a figure who treats women as inferiors, characterized everyone living south of Texas who wished to live in America as murderers and rapists, and wishes to exclude an entire religious group from entering the country because "we don't know what they're like." Trump is the ultimate conservative in that he plays to people's fear of the future. That's why he promises to go back in time, to make America great "again."
With all that said, what do we do?
Our culture's long-held assumption is that we can educate these prejudices out of people, but this simply isn't the case. If it worked, we wouldn't be facing these issues so often, and, to escalate the point, Trump wouldn't be nominated. Anecdotally, if mere education worked, then my school's frequent--and certainly noble--efforts to celebrate differences would not be met with the "alright already" attitude as much as I notice. As one psychologist concluded a study,
"Ultimately, nothing inspires greater tolerance from the intolerant than an abundance of common and unifying beliefs, practices, rituals, institutions and processes. And regrettably, nothing is more certain to provoke increased expression of their latent predispositions than the likes of 'multicultural education.'" (Stenner 2005, p. 330)
Let's say I'm right and celebrating differences causes more problems than many assume. Does that mean we let the status quo stand, and let any majority oppression stand? Absolutely not. I suggest we take a different approach. Rather than celebrating our differences, what if we ignore our differences and celebrate what we share, what unites us? People have much more in common than differences--we are all human beings with innate worth, striving to have a good life for ourselves and our loved ones. That common identity and common goal carry far more weight than skin color, sexual orientation, and the unique ways we each struggle.
I'm not saying we shouldn't disagree, differ, or debate. I'm saying that when you realize we're all similar people in this race called life together, it becomes much easier to encourage rather than condemn, to compliment rather than complain, to discuss rather than dismiss. In his popular work The Righteous Mind, moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt devotes a section to group theory, in which he explains that an effective collective works like a bee hive. Just as bees don't have much hierarchy and are united by nothing but their shared goal of a having a functional hive, people must shut out the arbitrary.
"To make a human hive, you want to make everyone feel like a family. So don't call attention to racial and ethnic differences; make them less relevant by ramping up similarity and celebrating the group's shared values and common identity. A great deal of research in social psychology shows that people are warmer and more trusting toward people who look like them, dress like them, talk like them, or even just share their first name or birthday.... You can make people care less about race by drowning race differences in a sea of similarities, shared goals, and mutual interdependencies." (Haidt 2012, p. 277).I can't pretend to know how this mindset will play out in our unique circumstances. I can, however, offer a few intuited reactions. First, know that our gut concern we feel when a group is put down has the same source as the gut concern when another group is especially being lifted up. Both stem from the unnaturalness of separation from our own. Second, your victories in no way, shape, or form diminish my victories and vice versa. Believing otherwise is jealousy in the most basic way. Third, perhaps the best way to forgive wrongs of the past is to remember a bright future.
Despite the long-windedness of this discussion of a difficult topic, I'd like to close with a simple encouragement. It's brief, but if it was good enough for a lawyer, it's good enough for me.
Serve God, and serve your neighbor. Do this, and we will live.
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