No matter who you are or where you go, in this day and age, somebody has already spoken on your behalf.
It's simple enough to detest bigotry and prejudice, in principle most of us do. But it's impossible to think that somebody would see past his or her own experience and world view simply to evaluate you as a unique individual and person of worth.
The other day, I met a rather rude gentleman on the train riding south from Park Lane. I had asked a simple question, and his response was hostile. As off-putting as the experience was, I had to realize that the sum of his experiences in his life up to that very moment were the determining factors in his response.
He didn't know me or if I had ill intentions toward him, so what did he have to go by? I think only the overt and obvious things: I was riding on public transportation, I was Male, White, my dress (I may have looked like a middle class hipster?). Could one or more of those groups have left him with a bad experience? Maybe, I'll never truly know.
In the end, he was having to make a complex decision on limited input and time, and let's be honest here, it would have been a burden to him to expend the energy to get to know me as an individual, especially in such a short time.
I believe the world is an exceedingly complex place that is so large and diverse in its peoples and experiences that we lack the mental capacity to understand it all. To 'fill the gaps' we tend to embrace world views that simplify and divide and categorize the world around us. Once we have this world view in place, we engage a confirmation bias to confirm that world view. So even if we don't realize it, we are speaking on behalf of a multitude of groups simultaneously. Depending on the chosen world view of the observer, our actions might actually negatively reinforce hateful stereotypes by providing the biased proof that the individual seeks.
[I should note here that hateful stereotypes extend beyond the colloquial racial ones. These take other more socially acceptable forms like political, gender and lifestyle bigotry. Why it is that we clearly oppose one but fully engage the others is a mystery, perhaps we just have a need to be filled]
It is a tremendous burden to see the world as it truly is: a messy, complicated and indistinguishable affair. In the end I cannot ask any person to abandon their way of seeing the world to be a better human being. However we can acknowledge our shortcomings in this way and maybe leave a little room for expanding our horizons and accepting new people.
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