#YOU WOULDN T UNDERSTAND HOW TO#

There are women who don't support transgender people, and so on. There are people of color who don't support gay rights. I assumed that because someone was a member of one marginalized group, they'd empathize with other groups, and I assumed they'd support their own group's equality movement. Closing Thoughts on Social MovementsĮarly in my activism journey I made a biased and incorrect assumption. I'll err on the side of listening and believing. Should I believe their experiences? Even if my initial reaction is that they're wrong? Even if I fundamentally can't experience what they have? Should these people listen to me and engage me if I argue against their experiences, because I think I know what they're going through?

#YOU WOULDN T UNDERSTAND HOW TO#

Would I tell a transgender person how to feel about a dangerous company culture because I work there? Would I tell a woman that her claims of a sexist exchange are overreacting because I took a women's studies class? Would I tell a person of color their experiences with racism are invalid because I can empathize with others? Would I give advice to the CEO of a billion dollar company because I know how Facebook works? What do you understand? What have you experienced? As a white person who has never been randomly selected, I fundamentally cannot experience what he went through. I know his story, but did it leave me shaking uncontrollably? No. I can't directly understand his feelings. The more I reflect on his story, the more I realize he's right. How could I not understand? His story made me angry too, and I initially thought I knew the experience as well as if I were him. I can empathize with others and understand their anger. Concluding, he said: 'I'm telling you this now, how angry I was, but you wouldn't understand.' He was shaking uncontrollably, angry beyond words. He was finally released, and missed his flight. He recalled a particularly bad experience: He was detained, questioned about personal matters, threatened, and invasively searched. He is Muslim, brown skinned, and (surprise) 'randomly' selected at airports for extra screening. If you know everything about bicycles but haven't experienced riding one, how comfortable would you be teaching someone else how to ride? You Wouldn't Understand You know everything there is to know about bicycling, but you don't have the experience to stay on the bicycle. After one year of being locked in the room, you're ready, and you hop on the bicycle. I, presumably a master of bicycling, tell you everything about balance and peddling, gravity and the musculoskeletal system. You can touch it, examine all the parts, even dismantle and reassemble it. The catch is you aren't allowed to actually get on the bicycle. We're locked in a room with a bicycle until you learn. Pretend you don't know how to ride a regular bicycle, and I have to teach you. He concludes the video with 'knowledge does not equal understanding.' He knows how to ride a regular bicycle, and knows how the mechanism on the backwards bicycle works, but he can't ride the strange machine without eight months of practice. He then shows that no one, not even himself, can ride it, even if they know how to ride a regular bicycle. If you turn the handlebars left, the front wheel turns right. It features a bicycle with a gear that reverses the action of the handlebars. The 'Smarter Every Day' YouTube Channel released a remarkable video, The Backwards Bicycle. The audience member is falling off the bike.

Understanding An audience member trying to ride a bicycle where the turning the handlebars left turns the bicycle right, and vice versa. TL DR I tend to err on the side of believing someone who has experienced something I haven't, even if I initially disagree with it. All posts tech nutrition growth Why I Strive To Believe The Experiences of Others

You wouldn t understand