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Oxford University sorry for eye contact racism claim [2017 article] (www.bbc.com)

submitted 2 years ago by Lovstuhagen@exploding-heads.com to c/freeforum@exploding-heads.com

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Oxford University has apologised for saying that avoiding eye contact could be "everyday racism" after it was accused of discriminating against autistic people.

The claim was included in a list of "racial micro-aggressions" in an equality and diversity unit newsletter.

But the university was criticised for being "insensitive" to autistic people who can struggle making eye contact.

It said it had made a mistake and not taken disabilities into account.

The university originally said "racial micro-aggressions" might include: "Not making eye contact or speaking directly to people."

It described the behaviours as "subtle, everyday racism" which can be alienating.

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[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't think they were wrong originally. If its caused by race, and not just awkwardness/incapability, then it is a racial micro-aggression. If you cross the street anytime you see a black person, but not an equally threatening white person, that's implicitly racist. If you won't make eye contact with a black person, but will for a white person, there's something in your brain telling you that it's wrong/bad, which is implicitly racist.

It's fine if you just struggle with eye contact. That isn't the thing at issue. It's if you won't make eye contact because of skin color. I feel like they should have issued a clarification, not saying it was wrong.

[–] Lovstuhagen@exploding-heads.com 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What people dislike is the sort of totalitarian ideology where people have the right to monitor your eye contact and declare it racist if it doesn't meet their expectations.

I can see that the rationale of what you're saying can check out to some degree but the last thing we need is idiots feeling armed with the idea that they can judge you based on where you're looking.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

The point is to make people aware of how they may internally have prejudices against certain people that they may not be aware of, not to judge people for it.

However, you're also allowed to judge people in whatever way you want. If you feel like you're not being treated the same as everyone else is by a person, you don't need to suppress that feeling just because they may be offended that you're judging them. You're allowed to judge someone for staring at people's asses when they shouldn't be, and you're allowed to judge people for not making eye contact with certain groups when they do with others. We judge people for where they're looking and how they behave all the time, and it isn't wrong to do so.

[–] Lovstuhagen@exploding-heads.com 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I would also bring this up: as a foreigner, I've been bombarded about questions of where I am from, and I've noticed people treat me differently or even are awkward around me because of my foreigness, but this is more often than not because they are from a rural area and grew up in a completely homogeneous community...

We are getting close to the point of treating people who are shy or rural as if they are racists... and what does the word racist mean now in the West?

Well, if you are branded as one, you can be fired.

We are only a few degrees away from people being fired because they are not doing what others think of as proper eye contact.

That's my concern - more than just the idea of informing people that they be giving off bad vibes with eye concact.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As I've stated above, it's about treating one person differently than others where the difference is skin color (or other immutable characteristic). Whether purposeful or not, it is an indication of innate racism. It isn't to necessarily to shame or attack them, but to correct (preferably on your own) innate differential treatment of others based on characteristics they can't control. You can't fix an issue you aren't aware of after all.

Not making eye contact is not an issue if it's consistent between characteristics that aren't wrong to have different feelings about, such as treating family different than strangers. It is an issue when, again, it's based on characteristics such as race.

We could pretend that these issues don't exist and not work to correct them. That would be an option, where some people would be treated poorly for no reason. We could also (like this case) work to solve these issues and some people will be treated worse for a reason. Both have some issues, but at least the latter is trying to improve outcomes. Sure, it might make things worse for certain people (in particular, people who deserve worse outcomes because they don't tolerate others, so should not be tolerated), but the end goal is better at least.

[–] Lovstuhagen@exploding-heads.com 1 points 2 years ago

Not making eye contact is not an issue if it’s consistent between characteristics that aren’t wrong to have different feelings about, such as treating family different than strangers. It is an issue when, again, it’s based on characteristics such as race.

You brought up another issue here - we would have people who are shy and generally uncomfortable around strangers that would have it assumed that their racism is causing them to act in a specific way, creating problems.

We could pretend that these issues don’t exist and not work to correct them. That would be an option, where some people would be treated poorly for no reason. We could also (like this case) work to solve these issues and some people will be treated worse for a reason. Both have some issues, but at least the latter is trying to improve outcomes. Sure, it might make things worse for certain people (in particular, people who deserve worse outcomes because they don’t tolerate others, so should not be tolerated), but the end goal is better at least.

Which would be the best thing to do: to actively oppose racism in our personal lives and to support laws that treat everybody equally, but also to not try to [socially] police microaggressions.

The act of policing microaggressions does more harm than good, IMO.

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