Thursday, June 04, 2020

On Difference


There is a spectrum of approaches to difference: at one end we highlight difference, at the other we stop seeing it.

The risk of highlighting difference is that is leads to ingroup/outgroup bias and the deepening of prejudice. Today, for example, nobody draws much a distinction between green-eyed folk and blue-eyed ones. But if I can gain enough traction – if I can establish an ‘Us & Them’ mentality around eye colour – then we will see some discrimination on the back of that distinction.

I think there are perhaps three categories of difference:
1) Differences which we don't much notice & don't result in discrimination (e.g. blue eyes/green eyes)
2) Differences which we don't pay notice explicitly and which do result in discrimination (e.g. height, attractiveness)
3) Differences which we explicitly notice and which do result in discrimination (e.g. gender, ethnicity).

Since we are all different somehow, the question is how to eliminate discrimination arising from difference.

So this is Morgan Freeman’s position when he says ‘Stop talking about race’. The more we talk about it, the more we highlight it, the more the prejudice will grow. So oftentimes what looks superficially like a step forwards, results in a step backwards.

But there’s another position on the spectrum: we need to get comfortable with difference. There’s the kind of ‘difference’ which is merely a social construct – just a label – and which we need to erase, and then there’s a real difference that we need to respect and accept. If you are autistic, for example, you are most definitely different.

And the problem is that instinctively, and societally, we struggle with difference. We revert to ‘same is safe’ in a host of implicit and explicit ways that disadvantage people different to us. We subtly send the message 'it's ok to be different, so long as you act the same'.

So we see people trying both to erase difference effects (for example being treated differently just because you are a woman), and people trying to fight for respect for those differences. Often the two things are muddled up in the agenda. Sometimes it’s unclear whether people are really saying ‘the differences are superficial/social constructs; we are all the same’ or saying ‘I am different, but I deserve the same respect’.

The answer, of course, is that we should respect our differences and treat people fairly. But that requires a profoundly different approach to difference.

Image: Anonio Dillard

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