On White Boy Rationality

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?

You’re talking to your best friend (or boyfriend, or brother) about something and it just. Isn’t. Working. It’s not that he isn’t listening or is being disrespectful⁠—it’s just that it feels like he is trying to win an argument that is not even happening. You’re trying to talk to him about something that happened to you or a friend, but he keeps pointing out flaws in your “logic,” and reasons why this experience couldn’t have happened...even though it did happen to you.

And this boy happens to be straight and white and male?

(Before you click off⁠, I want to mention that this isn’t another article on the supposed evils of straight white men. Rather, it’s a discussion on why so many articles have been written on the failings of straight white men, and what straight white men can do to fix and prevent those failures.)

But back to the conversation.

You’re talking to your best guy friend about something that happened, and while you’re talking, he keeps using some of the same words over and over. He asks for “stats” on related rates and keeps saying that whatever happened doesn’t make “sense.” He keeps mentioning “good intentions” and doesn’t think what happened to you is “rational.”

This is how he has most conversations; he’s always been into proof and reason, and he likes the world’s hard-lined truths much more than the infinite gray areas. When you brought up straightening your hair before meetings with professors, it wasn’t that big of a deal to him. You didn’t have any stats to back it up, so when he didn’t believe that professors took you less seriously with natural hair, you let it go.

And then one day, you get catcalled walking home. When you tell him how much it scared you, he shrugs it off. He understands that catcalling is no compliment, but he doesn’t believe that you actually felt like you were in danger. He’s never been scared of a raised voice, so it doesn’t make sense to him. He looks at you funny when you start tearing up.

A few days later, most of America (finally) seems to wake up and notice the 400+ years of systemic oppression of the Black community. You try to talk to your friend about it⁠—who you know is not racist⁠—yet, you still end up spending the next ten days arguing about it. You show him a post about microaggressions, and he questions how everything can be racially tinged. You discuss the protests, but he only plays devil’s advocate.

Over and over, you present an experience, and he turns it into a debate. He doesn’t understand why people won’t just answer his questions or provide him with the statistics. He asks you why you’re being so emotional and irrational. He reminds you that logical debate is the only way to get anywhere.

His logic is similar to another boy you know from class, who balked when you tried to talk to him about using appropriate pronouns. He pulled a tired Ben Shapiro line and reminded you that “facts don’t care about your feelings.” You were disgusted and left feeling a little ashamed that you couldn’t think of a better argument than, “It hurts trans people’s feelings to be misgendered” at the time.

And here is where I can already imagine what the straight white men who are (hopefully) reading this article will say: “Facts are more important than feelings. If we abandon a factual basis for our arguments, we lose society. If people don’t have facts, logic, and rationality to back up their argument, then it’s not an argument anyone should listen to.”

To the men who just thought that, buckle up. The rest of this article is for you.

Here’s the thing, everything that marginalized people say is supported by facts. But oftentimes, marginalized people just do not want to relive their trauma by telling you. It is not their job to trot out their worst experiences for you. You really can just Google the assault rates for women of color⁠—you don’t have to invalidate women by asking her for the statistics and forcing her to relive her trauma. The internet is full of logical reasons why using preferred pronouns is factually correct based on the way language is used, and unless you want a trans person to feel dehumanized, there’s no reason to make them explain the reasons. Do the work yourself, and Google it.

Quite a few of the boys who claim to be so in support of facts and reason don’t actually look up the facts that often; instead, they use their gut and lived experiences to decide what things make sense to them. If something doesn’t initially make sense, there’s no need to research it further. There is no inherent fault in pulling from lived experience when figuring things out. It’s what most of us do all the time. A love of rationality and arguing even got a lot of us into college as star debate team members and Model UN delegates. Rather, the issue arises when straight white men unempathetically project their life experiences universally and therefore believe that marginalized lives are fundamentally similar to theirs on a day-by-day basis.

This isn’t a case of simply “checking your privilege.” This is a failure of understanding just how widespread that privilege is. True privilege recognition is understanding that race affects every aspect of life, and if a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color) says something about their experience that doesn’t “make sense” to you, you should take those experiences at face value and privately research the topic until you understand. No part of the marginalized experience will ever naturally “make sense” in your lived version of reality. This is about accepting the genuine limits of your worldview and dedicating enough time to learning and listening to broaden your understanding.

Once again, to white readers, this is not about abandoning rationality; it’s about the fact that making conclusions with limited information is not rational. If every cop you’ve ever interacted with has been respectful and dignified, it might not check out to you that those same cops would mistreat your friends of color. Except you will never be able to replicate the experience of driving while Black, so waiting for your white experience to match a story before you believe it is irrational. Violence might not have never solved any of your problems, and so you think looters are just out to cause trouble. Except you have never had to solve a problem while marginalized by governmental policy, so waiting for your white experience to match before you believe is irrational. When BIPOC talk about any facet of their life that is somehow racially tinged, you literally cannot attempt to fact check it with your “rational gut,” because your gut is missing crucial information. You just have to believe them.

I know this blind belief may seem unnatural to you. Blind belief is staunchly discouraged in schools, and for good reason; belief without reason can and has led to disaster, time and time again. But I’m not asking you to blindly believe anyone. I am asking you to do the work. Actually fact check (using reputable sources!) instead of just using your gut. And in nonfactual cases, where data cannot save you, do your research into what multiple BIPOC voices are saying—and if those voices seem to agree, even if it seems genuinely impossible to you, then you must blindly believe. Believe people about the lived experiences you will never have—driving while Black, or walking while female, or hitting puberty while trans. You already cede opinions to more knowledgeable people in your daily life⁠—you listen to soldiers talk about life in Afghanistan and believe them because you’ve never seen war for yourself. The opinions of soldiers do not always supersede yours unless the topic at hand is war. For 400+ years, America has been at war with Black/Brown people. Believe the soldiers.

This is a call to action, for straight white boys in particular and anyone else who believes that the way they drive and get hired and have sex is the way all people also do those things. Stop flexing your high school debate skills and realize that there are things you cannot possibly know. I promise that BIPOC/marginalized people just want to share the truth; if they tell you about a part of their experience, it happened. You can absolutely go home and Google something until it makes rational sense to you, but don’t you dare expect BIPOC to spend their energy altering their narratives so that things are rational to you.

And to my fellow BIPOC, stop offering yourself up upon the altar. Stop engaging in pointless debates with people who incorrectly define “rational.” If a person’s viewpoint cannot extend outside their experience, you will not be able to change it. Move on. If a person’s opinion depends on you listing out your trauma for them, leave it. No opinion is worth more than your mental wellbeing and safety.

By Anna Muthalaly

Current female health advocate, over-analyzer, and Duke Student.