Quote:
Originally posted by ThurgreedMarshall
You're an asshole.
But you know what? I DO know more about your world and experiences than you know about mine.
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We'll, you're an asshole, too.
Those last two quoted lines summarize what puts me off so much about your attitude. You're suggesting that I have some sort of allegiance or special interest club with other white people, that we all have common interests with other members of our race. And that race is even a valid concept. You fit into the black group, and I fit into the white group, and that defines us. And I should know much about your experience, or you should know much about mine, based on that? That's absurd, all we know about each other is that we're both lawyers in big cities who have enough time to spend some of it screwing around on the internet.
I don't know anything about you. I don't know that you haven't suffered egregious racism. Or, in the cases of others, egregious sexism. Maybe you have. Sadly, it's not unlikely. But we all suffer harms we don't deserve. I don't feel the sting of racism or sexism in traditional terms, so maybe I'm not qualified to speak to their fundamental effect. I'm a white guy, so I can't feel them, right? I'm not allowed to, so I'll have to feel other ills you deem appropriate for a white guy to let perturb or effect him.
Race and gender are concepts which shouldn't factor into how much mentoring or opportunities for professional development a firm provides. Should they factor into hiring, or specific mentor assignment? Sure. Those are subjective measures taking many factors into account and designed to serve different ideals. But, should a firm have a policy of singling people out for certain services based on race and gender? In any other consideration, race and gender are taboo subjects. Mostly. We consider gender, but not race, appropriate to determine insurance rates. But here, we say "this person gets extra services, or benefits, because of race or gender." At the very least, I think that's extremely distasteful.
People change over time because of the ways that institutions influence them. And vice versa. Having hard and fast rules about race and gender and the way to treat people based on these classifications is dangerous. You can't do away with racism through policy. You can't force people to not be bigots through benefits. People will have thoughts or prejudices in their heads and have to have these feelings changed over time. If we continue to create all these racial classes which receive different treatment, we just perpetuate that.
I am sure that you will think it a cliche, but I don't really think of race as a valid concept. A significant portion of my family and friends are mixed race. A couple sets of relatives have adopted children of different races than one or both or the parents. Our societal distinctions are no longer always about race or gender. They are increasingly about class and education and means. Continuing to let race and gender define us is just living in the past. Individuals can do that, and have the right to do that. But having instituaional policies which treat people differently based on gender or race as a sole determining factor is a concept I find inherently wrong.
