Christianity, Superstition, Rules of Engagement, and the Discussion of Race in America

Warning:
Long post. Go refill your water, coffee, or gin before you settle into this one.

Earlier today, I had an unnecessary argument with a close friend. We'll call him "Vance."

Vance is a professed Christian, believes in God, happily proclaims faith in Jesus Christ, and even gushes about how The Secret - which is also based on a biblical principle - changed his outlook on life.

But God help me, Vance is hopelessly superstitious.

I find this mix quite disturbing. How do you believe in a good and loving God who has power over the earth but also believe that same God would allow seven years of bad luck if you break a mirror? The last time I checked, my bible didn't outline such drastic outcomes for routine clumsiness.

So after Vance had another superstitious episode, and went on to assign bad luck to me for breaking one of the rules of superstition, I asked a simple question:

"How does a man of faith and belief in God also believe in bad luck for breaking a mirror?"

I went on to describe the principles of Christianity that seemed in direct conflict with superstition, and asked Vance to explain how he reconciles this.

Well...  How can I put this...  The depth of Vance's emotional response left him utterly incapable of firing enough brain cells to answer my question. In short - Vance flared his nostrils and became a mental mess. He proceeded to get angry and to put divisive words in my mouth that I never spoke or intended. After trying to defend myself and steer the conversation back to my original question, I found myself angry and frustrated. Vance is still a friend, but for a moment, there was a glitch in trust that left me looking at him out the side of my face.

During some quiet time after that unnecessarily heated exchange, I began to understand why the discussion of race deteriorates so quickly.

• The rules of engagement for any exchange should require one side to carefully consider what is actually said - and to address each issue with care - as opposed to a mental collapse into an emotional mess that destroys any hope of a productive conversation.

• The rules of engagement should require each side to weigh one issue at a time, instead of listening with nail-biting intensity for a chance to jump in on another point.

• And most of all, the rules of engagement should require each side to enter under the assumption that the other party means me no harm.

There's nothing worse than deep-seeded emotional responses that trigger Attack Mode.

If you consider the last conversation you heard about race - between members of each race - wouldn't you agree that improved rules of engagement may have actually steered a more productive response?

In terms of black and white, too many whites write-off blacks as chronic complainers. Too many blacks pigeonhole whites as privileged and uncaring primadonnas. Both sides respond to discussion points based on underlying biases instead of ruminating on what might actually be valid.

I'll leave you with an example of what I consider to be a constructive argument against affirmative action. Not constructive as in "the author is absolutely right'...  But constructive as in "not so peppered with emotional reactions that I can't find a point worth stopping to discuss with you."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

On January 15, 2008, Glenn Sacks posted this commentary by an Engineer named Dave K. The conversation started after Glenn authored blog posts about Hillary Clinton's candidacy.

Dave works as an engineer and describes the white male response to affirmative action directed at women and minorities (although only women are mentioned in the title). Dave represents what can be right about rules of engagement as related to debates in personal relationships to debates about race relations. I appreciate Dave's candor in describing white (male) backlash against affirmative action:

Engineer Dave K's Perspective on Women in Male-Dominated Fields

I've been an Engineer for going on 20 years now, and I've worked at companies with no female engineers all the way to the large multinational I now work for where roughly 30%-40% of technical coworkers are female. I've also recruited on and off over the years, and I've seen discrimination in both directions in roughly equal measure.

Most large companies have diversity programs, and those programs encourage business groups to maintain a diverse workforce (gender, race primarily). I think this is a healthy goal, and certainly makes for a more interesting work environment, but it often results in pressure to choose candidates based more on diversity considerations than on merit, and this causes a cascade of problems for companies. (Which is why they keep these programs VERY quiet). I'm on the fence regarding the wisdom of such decisions... but I can say for sure that one result of this is a backlash against those benefiting from such programs.

At one notable college recruiting trip I was told straight out by a female soon to be BSEE that she was expecting an offer $10k over what any of her male candidates were expecting solely because she was one of the few women in the graduating class. The sad part is that she wasn't wrong, the company I worked for had relatively narrow salary bands for new engineering grads - but there were two bands, one for men and one that was about $6k higher for women or targeted minorities (even more if the candidate was female AND a minority).

