e sse nt i al community
vs. IMPACT
INTENTION by Sandy Eichel
Welcome back to our series the “us” in inclusion, where we talk about how all of us need to take responsibility in the things we do and say every day to make our society a more inclusive place for everyone. We’re in this together, but we all have to do some work individually too. It’s our responsibility, and it will take all of us contributing to make real change. In our previous segments, we talked about what it means to be an advocate to diverse communities, examining and challenging our own biases, what systemic oppression is and what it looks like in the everyday life of people who experience it, and power and privilege. In this segment, we will talk about the difference and the importance between intent and impact. As we go about our lives, we are inevitably going to cause harm to others without intending to. None of us want to, at least I hope not, but the fact is we will say things that hurt someone around us. As we continue on our journey of trying to make our society
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better for everyone and healing some of the wounds caused by systemic racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, neurophobia, and ableism, we need to stop and look at the difference between what we intend to do and what our impact is. There is blatant discrimination, and there is subtle and unintentional discrimination. As we talked about previously with systemic oppression, we know what obvious forms of discrimination look like—someone yelling a racist, sexist, or homophobic slur out their window as they drive by or physically harming someone because of who they are. But the subtle forms of discrimination that wound us deeply and take their toll are the small, unintentional acts done by the people we see every day: our friends, family, and coworkers. Microaggressions are brief, everyday exchanges that send damaging messages to certain individuals because of their group membership. They generally happen below the level of awareness by well-intentioned
members of the dominant group; they are the fruit of unintentional bias. Usually, people perpetuating microaggressions intend no offense and are unaware they are causing harm. An example of a microaggression would be a man at work calling their female coworker and friend “baby girl” or “sweetie” out of affection for them. His intent is affection, but the impact may be that his friend feels demeaned and patronized. She may not correct her friend but cringes every time he says it. I had a good friend say to me before my wedding, “I hope you invite me to your wedding. I’ve never been to a gay wedding before.” While that may seem innocuous, it hurt. My wedding was not for my friends’ or anyone else’s entertainment; it was a sacred and special day for myself and my wife. I did have a conversation with this friend telling them how it made me feel. Thankfully, they took it well and vowed to be more aware of the things they say and do and to educate themselves more on issues in my community that they are unaware of.
