How Not to Chase Every Stick That's Thrown: Four Questions to Ask Before Taking the Bait
There is a Tibetan proverb that says if you throw a stick to a dog, the dog will chase that stick, but if you throw a stick to a lion, the lion will turn to see where the stick came from. In meditation communities the story is used to teach how not to chase one distracting thought with another and another. But in today’s atmosphere of unapologetically hyperbolic statements thrown from celebrities, oligarchs and politicians, it has something more to teach us about how to respond most powerfully and not simply react.
A Serious Threat or a Distraction?
On the simplest level, this can be a way to decide how upset to be about the recent spate of executive orders. Many of these are blustery statements, strong on confidence if weak on pragmatics. The element of surprise and even bizarreness makes it harder to immediately comprehend whether they are serious or mere distractions. Take, for instance, the proclamation that the US would be receiving White South Africans as refugees from the “racist actions” of their government’s truth and reconciliation efforts. This came as quite a surprise, as the truth and reconciliation process has been in motion for 30 years in that nation with no huge outflow of White refugees. My own first reaction was to run after that stick with thoughts such as, “Is this an attempt to naturalize more citizens who will be hostile to our own equity efforts?” As I did some research on whether this was even possible, I stumbled upon a post from an immigration attorney explaining the refugee process. It turns out that no nation can declare a group “refugees,” only the UN can confer that status. By the time they do, many, many people representing this population are typically living in refugee camps. What the US and other nations can do is designate how many of these refugees to accept. The whole process can take years, with refugees sometimes living in camps for generations. The stick that was thrown is a decoy.
This prompts the Lion phase of analysis: Who threw it and why? The President signed the order, and the fact that one of his closest current advisors is a White South African indicates a strong possibility of the genesis of it. But why is still a question. It clearly aligns with the politics of White racial grievance that have stoked a portion of the President’s base from the beginning. And it strikes me as less corrosive than either the executive orders dismantling “DEI,” or the anti-affirmative action lawsuits that preceded them. So while it may function as one more signal that overt white supremacist beliefs are no longer taboo, it doesn’t need to take the front row of my attention. I don’t have to run after it.
Four Questions Before Taking the Bait
Looking at the steps I went through, here’s a list of things to consider as a way of keeping my mind - and my emotions - from running away with me.
Who threw the stick? How do they benefit from it?
Consider this “follow the money” step first
Who else stands to gain or lose from this? Among them, who has a well-formed ideology or serious political project?
Remember, those who don’t have a well-thought-out ideology may not have connected the dots to those who do.
How plausible is this?
If it is particularly far-fetched, don’t spend your energy running after it.
What other sticks have come from this direction? How does this one compare in terms of likely impact on either vulnerable or powerful groups?
If the impact is strong and plausible, a bit of stick-running may be warranted - as in, we may need to care for immediately impacted folks. Still, we need to keep our eye on the source.
A More Common, and More Complex Example
What about sticks that are not thrown by elected officials and other powerful actors, but instead by your local provocateur? Most of us are more likely to be on the receiving end of this type of interaction more often. For instance, this past weekend I listened to NPR host Scott Simon's interview of Fox late night host Greg Gutfeld. During the interview, it was clear that Gutfeld projects an “I don’t care” persona as exemplified by his statement, “I take it as a badge of honor if somebody says that I'm being mean, and I'm just having fun.” He’s an expert at finding the plausible deniability of anything he says as a comedian, because after all, he’s joking. Anyone who survived middle school will recognize this schoolyard bully technique.
In this interview, though, there is an excruciating exchange about a joke Gutfeld had prefaced by saying it was something a racist would say. Then he told a joke promoting the idea that Asians are bad drivers. It elicited laughter and cheers from his audience. And then, as Simon asserted that he didn’t find the joke funny but rather, racist, Gutfeld had a field day berating him because he didn’t get the joke, wasn’t able to have any fun, etc.
Identifying a joke as “something a racist would say” doesn’t get Gutfeld off the hook for repeating it any more than saying that a photo is “something a pedophile would take” excuses a person who shares it.
Scott Simon correctly sensed that simply identifying a joke as “something a racist would say” doesn’t get Gutfeld off the hook for repeating it any more than saying that a photo is “something a pedophile would take” excuses a person who shares it. The damage is done.
Simon briefly questioned the “taste” of the joke, then abandoned that and tried questioning the joke’s decency. But the invocation of either taste or decency is about as effective as a dog returning the stick to its owner - Gutfeld just throws it again with a different spin: “And there are a lot of jokes that just aren't funny to some people. But to other people, they are funny. Those make me laugh. And they make me laugh because I'm pointing out how upsetting it is to people like you. Even when I point it out, it's still upsetting to you. I find that funny. It's a meta joke, if you will.”
This type of polarizing joke has a unique power. Nick Butler, a Stockholm University researcher commenting on the similar “joke” of Elon Musk's Nazi salute noted that this humor functions as sonar to detect like-mindedness. “Jokes create in-groups and out-groups of those who are laughing and those who are not.” Gutfeld’s description affirms this, including the humor he personally finds in making the out-group uncomfortable. And of course, solidifying an in-group and an out-group is a first step in any project of othering and dehumanizing your opponents for political traction.
