Dear White Men: Acknowledging Prejudice Doesn’t Negate Other Observations.
In the wake of Kamala Harris announcing her withdrawal from the Democratic Presidential Primary, there has been a lot of discussion about the reasons behind the downfall of her campaign. Some people have demonstrated a resistance to acknowledging the role of racial or gender bias in Senator Harris’s failed campaign. This denial of the specific effects of societal bias is emblematic of an unfortunately common problem with how privileged people often react to claims that prejudice affects a topic: they deflect, downplay, or deny. Although problematic and something to be avoided, it’s often unintentional — operating on a subconscious level. I know because my brain does it, too.
I noticed the subconscious tendency in my brain when the late Senator John McCain stopped the repeal of the ACA at the last moment in July 2017, the media lionized him in a way that far exceeded the praise of Senators Murkowski and Collins. People I knew claimed this was primarily because of gender bias in the media. Even though one person making such a claim was a Pulitzer-winner and would know far more than me about the inner workings of media, I initially denied gender bias played a significant role at all. In my head it was just a matter of the circumstances and Senator McCain’s media savvy; his brinksmanship and his dramatic return from surgery on the eve of the vote was simply too easy and compelling of a storyline for our lazy media to resist covering with far greater intensity than the consistent opposition Senators Murkowski and Collins displayed. It was just so clear and simple in my head.
Patient friends of mine (deep thanks to them!) pointed out that it’s just as compelling of a story to cover the only two women Senators in the misogynistic GOP committing early to defending the ACA and tens of millions of Americans while resisting the intense and unscrupulous pressure and attacks levied against them by the President, his lackeys, others in the GOP, and conservative media. In that context, it was the heroic Senators Collins and Murkowski who were first into the breach and who held their positions under fierce attack until finally joined by Senator McCain. Just as compelling — if not more — of a story, but one that was not told. I was fortunate that my friends pointed out that I had completely missed the biases at work.
In the wake of that education, I realized that privilege makes us blind and I need to guard against ever assuming privilege is not at play in a situation involving non-privileged people. These lessons helped me pause before weighing in after Senator Harris announced she was ending her campaign for President. She was not my preferred candidate and my brain immediately had a dozen reasons for her loss ready and not one of them had to do with gender or race. But I remembered the lessons I learned before and waited to read takes from people who would be better equipped to opine on reasons for Harris’s failed campaign.
Zerlina Maxwell posted a tweet that perfectly explained the reason I was refraining from weighing in, so I shared it on my Facebook page:
Dissenters quickly made themselves known on the original tweet, on my page, and on the internet generally, arguing a million different reasons for Senator Harris’s downfall other than race or gender.
But here’s the thing: Ms. Maxwell phrased her tweet perfectly, saying that the hypothetical author should be “considering” racial or gender bias in writing a story about “Why Kamala failed.” “Considering.” That doesn’t mean that racial or gender bias are the primary factors, it just means they should be considered in the conversation.
Considering we live in a country founded by white men who thought black people and women are not worthy of human rights — and considering we as a country have not yet fully vanquished that idea — it’s absurd that anyone would object to the suggestion that we should consider bias regarding race and gender when analyzing the failure of the campaign of a black woman — the only black woman — running for the most powerful position in the country. Yet, for many people, acknowledging such a possibility — such a consideration —can be difficult, although it shouldn’t be.
Our reality is that nobody exists outside of the context of societal biases, especially in the context of politics. Politics is how we decide — as a society — who to give power. In our two party system it is an intensely tribal affair and subject to base instincts, biases, hopes, and insecurities, all of which played some role in how we went from the most objectively decent President of the past 40 years to the most objectively racist, misogynist, transphobic, criminal, lying, and generally offensive man to occupy the office in at least a century, if not all-time.
Here’s the magical part: acknowledging bias doesn’t diminish your criticisms! In fact, most of the time it gives your criticisms more credence. Why? Because there is practically never a singular cause to a political result. Campaigns and elections are complicated endeavors and societal biases like racism and misogyny are at work regardless of the outcome. Racism was at play even when Barack Obama won two elections and both racism and misogyny were in play when Hillary Clinton lost both in 2008 and 2016. Was Obama a better campaigner than Clinton? Of course! Did sexism and racism still play factors in both elections? Of course! Should all reasonable critiques of Senator Harris’s campaign need to acknowledge that racism and sexism were factors? Of course!
Some say “I have no problem acknowledging societal bias, but regarding Kamala I think that these other causes were the real reason… .” To those people, I say please just stop after you say “I have no problem acknowledging societal bias.” Done. Because when you deny or minimize the existence or impact of societal bias in a specific instance, you seem to have a problem acknowledging societal bias and that will undermine the reader’s confidence in your subsequent analysis. Even if you are unable to pinpoint evidence of societal bias at work in a specific example (like in Senator Harris’s campaign), societal bias still exists and has some impact. You may have heard this idea expressed as: “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Also, acknowledging other factors helps account for our own personal confirmation bias since we’re all prone to overestimate how accurate our own explanations are.
Some will ask “What if I have an observation/criticism you want to make that isn’t related to racial or gender bias?” Good news: you can still share it! Just acknowledge up front that it plays a big role and that you are leaving it to other people to explore that while focusing one some other aspect of the campaign. For example, you could say “Being the second black woman ever to run for President (and the first in 32 years), Senator Harris had the deck unfairly stacked against her campaign, battling bias related to gender and race. While the impact of those biases is difficult to quantify, it was also something she could not control. Looking at her campaign, there were several things she could control that may serve as lessons if she runs again in the future or someone else runs a similar campaign.” You could probably write something even better. And then you’re free to share whatever observations you have without denying or downplaying the harsh reality that societal bias plays.
Remember, considering societal biases at work against a candidate does not discount the validity of our observations. It just acknowledges that this candidate had a tougher path and reminds us all that there are biases at work in this country that are so ingrained in our society that they are difficult to quantify and therefore easy to omit when we’re analyzing specific examples. Deflecting, downplaying, or denying the existence of these biases is not just inaccurate, but helps perpetuate them. I’m doing my best to stop and hope others will as well.
If you enjoyed this, check out some of my other stories on Medium. If you’re so inclined, you can reach me on Twitter.