On Terms: It’s Not My Job to Educate You
This is part of a series of posts unpacking common social justice terms, their purposes, and their misapplications. This series is meant to both explain the utility and validity of core social justice concepts, while simultaneously pointing out the dangers in the over-broad or un-nuanced application of those concepts. Its aim is to increase the effectiveness of social justice activism by helping social justice activists be better communicators, and appealing to potential allies who may have been alienated through encountering misapplications of these concepts.
What ‘It’s Not My Job to Educate You’ Means
People from marginalized groups are often asked insensitive personal questions by members of privileged groups. These questions often come with an entitled subtext that it is somehow the duty of the marginalized person to explain things on behalf of the group they belong to. “It’s not my job to educate you” has developed as a standard response to that kind to invasive and entitled questioning.
As an example, a white woman may say to her new black colleague at work, “I’ve always wondered why so many black women keep their hair so short. Why is that?” This questioner is inviting the response, “It’s not my job to educate you,” from her colleague. It is not the job of this particular black person to explain black women’s hair to a random work colleague.
If you are a member of a privileged group, and your instinctive response to this example is that you don’t see why it’s a big deal because it’s just an innocent question, consider what it would feel like if you were asked to justify and explain the behaviors of white people [or men or straight people] during random office chit chat as one of the few white people [or men or straight people] at the company. Imagine going through your day being routinely peppered with innocent questions that reveal stereotypes and ignorance on the part of the questioners — “Hey, I was meaning to ask you, why are white people so into camping? This new REI opened near me, and it’s like Mecca for white people.” Those questions serve to constantly reinforce your position as outside of the mainstream, as something odd that requires explanation. Maybe you’d also be inclined to say, “It’s not my job to educate you,” rather than spending the energy unpacking every weird assumption that went into their question.
The response “It’s not my job to educate you” is meant to point out the burden that we as a society place on members of less privileged groups by asking them to constantly serve as unpaid ambassadors for their communities to the dominant culture. It serves to put that burden back where it belongs — on the person with the questions to go and educate themselves instead of asking someone else to do their work for them.
What ‘It’s Not My Job to Educate You’ Doesn’t Mean
“It’s not my job to educate you” doesn’t mean that it is never appropriate to ask questions about culture, community and identity. It also doesn’t mean that people are never expected to do work to educate others about themselves. The key here is context — what are the roles and relationships of the people asking the questions and those expected to answer?
While it isn’t appropriate to put the burden of answering these questions on casual acquaintences or work colleagues, it may be okay to ask more personal questions about someone’s community or identity to a close friend with whom you have an established rapport. Fear of the “it’s not my job to educate you” response should not be allowed to hold people back from getting to know each other’s experiences and concerns in a sensitive and reciprocal fashion.
The other scenario where this phrase is sometimes used inappropritely is when it is thrown out indiscriminately by people who write and speak about the particular issues being asked about. If a woman writes a blog about feminism, and people ask her questions in the comments about feminism and women’s experiences with sexism, it would be poor form for her to respond with “It’s not my job to educate you.” The blogger in this case has embraced the task of speaking for her community for the purpose of educating others. In the context of her blog, it is her job to educate, because she has made it her job. Of course this does not mean she is obligated to tolerate trolling, and context matters here too — just because it is her job to educate on her blog, doesn’t mean that it’s her job to educate on the subway, in the office, or at the bar.
How to Educate Yourself and How to Ask Questions
It is healthy to want to understand other people whose backgrounds and experiences differ from your own. The first step in this process should be to take steps to educate yourself. Instead of peppering that one gay guy who works in the office down the hall with all of your random questions about the LGBTQ community, do a little research and reading. With Google at all of our fingertips, we can easily look up basic information ourselves.
After you’ve done your basic research, you may still have questions or you may want to check the validity of something you’ve read against the personal experience of someone you can talk to directly. This is a reasonable thing to want to do. The key is to handle it with sensitivity to the relationship you have with the person you are asking. Ask yourself if the question would feel inappropriate if a version of it was asked to you by the person you are planning to ask. For example, imagine what it would feel like to have someone you exchange a few words with at work come up to you and ask you about your genitals. That exercise in perspective-taking should help you understand that it would not be appropriate to ask a transwoman who is your work colleague or casual acquaintance if she has had surgery or plans to in the future. Save those questions for someone who you have the kind of relationship with that talking about your genitals is in bounds.
Once you’ve done your research and determined that the question you have is appropriate for the level of relationship you have with the person you’re asking, consider how you’re asking the question. Here are a few quick tips:
- Try to phrase your questions in ways that let people reflect on their own experiences, rather than forcing them to speak for their entire identity group.
- Ask questions in open-ended ways that minimize assumptions
- Recognize that you’re asking the person to do some explaining work as a favor to you, rather than coming across like they owe you an explanation.
What to do when you’re asked to educate
It may not be your job to educate, but in some circumstances you may decide to take on that burden anyway for the good of your community. When facing personal questions about your identities and communities you may want to consider the following in determining how to respond:
- How much energy do I have to spare to deal with this right now? If you’re doing well, you may decide you have energy to spare to do the service of educating.
- What is the intention of the person asking the question? You may be more inclined to engage with someone you judge to be honestly trying to understand.
- Is there an audience? Even if it’s questionable whether the questioner is coming from a good place, you may decide to engage anyway if there is an audience who you think will learn from the situation.
In situations where it’s not your job to educate, you may decide to do it anyway if you judge that doing so will advance your goals of actually increasing someone’s understanding and diminishing the amount of ignorance in the world slightly. If the person asking questions is coming from a good place, you may be able to build an ally who can then spread the increased understanding they’ve gained to fellow members of their dominant cultural group.
Check in with yourself — what are your goals? what is the context? what level of fucks do you have to give today? When it’s not the right time and place and/or you’re just out of fucks, don’t feel like you have to educate. But maybe in those circumstances consider a response less likely to put the questioner on the defensive in case you do want to educate later. Consider a phrase like “that’s a complex question, and I’m afraid I can’t unpack it with you right now.” Even if you are an educator about the issues you’re being asked about, sometimes you’re just out of patience for the day. Recognize where you’re at so that you can respond in a way that protects you from burnout, but also doesn’t attack a person asking about topics that under better circumstances you do educate on.
Tl;dr
As a society we put a lot of burdens on members of less privileged groups that aren’t put on the dominant group. Those burdens aren’t fair, but sometimes achieving our goals of making things suck less means doing the work anyway. Taking up those burdens is part of the process of building the understanding that society needs so that future members of our communities are better understood and don’t face the same ignorant questions. Consider when you may be willing to educate even though it’s not your job. And, for the sake of all that is good, if you’ve held yourself out as an educator on an issue, don’t tell people that it’s not your job to educate them.
As a member of a dominant group, take responsibility for educating yourself and be sensitive to the context and the nature of your relationship with a person when you approach them with questions about issues that can be deeply personal. Remember that you can have amazing conversations about difficult subjects if you approach people with the humility of someone asking for a favor, rather than the entitlement of someone who is owed an explanation.
