I grew up in the tropics. Initially, I spent my early childhood in the sunny island of Puerto Rico. I spent the years that followed in the south-east coast of Florida. Palm trees and sand in my toes were an integral part of my childhood. Beaches were a common destination and easily accessible. Even as a young adult, postcards with the silhouette of palm trees on the backdrop of purple and orange sunsets puzzled me. Why would you send someone a picture of something you see every day?
Naïvely, it wasn’t until I moved from Miami to Seattle that I finally understood that these stunning sunsets are not common, they’re spectacular. This started my quiet fondness (read as ‘obsession’) with both beaches and palm trees. Over the years, I’ve collected sand from the beach on my visits back to Florida and at one point even had a Bonsai palm tree in my office.
Though as I grew more accustomed to the weather this far north, I developed other habits. While it doesn’t snow in Seattle very often, it does occasionally. I collected the snow into small bottles and sent it to my family and friends who had yet to see water outdoors in a solid state. They both fascinate me.
What about the combination of both?
My mental image of beaches is filled with sunlight beaming upon sand and palm trees waving in soft wind. The waves crash upon that sand repeatedly with white foam with the agitation. That was my experience with the tropical beaches from my childhood. However, as an adult I came to the realization that beaches, the location where land meets the ocean; this does not necessarily need to be a warm climate. My mind was blown.
Allow me this mental exercise:
- There are plenty of coastal beaches outside of the tropics.
- There are even some beaches in some locations that turn very cold, like the northeast coast of the United States.
- Upon hitting winter, it turns cold enough to snow in some of these locations.
Thus, I must conclude the phenomenon of ‘snow on the beach’ must occur. I’m not merely talking the snow on at a location where the land meets the water, like the edge of a lake. I’m talking about waves crashing upon a snow-covered beach. Why don’t we see pictures of that?
And yes, I understand that this is now simply a web search away, but this idea crossed my mind long before the internet was a common thing. However, this is still not a common picture. Hmm… why?
What is it about ‘snow on the beach’?
There are many rationalizations about why you don’t see pictures of ‘snow on the beach’. The easiest explanation is lack of opportunity; if it’s cold enough to snow, you’re unlikely to head to the beach. This explanation is certainly plausible, though people venture out into the mountains, forests, and streams during freezing weather. It may simply be because it’s not that interesting. This too is plausible, though people take random pictures of almost anything, including their meals. It could be because once it turns cold enough to freeze, waves stop crashing upon the shore. No, I don’t buy that.
Though the most interesting element of ‘snow on the beach’ is simply this. It doesn’t matter if we don’t see it very often; it doesn’t matter if we see it at all. The fact is that, as we reason about it (see list above), we must simply conclude that ‘snow on the beach’ occurs, even when we don’t personally experience it. No debate here.
What about other things we don’t see?
If we can conclude ‘snow on the beach’ occurs by simply reasoning through it. Can we conclude that other things may also occur when we don’t personally experience it? If you personally don’t see anyone targeted by racism, do you then conclude it doesn’t happen? If I were to re-tell the account of other kids spitting gum into my hair for their amusement because I’m Chinese, are you inclined to disbelieve it? Am I misremembering it, or am I lying? Or do you believe that it only occurs when someone mentions it?
Allow me to frame it this way, if you’re statistically unlikely to be the target of bigotry, your perception of ‘common’ or ‘reality’ is naturally skewed. You are a figurative blind person in a world of sighted people. If you continue to assert that we have ‘fixed’ the problem of racism, at least entertain the idea that you may be that blind person, except that you don’t realize that everyone else’s reality is different from yours… that they have seen what you have not.
Or choosing to ignore what we see
I once got into a discussion about gender bias with a woman friend. She asserted that we subject women to different standards with respect to assertiveness. This sounded unfamiliar to me; I simply couldn’t imagine anyone I knew willfully criticizing women for exhibiting the same behavior as men. Did I believe a few ‘bad apples’ existed? Absolutely, there are always pockets of people who don’t live up to our standards, but they are the exception to the rule. This was simply not my reality. Though it turns out I was wrong; 27% is a significant number. We collectively do criticize women for assertiveness when they behave the same as men. It led me to re-evaluate my reactions with my women colleagues.
I worked with an Indian friend Tom, who grew up in New Jersey. He is funny and gregarious. I would not hesitate to call him a friend in any respect, though he has the one tragic character flaw of rooting for the New York Yankees. I’ve ridden in his car a number of times; he does not drive recklessly. However, he was stopped by the police on the road and let off without consequence… a lot. For a while, it seemed like every month or two, there’d be another stop. It became a running joke among our friends. One day, we realized that he was a very dark-skinned Indian (easily mistaken for black), and abruptly it ceased being funny. Statistically black motorists are 20% more likely to be stopped; it doesn’t matter if they drive similarly.
All I ask is that you navigate the world with humility; understand that the human experience may be drastically different from your own… that waves crash upon snowy beaches even if we don’t happen to see them.