Day 44: (Mis)representation, Part 3

At the end of Part 1, in which I shared the true confession that I really believed that roadrunners were emu-sized, Ellen commented, simply: Misrepresentation matters. 

Yes!  Exactly!  That is exactly it.  This is the other half of my Day 29 post, representation.  Representation matters, because it reminds us that our way of being and seeing the world isn't the only way.  It offers us another standard for normal.

And misrepresentation matters, because we form our ideas of how the world works based not only on our own experience, but also on the stories and images that we hear and see.  We experience those, too.  In many cases, these pervasive images and stories about people become more powerful than our own experiences.  And then, in turn, we interpret our experiences through the expectations that come from those images and stories. 

Let me give you an example.  One day many years ago, when I was a student in the Bay Area, I was driving somewhere in Oakland, and I got lost.  This was well before cell phones, so I pulled over to get out my handy dandy Thomas Guide, and two guys came up to the car to see if I was lost.  They gave me directions, and I thanked them, and I got where I was going. 

If you know the demographics of Oakland, you know that the chances were good that these two young men were African-American (in fact, they happened to be).  At the time, Oakland had a very high crime rate.  And representations of African-Americans were (and still are) often of urban youth, portrayed as gang-involved, dangerous, etc etc.  When I told someone about my experience - feeling grateful that these guys had been able to help me - her first response was, I can't believe you talked to them, they were probably planning to carjack you.

Now, here's the thing.  If it had been her, and she'd pulled over and been approached in the same way, she would have double-checked to be sure her doors were locked, pulled away, and told people (and believed) that she'd narrowly avoided a carjacking.  Her experience was interpreted through a lens that she already held, and then reinforced that lens and made it real. 

We often suggest that if people could only meet one another, they'd understand that their stories about The Other aren't true.  But I think what I'm saying is that it isn't quite that simple.  If we interpret our interactions with other people through powerful preexisting lenses that are informed by pervasive misrepresentations, the chances are high that we will interpret what we see in light of our beliefs, and we'll end up reinforcing those beliefs, rather than disrupting them.  I'm not saying that it's not important to create many many opportunities for people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, and so on, to interact.  But I am saying that it isn't sufficient.  And I am saying that we need to think carefully about how people are represented.  We often mock or roll our eyes at folks when they call out problematic representations - but they all matter.  It's not about being politically correct - it's about realizing that all those "little jokes" and "mistakes" add up to something really big and intractable.

Because it's not just about thinking that roadrunners are emu-sized, or that rabbits hatch from eggs.  It's about thinking that a young woman who gets raped after having several drinks or while wearing something revealing was asking for it.  Or that she actually wanted it, but then was too embarrassed to admit it, and so made a false accusation.  Right?

Misrepresentation matters.  Amen.