First Name Basis: The Invisible Danger of Implicit Biases
We always speak of oppression in the past tense.
Racism happened once. There was slavery and then there was segregation, but that’s all over now. There was sexism, too, but women are allowed to go to school, and vote, and there’s nothing holding them back anymore. Martin Luther King Jr. and Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks and Malcolm X solved all those problems. (Not without the help of some infallibly noble white men like JFK and Abraham Lincoln, of course.)
There’s no nuance when it comes to oppression, no intersectionality, no complexity to speak of. Just stuff that happened. At least, that’s what we’re taught. Social structures built upon white supremacy and patriarchy and heteronormativity cannot possibly have systemic prejudice deeply embedded into their very foundations. The social ills of racism and misogyny were solved mostly because white men were ever so kind enough to allow everyone basic human rights.
This is why there’s no need for the Black Lives Matter movement, or feminism any longer. Racism and sexism are over and everyone should just stop talking about them. The past cannot possibly have any influence on the present.
Donald Trump’s election just proves that White America is tired of being vilified for the actions of their ancestors. They’re not racist. They don’t see skin color, they promise, they treat everybody the same. They're not sexist, no one has more respect for women than they do, really. They don’t hate black people for being black or women because they’re women. Sure, some people are like that but there’s barely any of those left. Everyone knows the only real racists were slave-owners and the KKK. (And even the latter, of course, are just ideologues entitled to their own beliefs; why are you so quick to judge them, can’t you handle opinions different from your own?)
Because it’s that simple, right?
Some people live in the privileged position where bigotry is just an idea. Ideas are intangible, they can be argued and dissected, or ignored. Being so removed from issues that impact the daily realities of other people can create a false sense of objectivity; the white man who voted for Trump will swear up and down that he’s not “racist” — at least in his understanding of the term — but this doesn’t change the fact that he was willing and able to overlook the racist fear-mongering of his preferred presidential candidate.
But he’s a nice guy, he’ll insist. Racists are bad, evil even. He does not believe he is an intentionally evil person. And anyone who claims he is evil based solely on the fact that they disagree with his political opinions is just too angry and divisive to be rational; any BLM supporter, any feminist, any activist at all is too biased to be rational. Only straight, cisgendered white men, examining the politics of race, gender, and class from the outside, can be rational. Perceived rationality and performed civility are traits that have only ever benefited those in power.
He may not be an overt racist, but he is still very much a racist. We all are. Overt racism may have become less and less socially acceptable over the years — so much so that what qualifies as “overt” racism is constantly changing as well — but implicit racism is very much alive, as are other implicit forms of bigotry.
Very few people may have refused to vote for Clinton because she is a woman. But the criticisms from citizens and scrutiny from the media she faced can be put into context through the very lens of gender. Imagine if the two candidates in this year’s general election were referred to by the media as Donald and Clinton. Who sounds like the more legitimate presidential candidate?
Did referring to Hillary Clinton by her first name cost her the presidency? It’s not likely. But does it contextualize Americans’ perception of women in the professional arena? Absolutely.
Racism is not simply hating black people for being black; it’s desperately trying to justify the deaths of black children at the hands of those who should be protecting them. Misogyny is not expressly believing that women are less than people; it’s treating them that way by hypersexualizing their bodies and denying them agency. Homophobia isn’t just bullying the gay kid in class — it’s demanding that homosexuality be concealed and overlooked the way heterosexuality is not.
The opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. The Trump supporters who are overtly bigoted are not nearly as threatening to the American public as those who allow them to be. Dismissing and normalizing covert forms of discrimination can no longer be acceptable. We must all take it upon ourselves to think outside the patriarchal, imperialist social structures we were born into. What happened and what is happening are both a part of history.
We still have work to do.
