So President Obama finds it remarkable that he’s been mistaken for a valet driver and a waiter.
I have some questions for my readers:
- Is there anyone who hasn’t been mistaken for a driver, a Home Depot associate or something of the sort?
- When this has happened to you, have you felt terribly insulted by it?
- Do you feel that casual strangers owe you more respect than they owe to a valet driver or a waiter?
- Do you feel that your social or occupational status is so great that it should be immediately visible to casual strangers that you are not employed as a valet driver or a waiter?
- If you answered yes to the previous question, have you sought professional help?
If I were black, depending on the context and time, I might wonder if they thought i was the waiter or driver due to my race if there were no other reasonable answer to think so.
Certainly race relations have gotten better in the time Obama has been alive. But he’s old enough to have experienced the harder times.
Regarding 2 and 3 , I think if if I were black , and I thought someone were assuming I didn’t have the brains or whatever it took to be make myself more than a driver in life , sure maybe id have a little chip on my shoulder.
Even tho I think I look as bewildered as any other customer, I’m frequently mistaken for an employee.
I’m not insulted; I commiserate with the person seeking help.
Disrespect for working people who have to deal with the public is unforgivable.
4. No … that’s ridic in a republic.
Pres Obama’s remark rubbed me the wrong way also.
Regards,
Bill Drissel
Frisco, TX
when I was in the Coast Guard I travelled often on Amtrak in uniform.
You have no idea how many people tried to give me their tickets…
Amongst the whole article, I’m guessing you mean this specific piece.
The president said he’s even been mistaken for a valet driver outside a restaurant. “There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys,” he said.
So I take it it doesn’t rub you the wrong way if someone assumes that you became an economist because you’re Jewish and wanted to save a buck or two?
Yes, we have all had similar experiences. I have been mistaken for a grocery or department store worker more times than I can count–I must stand around idly too often. ;)
On the other hand, no one has ever confused me with being either a waiter or a valet, and these are stereotypically black occupations, so Mr. Obama may have a valid point. Certainly I would not rule out that some people might have mistaken him for those things just because he’s black. It’s plausible. While I agree that Mr. Obama deserves a fair share of criticism, I’m not convinced he’s wrong in this case.
I used to be mistaken for a sales associate in the electronics sections of major retailers back when there was such a thing (though in fact I am an extremely high-status lawyer/economist which should be visible to casual strangers!). Strangely, I did not punch the insolent peasants, but rather gave them advice, usually involving how you can find a better model cheaper somewhere else.
Surely the subtext of Obama’s comments is:
“Black men are mistaken for valet drivers at a higher rate than white men are. This is problematic.”
and not
“It’s problematic that I PERSONALLY have been mistaken for a valet.”
I have been taken for a doctor, a psychiatrist, a professor, a retail clerk, a salesman, a groundskeepr, and a babysitter. Just about the only thing I haven’t been taken for is a male stripper. Alas.
It’s probably not be the sort of think I would remember, but I can’t recall ever being mistaken for someone in this sort of role since graduating from university. I was once (accurately) recognized by a stranger as a lawyer while walking around town on the weekend which was a bit alarming.
So it doesn’t happen to at least some of us, but isn’t the only interesting issue whether it happens to non-whites particularly frequently?
There are times when it’s not politically correct to be Bayesian.
I have a theory that black people overestimate the prevalence of racism based on their own experience due to the lack off relevant control data. Sometimes people are just jerks, are having a bad day, or make honest mistakes like this. If you’re black and the other person is white, and you’ve been taught to expect racism, and you don’t have the experience of having the exact same things happen while white, it’s easy to conclude that this is due to racism.
I have an Indian-American (no accent) friend who is often mistaken for black, even by actual black people, which puts him in the position of having relevant control data. I asked him once if he felt like he had been mistreated due to being perceived as black, and he said he never had.
Well, I’ve been mistaken for an elevator operator (back in the day) and a janitor (twice). Did get ID’d as a lawyer (which I am) once, when wearing a bow tie, and the guy was obviously drunk at the time, too. Most remarkably, though, once in England, the summer before I started law school, a boy maybe ten years old, a friend of the people I was staying with (who didn’t know of my plans), asked me if I would like to be a lawyer. I asked what tipped him off, and he said, “you’ve got one of those looks like lawyers have.”
If Obama had been mistaken for a Home Depot associate, he wouldn’t be telling the story. Your questions aren’t very useful unless they account for the distinction.
I was born in New York and live in Chicago. This fall I spent 2 months in Italy in a small Italian town and during that time no less than 7 people (all Italians visiting the town) stopped me on the street to ask for directions. I don’t look anything like a native Italian and can barely communicate in the language. People are mistaken about other people all the time. It’s not sinister, it’s normal.
