As the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
We’ve just emerged from a week-long storm surrounding a photo of journalist and Strictly winner Stacey Dooley that many people of colour described as perpetuating white saviourism. This debate isn’t new, and I’m sure this won’t be the last time it rears its head, but what did surprise me was a near-obsessive focus on intent that cropped up from Dooley’s defendants. On Sunday, Barbara Ellen asked in the Observer: “can’t we finally accept that some ‘white saviours’ really want to help?” I’d argue yes – but whether they want to help or not is besides the point.
This isn’t the only example of an intention-based defence – public figures have time and time again used the language of “I did not mean to” rather than “I’m sorry that I did”, and it sprung up in my own personal life last week. In the midst of a nice dinner with a friend, I was confronted by a huge, difficult microaggression – they had made a comment about my appearance, without realising that it was unwelcome, and racialised. “I was trying to pay you a compliment,” they responded, after I’d began to explain why it was unwelcome. But it wasn’t a compliment – the comment in question reinforced a host of internalised, weird feelings I had about the way people look at me as a black woman. It was true, they hadn’t “meant to”. But nonetheless, it still did damage.
Alongside the focus on intent, another equally insidious temptation is to identify ourselves as part of the in-group of self-proclaimed feminists, anti-racists, the good people. But this can be equally toxic. From Liam Neeson to Roseanne Barr, ”I’m not racist” is a common rebuttal, but it does little to make people accountable. In the field of social psychology, studies like IAT and the Doll Test will tell you that we’re all capable of participating in racism, because it’s not as simple as something you are or are not, or one day wake up and decide not to be. What does it mean to be racist anyway, to embody it? Does your identification with not being a racist make saying racist things any less damaging? Does it change the severity of the impact at all?
While it seems that saying “I’m not racist” means to really say “I don’t hold those beliefs”, we must equally remember that when we talk about holding beliefs, we’re only really talking about what we’re consciously aware of. But we’re more than our conscious minds – as we’ve grown up we’ve all absorbed messages and ideas without our awareness – and often subconsciously relay those ideas in our actions. We’re also more than ourselves; our actions sit within huge structures and cultures, that as a combined force can produce negative outcomes that we might not fully understand. But that doesn’t make them less real. When we take a small act, from posing for a picture that conveys a racialised message, to asking someone where they are “really from”, to slipping up and saying “funny tinge” when you meant to say something else, it’s possible to reinforce huge and damaging racist ideas with one small act. And regardless of whether we meant to harm (or even the opposite, meant to pay someone a compliment), our actions, however unwitting, nonetheless carry impacts.
There’s also an issue of losing focus. Focussing the conversation on whether you mean to cause harm or not, especially in situations like Dooley’s, ultimately skews our attention to the person who is acting, rather than those who have been hurt. In an era of cancellation, I don’t know if I’m anomaly in the fact that I’m less interested in a conversation about whether those who are responsible for microaggressions are terrible people with evil intentions. If someone steps on your foot, whether they meant to or not, it doesn’t change the fact that it hurts all the same. It’s crucial to interrogate the temptation to only think about your perspective, and your unquestionable right to be praised for wanting to do good things. If we mean to help anyone at all, we need to listen to and uplift the voices of those we’re wanting to empower, otherwise it probably is time to have a think about whether we’re acting for the right reasons.
So what can we learn? I’d say it’s most important to think about how we can respond constructively. It’s not that there’s no place for intentionality – for feeling moved to do what we see to be the “right thing”. But, when criticised, we need to recentre ourselves and our own hurt feelings away from the crux of that confrontation.
Writer and activist Ngoc Loan Tran wrote in 2013 about the sister of calling out – ‘calling in’ – to describe a process by which we invite others on board to consider how they could improve, and avoid harm in the future. Semantics aside, there is something in that – the idea that criticism can simply be concerned with your behaviour, and ultimately, with striving for better outcomes.
When it comes to a marginalised person telling you that you have caused harm, ask yourself what might happen if you bring down your defences. It might be as simple as saying “I didn’t realise. What can I do better?”