Talk, Don't Label

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Spring Break is over and with it, hopefully the last vestiges of pain caused by the great Dunster toaster-oven debate. I was very pleased to see members of my community involved with this issue overcome their strong feelings and genuine disagreements to address each other as individuals at a general meeting covered by The Crimson and in subsequent informal discussions.

Yet the calm resolution of what might have been a much more inflammatory issue has underscored an impression I have had on campus recently that this sort of discussion has become very rare.

Specifically, I am worried about what I see as a scary mirror image of racist or sexist stereotyping. It manifests itself when people are quick to view a challenging, confusing or hurtful speaker not as an individual, but as a representative of a more abstract evil like racism. This sometimes triggers a collective response from a group that objects to the assumed evil; it rarely fosters interpersonal discussion, healing or communal understanding.

More than in other years, I've witnessed this behavior disturbingly often. A teacher makes an argument in class that can be seen as insensitive with one very debatable analysis, and suddenly she IS insensitive. A student uses a phrase that a second student considers racist; the first student is de facto a racist.

Group A invites a speaker that some members of Group B consider offensive; people quickly assume Group A deliberately plans to offend Group B. And the individuals directly involved stop talking to each other and build psychological walls.

I understand that organized responses to racism are often appropriate, that people have the right to speak or respond to speech however they like and that political evil is not always resolvable by open-minded dialogue. I applaud the university for supporting diverse student and administrative organizations to help people contend with difficult and hurtful situations; I think it could do more still.

But the existence of so many institutional resources creates the risk that people who feel offended will make use of these resources without even considering engaging the other party in discussion, which requires patience and flexibility.

Rather than treat a person whose ideas make us uncomfortable or confused as an individual, it's easy to view him as subscribing to an offensive ideology that can be combatted through recourse to a group with in a stake in combatting it.

In voicing concern about this behavior, I am not defending the absolute sanctity of free speech. As important as free speech is, I think society must continue to think seriously about addressing the tangible injury to the dignity of individuals caused by the expression of racism and sexism. Nor am I making a veiled argument against "political correctness."

I believe that all communities, inevitably and not inappropriately, have certain established norms; for myself, I much prefer the liberal norms of my House to those of the broader American society. However much free speech is crucial to encourage people to express perspectives at odds with the majority, those whose ideas conflict with established norms will probably experience some discomfort as a minority. In fact, it's easy judgmental responses to this type of discomfort that bother me.

Whether speech is racist, sexist or otherwise inappropriate is a complex and contextual issue. But I think all members of our community should strive to respect another's sense of what treatment will make him feel equal and dignified, including exercising prudence about making potentially offensive statements.

Further, I believe that people should be willing to reconsider what they say in light of the effect it has on others, even if they mean no harm. Others do and should disagree with me about my standards.

But I have tremendous difficulty understanding what is gained by attaching very hurtful meanings or motives to provocative words in our community. Except in the most obvious, egregious cases, it seems unfair to read a speaker's statement in a suspicious light and then seek allies to respond to it without trying to initiate dialogue or make peace with the speaker.

While the goals and methods of combatting racism or sexism are open to debate, one major aim is surely to work for a society in which individuals are considered for their own unique merits, not as derivative or some group with which they have been dismissively lumped.

If I let my own sensitivity, however much it's a product of real pain or past suffering, lead me to condescending conclusions about the views or intent of other individuals or groups, I'm only doubling the stereotyping I claim to be fighting. If, as a person very upset by anti-Arab remarks, I respond to a peer's assertion that Egyptians govern their society stupidly by calling her a racist, stalking off and writing an angry letter to The Crimson, I'm not giving her a chance to talk the issue out with me.

Rather than considering with this person the unresolved issues of what anti-Arabism might and might not mean and perhaps even how to combat it, I'm giving her a quite reasonable feeling of being victimized, escalating the conflict and possibly providing her with psychological motivation to develop a prejudice she may well never have had. Certainly, I'm not making it easy for her to voice sincere regret for the hurt her remarks may have caused me.

Most of us grapple with questions about what constitutes racism and sexism and how to combine the empowerment of belonging to a group of people who share our identity or experiences with the need for all members of society to live together in mutual respect. I assert no positions on these questions.

I advocate merely that in dealing with each other on contentious political ground, we follow two fundamental American constitutional principles--that an individual should be able to participate in a fair trial when accused and that he should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

I think we are all bright and responsible enough to be capable of at least as much concern for seeing the hurt we may cause others as for seeing ourselves hurt. Moreover, I view the ease with which creative thinkers can interpret many situations of interpersonal miscommunication or disagreement as racist or sexist as hurting the very equal treatment they claim to advocate.

Doesn't it trivialize the abhorrent evil that racism is when we use it as an imprecise label that, on even the most abstract logical continuum, leads someone to juxtapose a remark about communal use of a toaster with Hitler's gas chambers?

If for no other reason than to avoid enervating paranoia, I think we should try hard to read each other's remarks at face value and to make it as easy as possible for each other to back off from positions we often never wish to represent. It perplexes me to watch students seem to have a thick skin for the utter neglect some professors and people in power show them and thin skin for the unintended wounds peers who take them seriously cause.

It saddens me to see gifted and caring people who feel confused and hurt resorting to diatribes about each other, rather than dialogue with each other. It's an easy strategy to adopt; this nation's competitive, litigious society compensates for its current lack of shared social purpose with a plethora or interest groups and a priority on individual rights that deemphasize community feeling and decency to others. Must it be so here as well?

For all that my remarks are broad, I don't mean to suggest that most of us behave in the way I describe. Neither are my remarks subtle attacks on particular organizations or political perspectives. In general, I have been consistently encouraged by the response of diverse student groups and individuals to clear incidents of racism.

At Harvard at least, it seems that many people are deeply concerned and can unite behind the banner of interpersonal equality. But this makes me believe all the more determinedly that we must work together to oppose stereotyping people in less obvious ways that are still unfair.

I'd like to think that, unlike the Armenians and Azeris in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Israelis and Palestinians on the West Bank, the Kurds in the Middle East, the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland and the warring street gangs in American inner cities, we who live in the protective Harvard environment have the luxury of being especially charitable to the views and the individual dignity of members of our shared community who differ with us.

If we don't, I'm afraid of the lessons being learned by the many among us who will go on to play important roles in managing the terrible conflicts I've mentioned above, and the possibly even more difficult challenges to come.

Quietly questioning our own sense of injury and intuitive reactions in order to be fair to others may not be as much fun as painting someone's motivations black to battle an identifiable evil; yet it might just allow us the peace and power to confine and carry on the larger struggle when we leave these sensitized halls. David Mednicoff, Race Relations Tutor and   Assistant Senior Tutor, Dunster House