I am struggling to express my thoughts about how we have to move from a world of tolerance, to one of acceptance.

When I listen to this reflection by Trevor Noah:

I understand the challenge of living on different sides of a social contract that does not measure the treatment of people equally, while still expecting the social contract to continue.

When I read these words by Barack Obama:

“It’s natural to wish for life “to just get back to normal” as a pandemic and economic crisis upend everything around us. But we have to remember that for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly “normal” – whether it’s while dealing with the health care system, or interacting with the criminal justice system, or jogging down the street, or just watching birds in a park.
This shouldn’t be “normal” in 2020 America. It can’t be “normal.” If we want our children to grow up in a nation that lives up to its highest ideals, we can and must be better.”

I think about my bias regarding what “normal” looks like. I also think of how easy it is to put everyone’s experiences into dichotomous polarities, and miss the nuances of a spectrum of perspectives, and a spectrum of human experiences.

I learned a long time ago how I can be biased to my own privilege, but that didn’t make my privilege disappear. Actually, it heightened my understanding of just how privileged I am. We tend not to see our privilege, and we tend to misunderstand how privilege breeds tolerance rather than acceptance. Privilege blinds us to how someone else’s experience could be so much different than our own.

In January, I shared a Martin Luther King quote from his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail“. I said,

The last two sentences chill me,

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

I think about how few extremists there are in the world, despite how much media coverage they get. Beyond the news, most people are not exposed to extremists. We are all exposed to moderates. So, in the day to day living of most people, hate is not something we see, however shallow understanding is.

In many places there is tolerance masquerading as acceptance. This to me is what slows down progress. It’s not the wing-nuts on the extremes spewing dogmatism… Although their stance plays a role in allowing others to justify their tolerance as acceptance, since that tolerance can be justified as moderate. But it’s the complacent, shallow, (lukewarm) moderates that hinder genuine acceptance… because this population is huge. This population is blind or ignorant to their own prejudice; this population performs daily interactions that infringe on the true acceptance of ‘others’, without knowing it.

As long as the conversation is about tolerance, it will not ever get to acceptance. The chasm between the two isn’t just large, it is impossible to traverse.

First we must accept that the human condition for some is unimaginably different than ours.

Next we must accept that privilege is also a human condition. It is not earned, it is bestowed whether we want it or not.

Then things get nuanced. Privilege is not something to be blamed for having, but it is something that warrants us to recognize, accept, and be humbled by. It carries authority, power, and status, which need to be consciously and intentionally recognized. From here we can accept that others are less privileged than us. I do not worry about where my next meal will come from. I do not worry that I might not be able to afford a hospital visit. I do not worry about someone misunderstanding or judging me because of my accent. I do not think about the colour of my skin when I must face someone with authority over me in a stressful situation.

If I have less privilege, I am sometimes/often forced to be concerned about tolerance. I hope for acceptance, but I come across those that are privileged that expect me to see the world through their eyes, their ‘struggles’, and their willingness to tolerate our differences, while calling it acceptance. What I see is that others have ‘supremacy’. That word carries a powerful charge with it. That word can change the conversation. But that word is no different than what I’ve already said. Just a paragraph ago I said of privilege, “It carries authority, power, and status, which need to be consciously and intentionally recognized.” The very definition of supremacy is ‘the state or condition of being superior to all others in authority, power, or status’.

Again the chasm runs deep and wide.

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” ~Martin Luther King

Who are the people of good will? What can they do to go beyond shallow acceptance?

The challenge is that uprisings and protest, while sadly necessary, confuse or even anger many with privilege. The privileged don’t understand the social contract was broken before the unrest (as shared in the Trevor Noah video above). They don’t see that it is only happening because society is not living up to its highest ideals and that ‘we can and must do better’ (as shared by Barack Obama above). They/we do not see that our acceptance is just lukewarm, tolerance masquerading as acceptance. Instead privilege permits us to cringe at terms like ‘white supremacy culture’ and point the finger outwards to more extreme views and say, “That term belongs over there, not with me!” Instead there are conversations of being ‘colorblind’, of ‘not seeing race’, and of denying privilege because ‘I have struggles too’.

Shallow understanding. Shallow acceptance. Shallowness is the enemy of progress. Shallowness prevents us from identifying systemic wrongdoing, identifying underlying injustices, and being positively responsive to cultural differences. Shallowness creates a difference in perception as it relates to authority, power, and status in the eyes of those with and without privilege, such that each are blind to the other.

“I don’t know what your problem is?”

“I don’t know how you can’t see that you are part of the problem?”

Tolerance helps us get along until the contracts are visibly broken (again, again, and again). Acceptance is not about accepting others, it’s about accepting our own privilege. Accepting that we must see justice from the eyes of those that live in an unjust world. We must accept that if we do not venture into the deep, and speak out on injustice, then we shall remain in the shallows of an intolerant world pretending to be tolerant.

Acceptance isn’t someone else’s work, it is ours… all of ours, but especially the work of anyone who was born with, or gifted with, any form of privilege.