My 19 year-old and his friend decided to do an overnight kayaking trip along the Potomac River. I thought this was an insane idea. My husband said, “that sounds cool.” Now aside from the ordinary Mars/Venus differences a friend pointed out to me that my son was utilizing the “white side” of his brain.
She’s convinced that a 100% black child would not think it was “cool” to go out on the water in a small craft at night. To prove it she asked, “Have you ever heard of Ray Ray and June Bug and ‘em going kayaking?” I laughed. It’s okay if you laughed (sometimes we’re way to serious about this stuff). And yes, my husband laughed when I relayed the conversation to him. And my 19-year-old laughed too. Okay, done laughing. But, of course, this got me thinking.
Pondering what exactly that means white brain/black brain. This conversation with my friend occurred soon after reading and communicating with Richard Morris, the white novelist who wrote his book from a black man’s perspective. Read that post here.
Just as my husband’s left handed brain sees things differently, does my “black brain” have the same proclivity? Well, yes. Besides the kayaking, here’s another example.
Several weeks ago two police cars parked outside of our house. The officers remained seated in their vehicles. I thought, “What is going on? What are they doing outside my house?” With no conscious thought, I experienced feelings of nervousness, uneasiness, and I couldn’t think of a positive reason they might be there. I knew I wasn’t breaking the law but I wasn’t convinced that they knew. I even considered they’d made a mistake and had the wrong house, thought they might be planning a raid on my residence.
In contrast, Marc felt safe, secure, even comfortable with two officers parked outside. He didn’t wonder why they were there and didn’t assume they were looking for him. He went out and said hello to them. Turns out they did have the wrong house – looking for a former neighbor.
We reacted with our stereotypical black brain/white brain biases towards law enforcement.
Another example of this white brain/black brain involves a community organization I belonged to. We are a racially diverse group and have honest conversations about race as well as other issues. When discussing what punishment a convicted murderer (a young black man killed another young black man) might warrant, I noticed a racial divide in the responses. All of the white people expressed a strong sense of tough justice – they should lock him up and throw away the key; they each identified more with the victim. Every minority felt the murderer (eighteen years old) deserved a second chance, a lighter sentence, could be rehabilitated. Interesting.
I wonder if our goal should be to try to convince someone of another brain to think the way we do. Maybe instead, we should try to see the world through their eyes. Try to go through a day left handed, living on Mars or looking through a different colored filter. I wonder. Let’s talk…
#1 by Claire at July 28th, 2010
I think your white brain and black brain examples can all be explained by experience.
There was a time when you didn’t see black people on ski slopes or on tennis courts either. The more a group is exposed to something the more likely members of the group are going to see the activity as normal. So kayaking in the dark might not be within the realm of normal for most black youth. (It’s probably not for most white female youth either.)
Minorities tend to have a history of not being treated fairly by the police and other institutions… but we’re all familiar with racial profiling. White people are used to thinking the police are on “their side,” there to protect them, unless they are hiding a meth lab in their house or marijuana in the basement under grow lamps. A white meth addict is certainly going to look at those cops in front of the house with more alarm!
And do white people mostly identify with the victim if the perpetrator is white? That might depend on class. I would hazard to guess that white people are more afraid of being the victim of racial violence. Dominant groups are always going to harbor, I think, a fear of minority groups. After all, we’ve all heard the saying, “What goes around, comes around.”
I know that as a “white” person, I’ve been privy to lots of inside talk by whites, all while feeling very much like a minority myself. I have often had the reaction, “Oh, s/he thinks I’m white.” Meaning, safe, as in the white person thinks s/he doesn’t have to watch what s/he is saying in front of me.
I think it is helpful to try to see the world through other people’s eyes… it is a practice we would all be better off engaging in. I also think that if everyone tried to look at the world through the eyes of people with differing experiences, then we might find ourselves more willing to work together for solutions to the problems we jointly face.