***Trigger Warning***
Alright, it's about time I address the enormous elephant in the room. Spurred on by unpleasant discourse with a friend and a less cordial creature, this post is going to be about the difficult world of perceiving someone as a threat when they have not actively threatened you.
Let me get some preliminary notes out of the way-
1. This isn't just about feminism and the default position some women keep that men are dangerous. This is about race. This is about religion. This is about discrimination in general.
2. I consider myself a "feminist," though I would like the term to shift to "egalitarian" within the decade.
3. Everyone is entitled to feel discomfort in any situation. Everyone is entitled to act as safely as they would like.
4. (This is important) Everyone is entitled to define "threatening" in any way they see fit. It is simply a depressing fact that what you perceive as threatening may not be what others perceive as threatening. Therefore, your reaction to something you perceive as threatening (whether or not it is intended as such) may cause an equal and opposite reaction in whomever it is you're dealing with.
5. My girlfriend and I recently had a discussion in which she remarked how discomforting it is to her when people compare race and gender issues, since they have significant distinctions between them. Unfortunately, that is exactly what I'm about to do for the context of this problem (Sorry, dear!).
I'd like to start off with some statistics, if I may~
Your odds of being robbed in the US in any given year are roughly 1/420. This is not consistent across gender, however.
Your odds of being robbed in the US in any given year as a male are roughly 1/300. If you're a female, it's almost 1/700. For males, that's about a 1/4 chance in their lives.
Odds almost completely consistently become less concerning as you get older. In your 20s-30s, you're in the most likely group for robbery.
However, let's just stick with the gender difference for now. As a male, you have something of a 1/3-1/4 chance of being robbed at some point in your life.
As a female, it's about doubled.
The odds that this person robbing you will be a stranger? About 70%.
http://www.bookofodds.com/content/view/full/678590
But what about the person robbing you? It's 8 times more likely that it's a black person than any other race. However, black people are 139 times more likely to commit a robbery than white people.
http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime#United_States
Now, I'd like us to step back and examine rape statistics.
First, however, I will qualify this by saying that my intention is NOT to compare these two crimes in terms of severity. I do not believe that it is fair, and I do believe that rape is a significantly more traumatizing crime.
That said, an American woman has about a 1/4 or 1/5 chance of being raped in her lifetime. The lower down the socio-economic ladder and the less white you are, the more likely you are to be a victim of sexual assault. Over half the reported rapes (It is crucial to note that this only covers reported rapes) are against women under the age of 18.
Over 60% of all rapes are perpetrated by a lover or someone well-known by the victim. Rape by a stranger constitutes just 4% of all rapes, while rape by acquaintance covers about 20%.
http://thehathorlegacy.com/rape-statistics/
The vast majority of rapes occur in someone's home. Typically, the victim's house or the perpetrator's house (both, if married).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#United_States
I'd like to parse some of this data, since it's not something we often think too much about.
You have a 1% chance of being raped by a stranger in your lifetime.
This means, on a year-to-year basis, it's going to be a bell curve that averages at .0125% chance of being raped by a stranger in any given year.
Where am I going with this? It's all very horrible and all, but what's the point I'm getting at here?
Well, if a stranger comes up to and means you ill will, there's almost a 20:1 ratio that he or she's just interested in your money or your watch. There's also an incredibly good chance that he or she isn't white.
So what do you do when you get into an elevator and a black man gets in with you alone? What if it's 4:00 AM? What if he sees you on your phone and asks, "Hey, is that the new iPhone? Do you mind if I see it?"
Put yourself in that scenario, if you would. Does it make you uncomfortable? Maybe. Again, we're all entitled to our discomforts. But doesn't it also feel just a bit racist? Somewhere deep down, are you scolding yourself for being uncomfortable by this polite man who hasn't actually threatened you?
The odds are sure higher that it's a situation that would end poorly for you than if it was a white woman who had walked into that elevator.
But does the existence of better odds make it more acceptable to assume something about this man? You might say yes, or you might say no. It's a difficult ethical question, to be sure, but I think we can all agree that assuming the man is more dangerous does nothing to help racial tensions.
What if, after the event, you posted about your encounter on Facebook and said, "black guys, don't do that."
Well, now it sounds really racist. And it doesn't just sound racist. It is racist.
You're ascribing value to the actions of everyone in a single group- in this case, a racial group, noting a negative value in an action performed by anyone in that group- but only that group.
When all you have to go on is statistical likelihood- specifically, the difference between "virtually zero," and "slightly closer to zero,"- then making a judgment claim is a bad idea.
Again- I'll stop here to remind you, I'm not telling you to trust everyone. I'm not telling you to walk across the street and to talk to the guy hanging out in that dark alley. I'm just noting that if someone approaches you, they're not likely to cause you harm in any way. It's worth reminding yourself that people aren't out to get you. Rather, it's a fraction of a percent of the entire population of the US causes problems. A fraction of a percent. To help you understand the concept more immediately, take a quarter and flip it.
Did you flip it?
Okay.
Now flip it 999 more times. Statistically, only a small handful of those flips were "criminals."
If you meet each person in your day, expecting them to be the criminal that you probably won't run into, then you're going to live a very fearful life. Not only that, but you're going to contribute to the stereotypes that give rise to racism and sexism. The inequalities in our society are caused not only by systemic occurrences, but by our very thoughts and perceptions.
Stereotype threat is the effect that allows women to do worse on science or math tests when they are reminded before taking the test that they are females. From a societal attitude that women cannot perform in math and science as well as men, it becomes a truth. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
If we see a black man in an elevator and we assume that he means to do us harm, then he will be more likely to internalize that.
I realize that this is a difficult area of discussion, particularly because there is statistical correlation between men and rape as well as black men and robbery. It is difficult to ignore statistics. Especially since, as academics, some of us are taught that statistics are the entirety of an argument. However, I remind you that the statistics we're examining are "virtually 0" and "slightly closer to/further from virtually 0."
Admittedly, there are factors that can greatly increase or decrease these statistics. However, since virtually everyone reading this post is middle class, those factors largely do not apply to us. Namely the biggest and most prevalent factor in crime - Being poor.
This post would be uncomfortably pragmatic if all three of my readers were from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. But, because we have the luxury of focusing on things other than immediate survival each and every day, I think it's important that we sit down and talk about these (and other) issues.
As discomforting and awkward as it is, by holding onto the prejudices we've been raised with, backed by statistics or not, we're perpetuating a culture of differentiation that is antithetical to the very ideals behind an egalitarian philosophy. Ideals about equality and love, togetherness and trust.
I'm not asking you to change your mind. I'm merely asking you to re-examine the rhetoric we use to assess danger from unknown people. Maybe next time you feel uncomfortable around someone without having justification, try creating a history for them in your mind. A history that would be more likely for one of the 99.9% of people who aren't violent criminals. Since statistically, that person probably falls under that category.
Be cautious. Don't take any unnecessary risks, and by no means should you trust someone you don't know right away. But, there's a very large distinction between treating someone with indifference versus treating them as an active and/or potential threat.
Really though- try to treat everyone as though they're a part of that 99.9% that just wants to be happy. Because they probably are.
-
Waddles
Alright, hit me. I know this is going to be controversial for some of you.
No comments:
Post a Comment