Re:At $75K, housing a prisoner in California now costs more ...
by DoreenMichele on Friday March 22, 2019 @10:53PM
(#19468772)
The replies I've seen to your question all seem to have a pretty negative framing. I'm going to try to give you an answer that isn't so negative.
Instead of using race as the example, let's use language.
You have three people. Two have spoken English their entire lives. The third grew up speaking French and learned English later.
They need to do something really hard to get right, something easy to mess up. Mistakes come at a high cost.
When the two English speakers work together, things work. They go smoothly. They can manage to overcome challenges and meet goals.
When they try to work with the French speaker, you see a lot more problems. It's frustrating. He does things they didn't expect. It is easy to feel like he's intentionally screwing things up.
Homogeneous demographic groups have an easier time all being on the same page. They spend less time and effort trying to bridge differences in experience, attitude, etc.
You get ugly terms like Mansplaining and Whitesplaining because "privileged" people -- people for whom life has tended to work -- often feel that their life works because they were taught the right information and if people who are having a hard time just had the same info, their life would also work. And then the person getting the info gets mad because they feel like they are being treated like they are stupid and not trying rather than like their life actually works differently because they are different and the world treats them differently.
Instead of using race as the example, let's use language.
You have three people. Two have spoken English their entire lives. The third grew up speaking French and learned English later.
They need to do something really hard to get right, something easy to mess up. Mistakes come at a high cost.
When the two English speakers work together, things work. They go smoothly. They can manage to overcome challenges and meet goals.
When they try to work with the French speaker, you see a lot more problems. It's frustrating. He does things they didn't expect. It is easy to feel like he's intentionally screwing things up.
Homogeneous demographic groups have an easier time all being on the same page. They spend less time and effort trying to bridge differences in experience, attitude, etc.
You get ugly terms like Mansplaining and Whitesplaining because "privileged" people -- people for whom life has tended to work -- often feel that their life works because they were taught the right information and if people who are having a hard time just had the same info, their life would also work. And then the person getting the info gets mad because they feel like they are being treated like they are stupid and not trying rather than like their life actually works differently because they are different and the world treats them differently.