{"id":248,"date":"2013-10-08T14:00:10","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2013\/10\/08\/thats-not-what-i-meant-intent-vs-impact\/"},"modified":"2013-10-08T14:00:10","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T14:00:10","slug":"thats-not-what-i-meant-intent-vs-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/2013\/10\/08\/thats-not-what-i-meant-intent-vs-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThat\u2019s Not What I Meant!!!\u201d: Intent vs. Impact."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"W
\n\u201cHow come black people can say the N-word, but white people can\u2019t?\u201d That\u2019s a question teachers of race get a lot and comedian W. Kamau Bell has a great answer<\/a>, \u201cYou can say anything you want, but you have to live with the consequences of your words.\u201d While Bell is talking about the N-word, his wisdom could be applied to any discussion of privilege\/oppression or really any highly controversial topic.<\/p>\n

Intent vs. Impact<\/h3>\n

There seems to be genuine distress and\/or hurt on my students faces when they say, \u201cNo, no, no. That\u2019s not what I meant at all!\u201d For the most part, students who say something that deeply offends portions of the classroom seem surprised by the impact of their words. It\u2019s as if I\u2019m watching the student reach down, wrap their hands around their ankle, open wide and stick their foot in their mouth only to be dumbfounded as to how it got their in the first place.<\/p>\n

Bell\u2019s retort to the \u201cN-word question\u201d makes me laugh because he is hitting on something that is so painfully obvious and simultaneously something that we[1]<\/a> often want to pretend isn\u2019t true. Our words and actions sometimes have an impact that we did not intend when we said those words or took those actions. This \u201cintent vs. impact\u201d idea is something that students struggle with, but it\u2019s also a prerequisite for classroom discussions that are open, honest, and safe. It\u2019s something I teach when we set our class expectations for discussions<\/a> and reiterate throughout the semester.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

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  1. \n

    \u201cwho is we?\u201d is something I always ask my students. Many times we is used when the speaker means white people. However, I used the term we to refer to everyone. While folks of privilege may be more likely to deny the intent vs. impact idea, all of us are prone to denying it. If you\u2019ve ever said, \u201cthat\u2019s not what I meant at all\u201d to a partner, relative, or friend, then you\u2019re inside my we.  \u21a9<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    If you\u2019re looking for a activity\/video to illustrate the \u201cintent vs. impact\u201d idea check this out.<\/a>  \u21a9<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u201cHow come black people can say the N-word, but white people can\u2019t?\u201d That\u2019s a question teachers of race get a lot and comedian W. Kamau Bell has a great answer, \u201cYou can say anything you want, but you have to live with the consequences of your words.\u201d While Bell is talking about the N-word, his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1982,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30624,285],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class-discussion","category-raceethnicity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1982"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/sociologysource\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}