Perhaps what nation needs is a little tolerance for the intolerant
Hillary Clinton recently said in a speech that Donald Trump’s campaign is based on prejudice and paranoia. She suggested he’s taking fringe ideals mainstream and giving a megaphone to racial resentment. She said it’s something we’ve never seen before.
There’s a lot of truth there. But here’s another truth: Many Americans identify, on some level, with Trump’s apparent discomfort with people who are different. They identify with his views on immigration and on refugees, on Muslims, on Black Lives Matter protesters. They don’t cringe, and may nod their heads, at his monolithic references to “the blacks,” “the Hispanics” and “the Indians.”
Are these Americans all part of hate groups? Are they overt and hostile in their beliefs?
No. Thankfully, that kind of in-your-face bigotry is dwindling in this country.
But implicit bias festers in all of us. Sometimes, we’re consciously unaware. Sometimes, we purposely suppress it in the name of political correctness. Still, it’s there. We all pre-judge. We all stereotype.
In a diverse society like ours, we should do all we can to resist or mitigate these biases, but I’m beginning to think that the selfrighteous vilifying of those who hold such views is doing more harm than good.
I’m not saying we should condone Trump’s rhetoric, especially when it veers to reckless and hateful. But we need to acknowledge the very real fears and sincerely held beliefs that lead some to feel validated by that kind of talk.
Stigmatizing people with the term “racist” isn’t going to change anybody’s mind. It won’t move anyone toward the higher ideals on which this country was founded. It drives wedges deeper.
I guess I’m urging a little tolerance for the intolerant.
I started thinking about all this several weeks ago when Clint Eastwood was widely criticized for telling Esquire magazine that, sure, Trump says
dumb things, but that the younger generation is too sensitive, we throw out the term “racist” too often, and we should just “get over” the stuff Trump says.
It sounded to me like Eastwood was back to rambling nonsensically to a chair. Recognizing ‘mindbugs’
Then I read a piece that referenced his film “Gran Torino,” and I considered how it might offer a more comprehensive depiction of his views. If you haven’t seen the movie, you should. Eastwood plays a bitter retiree who hurls all kinds of slurs at his young Hmong neighbors. But they don’t react in the way he seems to expect, or want, them to. They seem to be willing to “get over it.” They give him a chance.
In the end — without giving away too much — the old man shows that he can overcome superficial biases. He grows, even at his age.
I’m not saying Trump is capable of growth. But maybe some of the people who sport his bumper stickers are.
I’m reading a book that has put me up close and personal with my own bias. In “Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People,” the authors, Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald, explain how biases act like “mindbugs” in the brain. They are as impossible for us to detect as our current blood pressure. For example, research shows that we actually process exchanges with people in different regions of the brain, depending on whether we identify with them or not.
Some of these mindbugs evolved when our ancestors lived in small, homogenous groups and staying away from those who were different may have saved our lives.
The authors helped develop what are known as Implicit Association Tests, which can detect various forms of bias, from race to women’s role in science.
The authors estimate that 40 percent or more of white Americans and Asian Americans are egalitarians who are uncomfortable with interracial interactions. The fraction is a bit smaller for Latinos and substantially smaller but “not at all negligible” for African-Americans. The test dealing with race led the researchers to conclude that white preference is pervasive in American society: Almost 75 percent of those who take the test on the Internet and in lab studies reveal automatic white preference. The authors confess that they are among that group. And I admit the results of my own test, which suggested “a moderate automatic preference for white people over black people.” That was a hard sentence to type.
The test ... led the researchers to conclude that white preference is pervasive in American society: almost 75 percent of those who take the test on the Internet and in lab studies reveal automatic white preference.
I encourage you to Google the test and try it yourself. And if you’re wondering, there are ways to compensate for biases, but no good research on how they can be eliminated. A time for dialogue
I strain to think of anything positive that has come from Trump’s candidacy, but maybe this is it. It has put a mirror in our faces.
“These racial attitudes, these beliefs have been simmering for a long time, and Trump brought them out,” says Eric McDaniel, an associate government professor at the University of Texas who is affiliated with the Center for African and African-American Studies. “It could be therapeutic if we have a dialogue.”
That dialogue should include education, empathy and a conversation about the merits of diversity. And it should start with less judgment. When it comes to bias, no one is really qualified to cast the first stone.