I connected a Wacom drawing tablet to my home computer many years ago.  I used it with drawing programs on the computer rather than a conventional mouse.  While it worked well, my next dilemma was the need to switch back and forth between the mouse and the drawing pen.  To streamline the use of both devices, I did what made sense at the time.  I started to use one of these left-handed; I chose to move the mouse.

Having about half a dozen computers between home and work, I changed all the mice to be left-handed.  I reversed the function of the two mouse buttons and moved the mouse to the other side.  I endured the first week with excruciating futility; by the end of the second week, I could accomplish most tasks without much struggle.  However, this little activity taught me more than mere muscle memory, it gave me a new perspective on my biases.

About 10% of our population is left-handed, so I glimpsed how our world discriminates against this population.  Here’s a simple one.  When we use a two-button mouse, our index finger activates the primary button, and our middle finger activates the secondary button.  For right-handed users, those buttons are the left and right respectively.  For left-handed users, they’re normally reversed.  Therefore, the term “right-click” is incorrect and misleading.

The Plight of the Southpaws

A friend once asserted that he writes equally poorly with either hand.  As he learned to write, his teachers literally pulled the pencil from his left hand and forced it into his right hand when they taught him to write.  My brother-in-law, who initially wrote with his left hand, suffered a similar fate.  We discriminated against left-handed people, but we finally made our peace with them around 1960.  Don’t believe me?  Look at the graph of left-handed people in the US  over the years.

These days we generally don’t intentionally discriminate against left-handed people, but we only occasionally accommodate them.  I’m convinced we don’t do it with malice; we simply don’t think about it.  First, we give the instructions ‘right-click’ without thinking about it.  Second, schools buy scissors for children without getting any left-handed scissors.  Third, IT departments order ergonomic mice for their employees, molded for right hands.

However, we can civilly discuss the biases against left-handed people.  I can point out that we build microwaves with hinges on the left and keypads on the right which favor right-handed people and that conversation is not contentious.  Furthermore, people agree that we don’t treat left-handed people completely equitably; some biases exist.  However, even if you had purchased scissors or mice for your organization (neglecting to buy left-handed ones), we generously understand that it was merely an oversight.  We’re not accusing anyone of sinistrophobia.

Similarly, the mere suggestion that we, whoever ‘we’ are, point these out to elicit guilt among right-handed people sounds profoundly absurd.  We point out the bias and ask people to address it.  We do not fling accusations of malicious intent; fix it and move on with life.

The Discussion on Racial Bias

You might imagine that pivoting the conversation from bias against ‘hand dominance’ to ‘skin color’ would operate in the same ways.  They do not.  Discussions around racial bias remain emotionally charged and quickly degrade to name-calling.  The two poles revolve around two key points:

• We conduct all forms of racial bias with malicious intent.
• We have stricken all racism from our society.

Naturally, the truth lies somewhere in between.  Tragically, until we diffuse navigating this conversation, we won’t make progress in addressing the issues.  Some racial bias will always exist, but it rarely rises to the level of sporting a Scarlet Letter.  With that understanding, here are my suggestions:

• Grade the racial bias by the degree of violation.  Minor ones will result in education; major ones will result in dismissal.
  • Minor violation:  “Where are you from?” followed by “Where were you born?”
  • Major violation:  “We can’t promote Bob to manager because they don’t want to report to a black person.”
• Concede that while we’re doing better than the 1960s, racial bias, even if unintentional, still exists.

However, when we point out that there’s racial bias against black homeowners when it comes to appraisals, consider reading the article.  Instead of desperately searching for rationalizations for why this occurs that do not result in ‘racism’, entertain the idea that racism still exists.

How about discussing why after tabulating millions of data points, we found that black drivers are pulled over 20% more frequently?  Or that black male offenders received nearly 20% longer sentences than Caucasian ones for the same crime?

It’s not about inducing guilt

There’s much talk now about how the teaching of our black history aims to instill racial guilt into our Caucasian children.  If we followed that analogy, teaching the historical atrocities of Chinese people should similarly elicit racial guilt on me.  It does not.  Does this not sound absurd to anyone else?  We abolished slavery over 160 years ago.  The suggestion that anyone alive should feel guilt or bear responsibility for slavery is absolute nonsense.