@13
Some people make assumptions without evidence. I assume on the evidence of your comment you are one of them.
This is what selection bias is all about. Match up 100,000 high status people with less prestigious jobs they have been mistakenly assumed to hold, for various reasons, and from these pairings select only a case with a black men a “servant” job, and assume that it requires special explanation.
It’s disappointing that Prof. Landsburg is showing his partisan nature by making a mountain out of a mole hill with this statement by Obama. Clearly Obama is just using his own experience as an illustration of what he thinks other black people live through, as made evident by this statement: “There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys”.
It’s not about his ego, it’s about black people as a group facing unfair perceptions. Now, one can disagree with his contention that black people are systematically stereotyped in this manner, but to spin this as a reflection of his ego is clearly a mistake.
Now, when are we ever gonna here some praise for the Obama administration? I checked up on this blog to see if there would be any reaction to Obama’s push to normalize relations with Cuba, which would allow the U.S. make hundreds of millions of dollars off exports. I guess I’m not going to hear praise for a Democrat anytime soon.
“an illustration of what he thinks other black people live through”
Yes, in connection with the Ferguson Mo shooting, Obama, Holder, and other prominent blacks frequently tell us how unfair it is that black people are sometimes stopped unnecessarily by police, sometimes get bad service in restaurants, sometimes get treated with suspicion by a store clerk, and sometimes get mistaken for some other type of employee. Apparently they think that this is a good excuse to try to kill cops or burn down stores.
Somebody should tell them that these things happen to white people also, and they do not use it as an excuse to riot.
Perhaps blacks are, on average, mistaken for low-level employees more often than whites, perhaps FAR more often. Given the fact that a much larger percentage of blacks than whites works in low-level jobs, it would be surprising if it wasn’t so.
In addition, there is considerable empirical evidence that people are treated worse, on average, if they are black. I remember reading a study where a large number of resumes was sent out (without any photo), and the black-sounding names got substantially fewer replies.
Personally, the last time I was mistaken for any kind of store clerk or whatever must have been 10 years or more ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a much more regular occurrence for some blacks. Obama may have been particularly likely to be mistaken for a low-level worker because he is in much better shape (thinner) than the typical white-collar professional.
How do you know he finds it remarkable?
Remarkable in the sense that it is unusual which your post suggests, not just because he said it.
I don’t get this one. Usually when you are controversial I can see that it is clarifying a point – often one that is not obvious. Here I don’t see that.
Are you suggesting that there is not racism in the USA? I find that hard to accept. It seems pretty clear that there is. At the extreme there are hundreds of active KKK clans all over the USA, and membership has been growing. In the mainstream it comes down to stereotyping, often unconsciously.
So assuming you accept that there is racism, what is your point? That Barack Obama cannot be a victim of it? That he just has a chip on his shoulder if stereotyped as a low wage employee? By using himself as an example he is a massive egotist?
How to deal with racism is one of the big questions today. To deal with it society must accept that it is a problem. By underplaying in this post you are doing your mission a big disservice.
@Harold
Maybe he is obliquely making a point about selection bias and confirmation bias, as I did explicitly in 15. There’s a lot of it about and, especially when combined with demagoguery, does a lot of harm.
@Harold
Maybe he is making a point about creeping classism in America. Look at point 4. I see a lot of that attitude.
Andy: I know he finds it remarkable because he remarked upon it.
Ken B. I believe confirmation bias is well worth bringing to attention. I do not think this a good way to do it.
#24. This is not what remarkable actually means. It means “beyond what is usual, ordinary, regular, or established:” Every definition I have looked up says more or less the same. It does *not* mean worthy of casual remark.
I’m often asked to help reach stuff that small women cannot reach.
Strangely enough, I’ve never been a community activist mistaken for President of the United States.
I had lunch with three professional coworkers at the university: one black male, one Indian (dark skinned) male, one white male, and I’m a white female. The man from India mentioned a recent stop by campus security asking to see his ID, so we compared experiences. Both dark-skinned men had been stopped dozens of times over the years for ID checks, whereas neither the white male nor I had ever been stopped. It’s hard not to see some racism here.
Cannot speak regarding Michelle Obama, but Barack Obama should give up any pretense that he has experienced anything closely resembling what most African-Americans have except on a very isolated basis.
“hundreds of active KKK clans all over the USA”
This is ridiculous. The last time a KKK member was accused of committing a crime against blacks was in 1981.
Sure some black people are asked to show ID. But why is this being used as an excuse to kill white cops? That is what Obama and his supporters are trying to say.
I have been mistaken for Dutch when in Amsterdam. What a bunch of racists.
There is also the story of Michelle Obama being asked at Target to get something off a high shelf. This is another profiling story, as similar things have also happened to other tall people.
