Justin Mallett is doing an excellent job with the diversity edit on Prodigies . So far (and he's not done yet), he's pointed out a lot of mistakes. A lot. As a progressive/social democrat who believes myself to be "woke", I expected to find a couple mistakes, easily fixable.
I have some choices of how to react:
- Decide Mr. Mallett is being overly sensitive
- Deny, repeating to myself, "I can't be a bigot. I have Native American ancestry!"
- Berate myself for not being more culturally sensitive
- Accept the gift of awareness I've been given and make the corrections
I'm going to choose #4. We're allowed to make mistakes when interacting with other cultures, just as we accidentally offend people we know. But if we learn that an action offends someone and dismiss their concerns, we are saying that they do not matter. If we decide they have a problem because they don't see things our way, we have become a bigot. If we believe the entire group they represent has an oversensitivity problem, we show prejudice.
Bigotry and prejudice don't require hanging nooses or segregation. All they require is to see others, their culture, and their needs as inferior, and that starts with the unwillingness to listen. It starts with words.
I will be glad to correct the less culturally sensitive parts of my work.
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