Like many folks, I watched Trump's performance with the National Association of Black Journalists yesterday. I too noted the part where he proclaimed that Kamala Harris "became Black" only recently. I also have enjoyed scrolling #WhenIBecameBlack on Twitter, and I as well have noticed a weird uptick in social media posts sharing what is ostensibly Harris's birth certificate or her interview with Mindy Kaling in order to "prove" she is "not Black."
About twenty years ago, elmindreda wrote a blog post called "The difference slot." It's no longer live, but the Wayback Machine has this archived version. In it, elmindreda writes:
The basic idea is that each and every person has their difference, and that it should be respected. Note the singular form, however. When they learn of my autism, which is usually the first major difference to come up in conversation, they seem to think "oh, so that's her difference". They then proceed to fill in my difference slot in their mental table, and everything is as it should be.
Or, so they think.
Then, a little while later, I happen to mention some other thing that makes me very different from most other people, and their belief system collides head-on with reality. Usually, it's another one of my disabilities that triggers it. This is when they almost invariably go "..." for a while, only to finish with "you have that too?" In other words, "your difference slot is already filled, and you can't have another one".
Your "difference slot" is the way in which you can be different from the "norm" others expect. As elmindreda writes, most folks only allow for one per person. If you're Indian, you can't also be Black; that's two differences, and there's only one difference slot. If your birth certificate says your dad is Jamaican, then you can't be Indian OR Black (for reasons Twitter right-wingers never explain). If you once bonded with Mindy Kaling over a shared South Asian heritage, you definitely cannot also be Black.
(Some folks' brains are even shorting out over Kamala Harris being non-white while also being a woman - a stance spoofed in this once again relevant SNL sketch.)
The more I watch these conversations unfold, the more I'm reminded of elmindreda's 20-year-old blog post. How little we've changed. Candidate Lady has more than one difference? Oh noes!? What do?!?
"What do," of course, is to challenge our own narrow thinking. "Difference slots" don't actually exist; they're a mental fiction we use to make the world easier for our brains to handle.
Yet while the tendency to create difference slots may be typical for humans, it's how we respond to slotting-system challenges that defines us as people. We can go on shouting about how Kamala Harris just can't be Black. Or we can acknowledge that everyone contains multitudes - and that, in that way, Harris is just like the rest of us.
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