First, let me say that any type of racism, sexism, or any other discrimination is unequivocally damaging and harmful to individual human beings as well as society as a whole. Nothing of what follows should be taken as an argument why any type of racism or sexism would be justified. It never is.
However, I believe that the lack of nuance in our communication makes it really difficult for different sides of the debate to find each other on a common ground. With the following paragraphs, I am trying to dissect what I see are 2 major issues that could potentially help us overcome some discrimination. The concept of “bad faith”-communication is relevant here, as the lack of nuance allows for more room to interpret arguments in bad faith.
First, the most controversial assumption is that there are some differences between groups ON AVERAGE. These could be differences in sex, gender, hormone levels, income, but potentially even color of one’s hair. Whatever we discuss in this regard, primarily depends on the categories we assign and this is the first assumption we always have to state in any discussion. Stating our assumptions allows us to have much more productive conversations.
The big and important qualification, however, is that any categorization isn’t binary, absolute, or black and white. Instead of having 2 or more boxes, in which everyone fits neatly, the distribution of different groups looks more like this:
Accepting this simplified reality, allows us to do acknowledge 2 important points.
Averages do not allow us to make assumptions about individuals. (I acknowledge the non-binary nature of sex and gender, but for the following example, I will only take men and women into account.) We separate women’s from men’s sport, because society seems to have agreed on this categorization and there seem to be enough physical differences ON AVERAGE between these 2 groups. However, if we take 2 randomly chosen human beings, one male, one female, there is no way to say with certainty, whether one of them is stronger or faster (depending on the sport). So while we may acknowledge a tentative difference on average, we cannot make assumptions about individuals. Even if we acknowledge that there is slightly higher likelihood that one of the two random human beings, the man is slightly faster than the female, we mustn’t act upon it. We need to keep our minds open, because otherwise, we would be wrong too many times.
It should be said, that for many categorization and stereotypical characteristic differences, there is no scientific base, such as cognitive performance. In these cases, we wouldn’t even be able to find an average difference. Identifying where true differences lie is part of the challenge.
Sometimes, we might find differences in certain population, that seem to be undeniably true, because they are based on data. One of the most obvious examples is crime rates among black residents in the United States. Looking at the numbers, we can clearly see a higher incarceration rate in this group compared to other groups. I would consider the color of skin in this argument a red herring. It’s an argument, which distracts from the underlying truth, which is more likely to be the lack of economic and social opportunity. We can acknowledge the reality, that a black person is more likely to be imprisoned throughout their life. But we must not assume that this is because of their skin color, but because of the system they live in.
The progressive side of society often argues that differences don’t exist and therefore any behavior that acknowledges differences is wrong. The conservative side of society, on the other hand, points to some obvious differences and can’t understand how some people want to ignore them.
The hard part is acknowledging that SOME differences exist ON AVERAGE, without drawing the wrong conclusions or discriminating against individuals. This makes the case for affirmative action, which acknowledges the (potentially discriminatory) impact of a system onto individuals opportunities.