In class tonight we discussed how Eberhardt and Fiske brought up aversive racism. I took Human Resources Management and we studied a lot of cases that pertained to this topic. In was all relevant to rules and business practices. For example, a hospital policy was that all male employees had to be cleanly shaved and no facial hair was allowed. A black person took his employer to court because whenever he shaved closely, his face broke out (something that is common for their race, I don't remember exactly what it's called). The company claimed it was aversive racism and they were not aware that their policy was racist. It came down to the fact if it was a "business necessity". Will people only use the company's services if everyone was clean shaved and didn't have facial hair? Will fewer people use their services if employees had facial hair? Courts claimed that it was not a business necessity. They then changed their policy that employees had to be neatly shaved if they wanted facial hair, and facial hair could only be so long.
In class people were afraid that they may always be racist, but in this case in the work force, the company did not intend to be racist and target black workers in ways it would cause them problems. There are just issues and things we are not aware of unless it personally affects us in a significant way.
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ReplyDeleteThis was a great connection to real world situations. I agree that this was a case of the company simply not knowing about the implications of their policy for the employees of color.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, this story reminds me that it is also important to note the relationship between intentions and actual effects.
There is the risk of mistakenly believing that our intentions correspond directly to the effects. We might say "Oh, you shouldn't be offended, I didn't mean for you to take it that way"
This type of reasoning is something that we all have probably used at some point or other in our lives. I think the main thing is to let go of the defensiveness and using our intentions as a shield.
As this company did, we've got to own up to our mistakes -- if we offend someone we should apologize and admit that we were ignorant to how it would affect them or make them feel.
Good point, Sandy. Intent does not equal impact.
ReplyDeleteGreat link to real life situations, Jenna.
Jenna, that’s a really good point! The company wasn’t trying to offend anyone; they were just unaware of how their rules affected people of other races than their own.
ReplyDeleteSandy, you made me think of something my aunt said to me once and I never forgot it. I think it was when I was in middle school, my friends and I (as well as the rest of the school) went through this phase in which we could say whatever we wanted to as long as we added “No offense” in the beginning or at the end of the sentence. I don’t remember exactly what I said to her but she told me afterwards that just because I added that doesn’t mean it isn’t offensive. And, she also told me that I did mean to be offensive because I knew what I was going to say would be offensive so that’s why I added “no offense.” So, if I felt like I needed to say “no offense” then I shouldn’t be saying what I was going to say. After she told me that I never (or I tried never) to say “no offense” because I didn’t want to offend anyone. Looking back, it was easy way to say mean stuff without taking the blame for being mean. Going back to what Sandy said, people need to take the “blame” if they say or do something offensive and learn for the future. We need to apologize to the person(s) we offended and not be as ignorant to other people’s feelings.