Lisa:
I had lunch with three professional coworkers at the university: one black male, one Indian (dark skinned) male, one white male, and I’m a white female. The man from India mentioned a recent stop by campus security asking to see his ID, so we compared experiences. Both dark-skinned men had been stopped dozens of times over the years for ID checks, whereas neither the white male nor I had ever been stopped. It’s hard not to see some racism here.
I am a white-skinned male, I work at that same university, and I was stopped for an ID check less than a week ago. It never occurred to me to be majorly annoyed by it.
No, actually, nobody has ever just handed me their key on the assumption that I was the valet driver, not even once.
Informal survey says that I know several other people who’ve never had this happen to them.
If all terrorists looked like me I would expect to be scrutinized more carefully than average. This isn’t collective punishment. It’s merely rational application of limited resources. Collective punishment would be forcing religious leaders to pursue and eliminate the radicals who claim to practice that religion, or else suffer injury or death despite having no direct involvement in terrorism. Collective punishment used to be a first resort weapon of war (and it still is a first resort for groups operating by 8th century rules). Now it’s a last resort which we all hope will never be used by us.
It just reflect that there are more black than white valet drivers surely. Not sure why it’s so strange that Obama points that out as a bad thing, even if it’s indirectly.
I drive a scooter and if I walk around with a helmet in London peopele ask me all the time for directions, never if I don’t. So this is a reflection of peoples perception of how likely someone is to belong to the subset of society they are after based on what they can see only. In my case they think the probability of helmet+”knows the area” is higher than just “knows the area”. In Obama’s case they think that the probability of black+valet driver is higher than white+valet driver. And both these are probably true. Obama thinks it’s not right that there are more black valet drivers than white ones and wants to point that out in way that is more headline grabbing than statistics. You don’t mind showing your ID because it doesn’t remind you of something bad. If you were black it would.
#34 “This isn’t collective punishment.” Did anyone suggest it was? What could the punishment possibly be for? Being black?
#29 “This is ridiculous. The last time a KKK member was accused of committing a crime against blacks was in 1981.”
What, so if it ain’t a crime, it ain’t activity? Anyway, your assertion is wrong.
There are 160 active KKK groups in the USA and nearly 1000 hate groups. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/ku-klux-klan/active_hate_groups
http://mic.com/articles/84551/there-are-939-active-hate-groups-in-the-united-states-here-s-where-they-live
They have to be a little more subtle these days. Burning crosses and lynchings are less common, although a triple cross burning is planned as part of the Christmas celebrations – free gifts for all the kids at that event. “The event, dubbed “Christmas with the Klan” and scheduled at an undisclosed location near Holly Springs, Miss.”
Burning crosses are not just for Christmas. “In April 2003 five members of the American Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan were convicted in Louisiana on conspiracy and intimidation charges for burning a cross at the residence of three African-American men in Longville, Louisiana. The five men, who all pleaded guilty, had burned the cross in an attempt to coerce the victims into leaving the community.“ That is a crime against blacks.
They are decorating their yards with nooses, distributing information packs, making kids TV programs and starting neighbourhood watch schemes. “The Andrew Show” is an effort to make a show for white kids – there not being enough white kids on TV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OoX2j4KnnU. All this is activity.
But it does get more serious. Not every clan member is satisfied with threats and propaganda. There have been several convictions for conspiracy – fortunately stopped in time. These include plans to blow up a natural gas processing plant. This happened to be near a school. Klan members noticed children nearby and realized they would be likely victims of a blast. “But if it has to be,” Catherine Dee Adams said, in words caught on tape, “I hate to be that way, but if it has to be…”. In August 2005, North Georgia White Knights member Daniel James Schertz pleaded guilty to building pipe bombs designed to blow up buses carrying Mexican and Haitian migrant workers from Tennessee to Florida. In November 2005, he received a 170-month federal prison sentence.
It is *not* OK that lots of people are joining the KKK, even if most of them are not out there killing people. There are lots of people out there engaged in activities expressly designed to put down black people. These members are the few who are so motivated against blacks that they are prepared to get out there and make it a significant part of their lives. Most of the problem is caused not by these extremists, but by much lower level racism. These activists are just a visible symptom of the problem. For every member, there are many more who sort of agree, but can’t be bothered to actually join up. For each of those there are more who don’t believe all the supremacist stuff, but are suspicious of blacks. For all of those there are more that are unconsciously affected by the negative image of black people.
#32 “It never occurred to me to be majorly annoyed by it.” Demonstrating that you have missed the point. Nobody should be annoyed by security checks per se. What becomes annoying is if you are selected as the subject of security checks more frequently because of your race, which Lisa said was the case. Even that is hardly annoying, but it demonstrates that you are treated differently and worse because of your race. If the security guards see you as more likely to be a threat, how does the potential employer see you? “Shall I employ that nice white guy, or that security risk, hazardous black fella?”
