Intent vs. Impact: A Primer

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

It’s the predictable defense for most after being accused of saying or doing something racist or, in some other way, prejudicial. As in, “It was just a joke!” Or, if not a joke, just an innocuous comment or action lacking deliberately biased motivation.

In response, many who write or speak about racism or do activist work tend to reply with an equally predictable refrain: Intent doesn’t matter, we insist. Impact is what matters. I’ve even written something to this effect myself, here:

What, Me Racist?

And while I stand by the arguments in that piece, I’d like to clarify something. Because when we say intent doesn’t matter, we mean it — or at least I do — in a very specific sense. In another sense, it matters quite a bit. And confusing the two can create conflict where it need not exist, thereby turning some people off to an anti-racist analysis and eliding the difference between sociological judgment and a more personal type.

So first, what do we mean when we say that intent doesn’t matter?

The idea behind this maxim was always that injury is possible — and should be acknowledged when it occurs — regardless of what someone intended to happen. Frankly, it’s a pretty inarguable notion. A person hit by a vehicle while crossing the street could have been the victim of a driver who sought to mow them down. Alternately, they might have been hit because the driver was texting and thus negligent, though they didn’t mean to cause harm. In either case, however, injury has occurred. And no driver who ran over a pedestrian would think that saying “I didn’t mean to do it” erased the damage itself. Lack of intent might lessen their criminal and civil culpability, but it would not get them off the hook entirely, and it wouldn’t minimize the pain of the victim.

So when we say that intent doesn’t matter, this is what we mean: Your comment, joke, or action may not have been motivated by animus but may have caused pain nonetheless. And in such a case, the proper course of action is to apologize and do better, not wrap yourself in a tightly woven cloak of inadvertence.

That said, it is also essential to understand how and when intent does matter. And this is something my fellow anti-racists often ignore in our rush to repeat the more fashionable mantra of “impact over intent.”

The fact is, intent most certainly matters when evaluating the character of the person whose actions have caused pain. Likewise, it matters in terms of how we might respond to the person in the hopes of obtaining a measure of accountability for that injury or at least minimizing the likelihood of it being repeated.

A couple of examples will illustrate the point.

Many years ago, I had an argument with an acquaintance who said he respected Jews because we were “hard-working, studious and good with money.” Aside from the fact that I’m pretty lazy, was only a B student, and grew up the broke-ass Jew in Temple — thus, a living refutation of his stereotype — I struggled to explain to him why these beliefs, however “positive-sounding” to him, were actually offensive. By viewing us all as a monolith, however salutary the assumptions, such beliefs erase our individual humanity, making it easier for hostile stereotypes to take root as well.

Because I knew from experience he was no mouth-breathing anti-Semite, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Even though the remark was offensive (and his lack of intent didn’t make it less so), the fact that he hadn’t meant to cause harm did figure in the way I responded and judged him personally. For me to view him as I do those who send e-mails inviting me to “get in the oven” or “put a gun in your hook-nosed mouth and pull the trigger” would have been preposterous. They are not remotely the same.

Likewise, a few years back, staff members at a college in the Midwest recounted a story to me that still stands as the best example of empty-headed whiteness I’ve ever heard. It also makes a great point about how intent doesn’t matter in determining offensiveness and harm but does matter in terms of how we judge people.

As they explained it, near the end of the previous semester, students who aspired to be Resident Assistants in the dorms were being interviewed for the following year. One such applicant — a well-liked white woman for whom no evidence of racial hostility had ever emerged — came to her interview (I shit you not), with her skin significantly darkened by makeup and a wig meant to resemble the hair of a Black woman. The selection committee sat with their jaws open, at one point wondering if this were some bad joke, perhaps even one of those “What Would You Do?” episodes with John Quinones on ABC.

When they asked her what she was thinking, she replied — with no sense of self-awareness, let alone misgiving — that she had been anxious about the interview. So, to boost her confidence, she had decided to dress as her hero.

Wait for it…

Oprah.

Bless…

Now, was this act incredibly tone-deaf? Of course. Racist? Yes, in that the history of blackface is racist, and for Black people seeing a version of it (and at least one person in the room with her was Black), it is a painful visual with deep roots in the culture.

But here’s the thing: when the committee explained this to her and made clear how unacceptable her actions were, she crumbled in a heap of remorse — not undeservedly, by the way. This is not how she would have responded had she been deliberately seeking to denigrate Black people. When students don blackface for parties on MLK day (as has happened at several campuses) or for so-called “ghetto parties” at which they mock the dress, speech, and even core humanity of Black folks (or at least a caricature of them), they are plainly worse people than the young woman who decided to channel Oprah that day.

All blackface incidents are offensive, but those guilty of the acts are not equally shitty human beings. Those with racist intent require being called out, even shamed publicly for their actions. Those acting from an overflowing reservoir of cluelessness can be called in, chastened, but not with the same vitriol reserved for those who seek to cause harm.

Sometimes the anti-racist left misses the difference. We treat the clueless as if they were just as horrible as bigots. And in so doing, we suggest there is no meaningful difference between David Duke and your uninformed cousin on Facebook. To people watching the attack we then launch on the merely ignorant, anti-racism comes across as a mean-spirited pile-on led by a rabid mob out to punish any transgression against proper ideology.

But to reasonable people, some differences need to be acknowledged when it comes to casting personal judgment.

So yes, comments about how articulate a Black person is or how well an Asian American speaks English — as if either were shocking — are offensive, regardless of intent. In fact, research suggests that the cumulative physiological impact of microaggressions is greater on the bodies of Black and brown people than more blatant forms. And why? Precisely because they are more common, because the ambiguity itself causes stress, and because they are so often dismissed as unworthy of concern.

Still, when assessing the characters of those guilty of such comments, it would be ridiculous to say they were equivalent to persons who mock African American Vernacular English on Tik Tok or tell Asian Americans to go back to China and blame them for COVID.

If we cannot differentiate between microaggression and macroaggression and how each might require a different response, we can’t be surprised when we fail to build the base of persons committed to racial justice. Few will seek to join a movement if they fear ignorant mistakes will be viewed as tantamount to hateful bigotry.

Not to mention, if racism is — as we insist — systemic, it might do us well to focus more of our ire on systems of inequality and less of it on attacking individuals. The latter might be easier targets, especially with the social media tools available to launch bromides on those who offend our sensibilities. But it is doubtful that such personal attacks will alter racially disparate dynamics in policing, labor markets, schools, or elsewhere.

Impact is how we should judge actions. Intent is how we should judge people. Or, put a different way: sometimes intent matters, and sometimes it doesn’t. What matters most is knowing the difference.

—

This post was previously published on Medium.

***

You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project

Compliments Men Want to Hear More Often

Relationships Aren’t Easy, But They’re Worth It

The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex

..A Man’s Kiss Tells You Everything