While teaching about our checkered, racist history certainly evokes angst, to blame it on ‘racial guilt’ is too easy of a rationalization.  The racial guilt angle is simply the most palatable and the easiest one to lay blame on others.  Much like Trump continued to use “Chinese Virus” to lay blame on others; it doesn’t excuse his feeble response to the pandemic.

I’ve observed two recurrent themes beneath the distress over teaching accurate history.  Whether it is slavery, segregation, Indian boarding schools, the Chinese Exclusion Act, etc, these two themes persist.

“The greatest country in the world!”

Americans obsess about being the heroes.  The very notion that we have erred distresses us.  Americans have taken exceptionalism to unhealthy levels.  Discussions where we frame our country as less than the best or the most noble are met with fragility and distress.  These are followed by assertions that “We are the greatest country in the world!”, uttered not as much to convince others as to convince ourselves.

I once posted that 50 years ago (1974), women were not allowed to have credit, but the response was that this still is (and was) the greatest country in the world.  When discussing slavery, the what-aboutism response as other countries have done it too.  Is that really your response?  We did an inhumane, appalling deed, but it’s not that bad because others did it too?

Furthermore, we aren’t universally the greatest at everything even today.  The European and Japanese train systems put ours to shame, both in speed and accessibility.  We don’t even rank in the top 10 among the most educated countries.  Here in the US, five times more mothers die from giving birth (per capita) than in Germany or Japan.  Can we address these?  Absolutely!  However, these problems are tougher to fix while we simultaneously scream that we’re the best at everything.

Pointing out how our country is (or was) flawed does not mean I love it any less.

We kinda enjoy the racist behavior

We can look back at the 1950s and point to many racist policies (banning miscegenation, the inability of black citizens to vote, segregated schools, etc.).  Did the white citizens in the US in the 1950s believe that these were racist policies back then?  Probably not.  Is it not plausible that racially biased policies exist today?  Very likely, yet many will maintain that there’s no longer racism in this country.  Nonsense.  Much like bullying becomes more subtle as we age, so does racism.

We don’t display Confederate flags from a deep sense of history.  Otherwise, we would’ve tributized them shortly after the Civil War; we didn’t.  Allow me to pelt you with a bit of history and point out that displaying the Confederate flag emerged in the 1940s as symbolic resistance to civil rights among segregationists.  Today, three times more Americans find it negative than positive.  If you continue to display it (clothes, bumper stickers, etc.) understand that about a third of the country sees it (and you) as racist.  No need to feel guilty about it; remove that bumper sticker.

How about using the term ‘illegals’ to refer to human beings?  I politely asked a friend to amend his reference to ‘undocumented immigrant’, and he refused.  Even after I pointed out that using ‘illegal’ dehumanizes people and is used as a racist dog whistle, he continued to refuse.  He balked at the idea that a minority should dictate how everyone else behaves.  Isn’t this the very premise of the Civil Rights movement?

The true origin of the racial guilt

Plenty of Caucasian friends criticize the display of the Confederate flag and the use of the term ‘illegals’.  Do they feel targeted for their skin color?  No, they agree that this behavior is inappropriate.  When they learn history, they see it for precisely what it is, the story of what people (yes, with the same skin color) did many years ago.  They hold no kinship to those people.

Americans object to the label ‘racist’.  However, many enjoy behaving in ways understood to be racist.  You can stop flying the Confederate flag and using the term ‘illegals’ today.  Instead, we rationalize that the Confederate flag is ‘historical’ or that undocumented immigrants committed crimes to justify their use.  Never mind that we only use the label ‘illegals’ for crimes on immigration; we don’t even call murderers ‘illegals’.

If a hint of racial guilt exists, it does not originate from the physical pigmentation of your skin.  It extends from your refusal to amend behavior that is known to be racist.  Entertain the idea that referring to human beings as “illegals”, or even defending this term, contributes more to your racial guilt than the color of your skin.