Don't Assume You're A Good Person

A girlfriend of mine recently dealt with two bouts of street harassment in a single day, about which she posted on Facebook.  Predictably, a few men on her Facebook wall made some rather shitty comments.  The first stated, “It’s tough being so hot.”  

Yea, way to minimize the experiences of a woman being sexually harassed by further commenting on her body and reducing her to her physical attributes.  Way to contribute to the patriarchy, really doing your fucking part...

I want here to focus more on the second response though in which some significant mansplaining began to take place, and to which I was asked to respond because, well, you know mansplainers: sometimes they’ll listen to a dude saying the exact same thing as a woman but will actually hear it because it’s said by a male.  So, while I generally wish to avoid online debate, I entered the fray.

I’m going to save a more detailed discussion of mansplaining for a different post.  Instead, here I want to make a suggestion to all well-intentioned, well-meaning people who come to conversations from a position of privilege and power.  This might mean you’re a man, a white person, a heterosexual, a person of wealth, or some intersection of the aforementioned and/or other identifications.  It doesn’t really matter.  The point is, you have privilege but you’re one of those well-intentioned, left-leaning privileged people.

Here’s the advice: don’t assume you’re a good person.

I know, that’s hard to hear.  “But I am a good person!” I hear you yelling.  “I’ll vote for Bernie Sanders!  I call out sexual harassment!  I donate to planned parenthood, for fuck’s sake!”  Word.  Good for you.  We all want to be the protagonists of our own story, we all narrate our lives in such a way as to make ourselves feel like we’ve done well or are aiming to do well.  Now, again, shut up and stop assuming you’re a good person!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you’re a bad person.  Maybe you are a decent kind of person doing decent kinds of things with a decent heart.  What I mean when I say not to assume you’re a good person is that even if you have good intentions, don’t assume you’re all good.  This is where I think a lot of people go wrong.  Look at the guy above: when called out on his shit he, first of all, got defensive.  He, second of all, defended himself with a list of his positive attributes such as protesting, posting, voting... blah blah blah.  See what he did there?  He assumed he was a good person and attempted to prove it.  See what he did not do?  He did not hear what was being said to him by a woman experiencing harassment, he did not listen to being called out on his shit; he made the conversation about himself (seriously, dudes, stop making this shit about you, because it's not; this is for a forthcoming post, but men, you really need to stop making every conversation about you).

So what should you do?  You should strive to be a better person than you are today.  The beauty of this is that you’re never done growing and you’ll never assume you’re done.  When someone calls you out on your shit, you’ll be open to hearing the criticism because you WANT to be a good person.  And in wanting to be a good person, you’ll have to hear people when they tell you that you did something problematic.  And, ideally, you’ll grow as a person.

Here’s the rub: you’ll never be done.  #SorryNotSorry, but you won’t be.  No one ever is, but especially people of privilege have to engage in a lifelong process of constantly attempting, but never fully succeeding, in overcoming the indoctrination into hegemonic masculinity, white supremacy and racism, and every other shitty trait this society breeds.  Sorry, but through no fault of your own, you were born into it and you can’t help that.  It’s not your fault, but it is your damn fault if you don’t do something about it, or if you don’t take seriously the criticisms of those who point out your faults. 

So don’t take it personally, Mr. Well-Intentioned-White-Guy, we’re all flawed.  But stop assuming you’re a good person and starting working toward becoming a better person.  You’ll be much better off and you’ll hopefully avoid the mansplainer above’s mistakes.

Also, please note that this does not just apply to men, but to many people in positions of privilege.  See the video below for an example.