I can't remember where I first read that line. Maybe it was The Audacity of Hope, or Freakonomics. Maybe one of the painfully dry books I force myself to read, like The Paradox of American Power or maybe Guns, Germs, and Steel. I think President Bush said it in a speech once (or maybe it was President Obama...). The soft bigotry of low expectations.
Two days ago I had coffee with a very good friend of mine not far from where this picture was taken.
We talked a little bit about stereotypes. Not for long. I'm not good at talking about stereotypes. Mostly because I haven't felt discriminated against too many times in my life. A few cases, for sure, but not enough to know right away when I'm being discriminated against. I'm a racial and religious minority in a conservative, Christian part of the country. I'm a woman in a male-dominated industry and profession. But John is a successful and talented software engineer for a high-profile startup in San Francisco. And he's black.
Last week I wrote about defying people's expectations. Working a lathe as a 5' 2" Indian girl wearing pink heels. Engaging in a Milton and Faulkner discussion group as an engineering major. Leaving cheerleading practice to tutor someone in calculus. But I've found in my life that those aren't the biases that bother me. It's the small things - having someone assume that I will quit working in three years to get married and have children. Assuming that I can work on a Sunday because I'm not going to church.
We don't live in the days of segregated stores, but that doesn't mean we don't discriminate. Real diversity isn't about race anymore (although our attitudes about race are still deeply ingrained). It's about socioeconomic status and life experiences. Malcolm Gladwell makes obscene amounts of money talking about this in Blink - about how we expect people with certain backgrounds (and yes, certain looks) to behave and perform a certain way. And how those expectations can shape how we treat someone - from people we hire, to people we fall in love with, to people we elect as President.
I love this line so much, the soft bigotry of low expectations, because it illustrates a perfect point. You don't need a plaque that calls out the color of skin to exclude or offend. We do it through the things we say, and sometimes the things that we don't. We do it when we ask a woman we've just met how many kids she has, and asking her husband what he does for a living. Sure, it might be a fair point, but by doing it, we've made an assumption about what's important to someone because it fits our model of what's important to us.
Two days ago I had coffee with a very good friend of mine not far from where this picture was taken.
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| Covington Square. This is in front of more than one store. Gotta love working in the rural South. |
Last week I wrote about defying people's expectations. Working a lathe as a 5' 2" Indian girl wearing pink heels. Engaging in a Milton and Faulkner discussion group as an engineering major. Leaving cheerleading practice to tutor someone in calculus. But I've found in my life that those aren't the biases that bother me. It's the small things - having someone assume that I will quit working in three years to get married and have children. Assuming that I can work on a Sunday because I'm not going to church.
We don't live in the days of segregated stores, but that doesn't mean we don't discriminate. Real diversity isn't about race anymore (although our attitudes about race are still deeply ingrained). It's about socioeconomic status and life experiences. Malcolm Gladwell makes obscene amounts of money talking about this in Blink - about how we expect people with certain backgrounds (and yes, certain looks) to behave and perform a certain way. And how those expectations can shape how we treat someone - from people we hire, to people we fall in love with, to people we elect as President.
I love this line so much, the soft bigotry of low expectations, because it illustrates a perfect point. You don't need a plaque that calls out the color of skin to exclude or offend. We do it through the things we say, and sometimes the things that we don't. We do it when we ask a woman we've just met how many kids she has, and asking her husband what he does for a living. Sure, it might be a fair point, but by doing it, we've made an assumption about what's important to someone because it fits our model of what's important to us.
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