Conveniently Unconscious Bias

One of the hardest lessons we learn on the path of anti-racism is how to recognize the countless times we fail. Whether we’re corrected in the moment or reflecting on a moment from years past, it’s impossible to walk through life having never made an “innocent racist mistake.” This month in ARFC, we discussed two episodes of the sensational Canadian sitcom Kim’s Convenience: “Army Spoon” and “The Help.” Both episodes focus on the process of owning up to saying something that offends another person. But, rather than a guide to proper reparations, Kim’s Convenience uses its particular brand of hilarious familial hijinks to highlight the treacherous pitfalls of centering-yourself in an apology. 

Janet (Andrea Bang) and Mrs. Kim (Jean Yoon) in their family store

Kim’s Convenience follows the Kim family—Korean immigrants who run a small convenience store in downtown Toronto. In the episode, “The Help” Janet (the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kim) is the finalist in a prestigious photography contest held at her university. While supporting her daughter at the event, Mrs. Kim is accidentally mistaken for a cater-waiter by another guest and asked to serve food. Upon recounting this story to her family, Janet and her parents argue over whether or not this was an “innocent” or a “racist” mistake. The answer of course is both. Innocent, because it was unintentional and possibly instigated by other factors; Mrs. Kim was also wearing a similar outfit to the cater-waiter uniform. And racist, because white people are more likely to assume people of color are in service roles rather than participants, especially at prestigious events. While unconscious, ignorance is still a pervasive tool of bigotry. The white woman who mistook Mrs. Kim as wait-staff wasn’t intentionally insulting her… but the privileged world-view which allowed her to assume an Asian woman was only there to serve her is still a product of racist conditioning. When she’s informed of her transgression, the white guest falls over backwards to seek out the Kims’ forgiveness— saying this mistake is “not who she is…” after all, her daughter-in-law is Sri Lankan. 

“Army Spoon” follows two similar situations where a character either makes an ignorant assumption or needs to seek forgiveness for an offensive joke. Laying out all three scenarios beside one another, the pattern becomes increasingly clear: 

Embarrassment ruins a genuine apology. 

In the white woman’s haste to make amends with Mrs. Kim, she focuses more on the reception of forgiveness than repairing the relationship. In “Army Spoon,” when Janet herself makes an offensive joke to a Black waiter, her attempts to smooth things over fail because she too is preoccupied with redemption rather than genuinely making things right. Both characters become blind to the additional microaggressions they commit in the process of atoning for the first ones. And the cycle continues. 

In our club discussion, we shared more times we personally either committed or were the recipient of an “innocent racist mistake.” These ranged from using terms we didn’t know were offensive at the time to literally arguing over another person’s ethnic-identity… to their face. Truthfully, everyone is ignorant in some way or another. No matter how far along you are on your own anti-racist journey, there will always be assumptions, beliefs, and stereotypes to unravel from the inherently racist-messaging we’ve received all our lives. Unfortunately, the most common way to learn which biases have been ingrained in us are the times we’re corrected by another person. Ignorance is unavoidable—you can’t be taught every nuance of a complex dynamic by intuition alone. But willfully ignoring the times we’re corrected (simply because we’re too embarrassed to admit we’ve made a mistake) only continues to perpetuate those biases, multiplying the harm we can cause.

When you’ve misspoken or acted on an unconscious-bias, own it. But, in your attempt to make amends, know that your bruised pride is not the most severely injured party. By decentering ourselves (and our own embarrassment) in the process of apologizing, we focus on real healing. Whether you’re repairing a relationship with a friend, gently correcting a child, or leaving an unreasonably large tip for a waiter you offended by trying to seem funny in front of your friends… Remember: you aren’t owed forgiveness. And it’s only by acknowledging our own ignorance that we can move forward and teach one another the lessons we wished we’d learned sooner.