Individual Racism is not the Problem
Back to the “stick” of decency - the reason Gutfeld welcomes it is that it fits with his world view that things like decency or meanness are individual characteristics rather than societal norms. In this world view, racism is also seen as an individual trait. When examined closely, it, too, becomes a stick that distracts from a systemic view of racism. Frankly, I don’t care whether Greg Gutfeld does or does not harbor racist beliefs. In fact, I suspect that he doesn’t have a well-considered ideology, rather he thinks of himself as a provocateur: “But generally, what I do is I just kind of sense mob thought, when everybody sounds the same. And then I tend to just kind of, like, think about, well, what else is there to say?” In this case the “mob thought” he’s referring to is the so-called “95% liberal” media. He benefits, then, any time people are provoked or offended by his comments.
Frankly, I don’t care whether Greg Gutfeld does or does not harbor racist beliefs. In fact, I suspect that he doesn’t have a well-considered ideology.
What I do care about is whether or not Gutfeld has said a thing to his large audience that reinforces white supremacist beliefs. What do I mean by this? “The simple falsehood that the white body is the supreme standard against which all other bodies are measured and judged, both structurally and philosophically,” as Resmaa Menakem, LHD explains it. In avowed white nationalist groups, we could also add male to the superior list.
Related Sticks and Who Benefits From Them
And let’s get something straight: Introducing tired racial stereotypes functions to compare a group unfavorably to the supposed supreme standard, in this case, of superior White driving. And, OK, that would seem to be a small, personal jab - unless we go back to step 2, who stands to gain or lose? Is a group being marginalized, or are individuals feeling offended? Back in 2013, when an Asiana Airlines flight crash landed in San Francisco, the internet offered up plenty of comments along the lines of "of course the Korean plane crashed. Asians can't drive, what makes them think they can fly a plane." Fast forward to earlier this year when a Black Hawk helicopter had a tragic mid-air collision with a commercial jet, killing all 67 people aboard both crafts. The President immediately blamed “DEI hires,” evoking these same stereotypes of inferiority, expanded over the next few days to include the “lady driver” of the Black Hawk. The latest information from the investigation of this crash now suggests that the altimeter in the helicopter may have malfunctioned, not the pilot nor the air traffic controllers. So - who benefits from this? People who espouse white supremacy in any of its forms.
How Far a Fetch?
And unlike the South African refugee executive order, this one plausibly leads to action. It gives immediate fuel to people who want to paint diversity and inclusion efforts as programs that “lower the bar” in institutions such as the military and the Federal Aviation Administration. We’ve already seen rollbacks on federal policy related to diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility, and we’ve already seen massive layoffs across government departments. This rhetoric provides a foothold that can cause some people to think, “Well, maybe all those people deserve to be fired,” or perhaps “We certainly don’t want our military to function at such a low level, let’s root out the weak links.” These thoughts and ideas aren’t the policy, but they seed tacit support for the eventual policy.
How Not to Chase the Stick
Believing that it doesn’t matter whether the provocateur individually has racism in his heart takes a lot of emotional charge off of whatever he says. It allows me to see what’s being thrown as the thorny little twigs that they are. It gives me bandwidth to notice the arsenal of much more damaging cabers ready to be tossed. Still, a person mouthing racist platitudes is hard to take.
A World Record-setting arsenal of cabers ready to be tossed in Inverness, Scotland, 2014
Though it may be counterintuitive, keeping my gaze focused on the system is what most helps me to minimize my focus on the individual comment. What matters here is not the individual mouthing the racist language, but the system that creates her. If it were only about individuals, dealing with them individually would take care of the problem. But like the mythical Hydra, when we cut off one head, more grow back from the unscathed body. Similarly, if one person had a late night show and said questionable things but nobody tuned in, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. But when the audience for this is large and growing, there’s a current being tapped into, a system that is producing them.
Is a group being marginalized, or are individuals feeling offended?
And, ironically, when I respond to a marginalizing comment by calling the speaker a racist, I actually fuel that system. Gutfeld put his finger on this phenomenon as he explained why he feels that the liberal media are the powerful and anyone who doesn’t share that point of view are the truly marginalized: “Trump supporters were being written about, and they're like, I'm not a racist. I'll go out of my way to help people. If your car's pulled over on the side of the road, I'm the guy that's going to change the tire. Why am I called a white supremacist?”
Calling individuals white supremacists or racists is behaving as though we fully understand their intentions and they fully understand their impact. I have written before about re-evaluating the intent and impact of people whose talking points are congruent with systemic racism. Some understand that they are working on a white nationalist political project that matches their deeply held beliefs, and others don’t yet see the full ramifications of the points they articulate. Their belief system isn’t solidified - meaning that it’s still possible to find teachable moments with them. And, as any teacher will tell you, shaming your students slams the door on new learning. “Racist” and “white supremacist” are still shameful things to be called - that’s why the right is working so hard right now to create a narrative that racism and white supremacy are a thing of the past.
The More Powerful Response
Our true power lies in defusing the misunderstandings, historical gaps, and feelings of condescension that fuel the system. To do that we have to have the lion’s wisdom, to pause, turn and look deeply before acting. We must cultivate the wild awareness of the lion and not give in to the domesticated habits of the dog.
In normal times we have gotten used to chasing the occasional stick, so it may be difficult to break that habit. If you’re ready to cultivate your wild awareness, my latest course is for you!
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