A while back I went through a very large layoff, and while the company handled the situation as well as I've ever seen such a situation handled (a VERY tough thing for any company), a good part of the "postmortem" analysis by survivors was figuring out who got to keep their job because of their race or gender. I have no doubt that many of the targets of this were undeserving, but when a company has a policy of gender and race selectivity - they have a policy of gender and race discrimination. Call it what you want - that's what it amounts to. I daresay that nearly EVERY large company in the country has these programs, so is it so surprising that those who COULD benefit from such programs would suffer a backlash from those who could be damaged by them.

As a quick aside... I think it's a very difficult situation we've put employers in these days, they're beat up on all sides - folks who believe in pure merit, folks who believe some groups need temporary 'help' to bootstrap them into the mainstream, folks who believe that 'equality' means exact 50/50 distributions. If it was just pressure groups it would be a challenge... but in our litigious nation there is a real bottom line exposure for companies who step even an inch out of line to what the flavor of the month government policy is. Personally I think there IS a justification for these programs, but all too often I hear people who are the beneficiaries of such programs bemoaning the inevitable backlash without any inkling that there are valid reasons for coworkers to be upset. NOBODY likes to watch a mid-performing coworker get promoted over them based on their race or gender, and even someone like myself who understands the reasoning behind it finds it a bitter pill. Angry White Men indeed, and justifiably so. The thing I always try to remember though is that corporations are forced participants in these social engineering experiments just as much as we are.

Of course the other downside from this reality is that if a person belongs to the benefiting group, they will be seen by coworkers that don't know them as unfairly gaining even if they ARE the person most deserving a promotion or gain. I can't say I've ever been in that position, but I expect it would be a very frustrating situation.

In the end... we as humans tend to really take notice of thing we see as unjust toward us, and we often aren't as sensitive to things that benefit us at another's expense. White Male engineers see a female or black engineer promoted and from personal experience with the person we know it's not through merit... and we see blatant injustice. That person no doubt feels he/she deserved the promotion, so when the that person feels the backlash ... they see blatant injustice too. Doubly cursed is the promoted person who truly deserved it, because that persons accomplishment will be tainted unjustly.

So in relevance to the situation cited in Glenn article... engineers are a tough crowd, and giving someone a title will not necessarily give them credibility with engineers (we're fairly antisocial creatures after all). There's three possibilities I see for engineers discounting a female or minority coworkers opinions. The first is that the person is not qualified and has gained position through a 'affirmative action' like corporate diversity drive. The second is that the person is deserving but the coworkers have been burned enough that they suspect any female or minority... and they're maliciously lashing out at a person from that target group. The third is that the coworkers are a bunch of bigots or misogynists.

Of the three scenarios, I think the third is least likely, and the distribution between the first and the second will depend on how hard your companies 'drive for diversity' is.

In my professional experience I've seen all three situations, I've seen a minority man COURTED by management even though his professional performance was so sub-par he'd have been fired if he was white. I've listened to guys lump a female into the 'undeserving' group simply because she was female and got a promotion - without knowing anything about her actual skills, and I've heard enough racist comments to know that real racism is still out there. The only encouragement I can offer to the poster is that I also know that engineers and scientists DO tend to be merit based - even if you benefit by a selective promotion or hiring program to get your position, if you're GOOD, you will earn the respect of the majority of your peers... which is nothing more or less than the rest of us have to prove BEFORE we get the position. I have had the privilege to work with some very talented women, which I attribute in no small part to these seemingly onerous programs (which is why I'm so torn by them).

Discrimination is ALWAYS going to create these sorts of situations... so when I read an article where a person who may have benefited from institutionalized discrimination bemoans what could very well be understandable backlash from those who are most certainly the victims of it, I understand where everyone's coming from. I truly feel bad for the talented woman or minority who gets labeled unjustly, but I also feel bad for those (lets face it) white men who have been embittered by what is essentially state sponsored discrimination. In the end I HOPE that this period of turmoil will end with companies being able to shift toward true meritocracy.

Comments

[GC]

wow you've been busy
hope the friendship isn't over
sometimes I feel religion is a form of superstition
I'm okay with it. I'm somewhat serious about Christianity and going to church but some of the superstitions are ground in so deep and sometimes I even make up my own. I've managed to curb the knocking on wood habit though.

[Hawa]

@GC:
I hear ya, GC!

I consider myself to be a woman of faith, but I'm cautious when religious folks impose a stringent set of man-made rituals/requirements on the way I commune with and serve God.

And I agree..... A lot of what man adds to the mix starts looking a lot like superstitions.

Thanks for stopping by, and I'm waiting for your Tastebud Review of Lime Soup!

[Rosemarie]

Christianity and superstitions seem to be at opposing ends, but our humanness does get in the way.