Look, things are much better, but racism has not gone away. It surprised me to discover when the majority of USA citizens finally believed that mixed race marriages could be OK. Heck, it only became legal in 1967, but it took until 1994 for more than half of Americans to say they approved.
@Harold 25:
Remarkable means worthy of attention. Obama drew attention to it. The inference is he found it worthy of attention. QED.
See this is the problem with humans. If whites had been a persecuted minority, I would I would have assumed that it was because I was white. I would have assumed that when I was harassed by police that it was racism. It is a human problem. How do we overcome it.
BTW Whites are privy to racism so maybe we know the level of racism just as much as blacks. A racist will usual hide his beliefs about race from blacks but not from whites.
When I am mistaken for a clerk I try to be helpful and think nothing negative of it. BTW I believe that all work has dignity. I could get used to saying “would you like fries with that?”. I hate how some people try to stigmatize that job.
So does Kevin Love get mistaken for coach? Jordy Nelson for a QB?
27 et al – a key question is at what point we equate profiling with racism vs. say “statistically-informed intuition”. Before jumping to the former consider if you were a cabbie would you be reluctant to go into certain neighborhoods, and if this then gives rise to an “indignity”? Some of these realities are lamentable but the wrong conversation / policy focus risks doing a disservice to those affected. The Target bit – “she saw me as someone who could help her” – just sounds like just a nice little story to me.
Harold, the SPLC promotes a lot exaggerated stories in order to scare up racial animosity and raise money. Okay, somebody burned a cross somewhere. But if you want to take a racial look at crime, just compare white-on-black crime to black-on-white crime.
If a security guard is judging people for potential threats, he is apt to rely on age, sex, dress, race, demeanor, and whatever other info is available. But Obama brings this supposed racism up in connection with Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, as if to justify black crime and riots.
Obama has succeeded in making race relations worse in the USA, in an apparent attempt to get more blacks to vote.
There’s no question in my mind that even today blacks face discrimination that similarly situated whites don’t. I’m sympathetic with the comment that they are asked for IDs on campus far more often than whites are because of their race, not because of a suspicion of criminal behavior. But the idea that we’ve made little progress on race relations over the past 50 years and that cops in general have a separate set of standards for minorities is just bunk. We’ve already disproved systemic racism by electing Barack Obama TWICE! Cops act the way they do because they want to go home to their families after their shift is over and not in a coffin. By focusing on such trivial slights as Obama does he places himself in the same category as Hillary Clinton complaining of being “dead broke” after leaving the White House. Steve Landsburg is right to point out this hypocrisy.
I once attended an out-of-town meeting at a large hotel in a major city. A colleague gave his rental car keys to the fellow standing under the canopy after he pulled up to the front entrance. At the end of the meeting, he went to claim his car and learned it was stolen by the man he gave his keys to. The hotel was very sympathetic with his plight and told him that it happened all the time!
Time for a Michelle Obama, Target, confirmation bias and selection bias smoothie!
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2014/12/let-me-highlight-charles-blows-auto-humiliation.html
@Lisa 27:
You are assuming the plural of anecdote is data. But that is wrong. The plural of anecdote is selection bias.
I’m afraid you missed the point completely. What Obama is suggesting with the story is that blacks are treated differently than whites in a variety of situations (some more serious than being mistaken for a valet).
@Max 46:
The point is that Obama’s anecdote (and any anecdote on the subject) sheds absolutely no light on the question “are blacks treated differently than whites in a variety of situations”.
My gut says yes, they are, but Obama’s anecdote doesn’t tell me anything useful. For one, while it might be true in Chicago, it’s absolutely not true where I live. The vast majority of waiters and valet attendants here are white. I don’t know any specifics of why that is (more than likely it’s just a higher proportion of whites in general, but I haven’t looked up any statistics on that), but it doesn’t lend itself to assuming a random black person is a waiter at all. There are very few places that use valets here as well, so the assumption is generally that there is no valet service – not that a black man is a valet.
“The point is that Obama’s anecdote (and any anecdote on the subject) sheds absolutely no light on the question “are blacks treated differently than whites in a variety of situations”.”
Yes, that’s about right. But Steven wasn’t complaining that Obama was being unscientific.
@Max: Okay, you tell us. What is the point of Michelle Obama’s Target anecdote, and how do these anecdotes relate to Ferguson Mo?
If black people are actually significantly more likely to be valet drivers, it’s not “racism” to mistake black people for valet drivers more than white people. I’m sure older people in a hospital are mistaken for doctors more than younger people, and people with foreign accents are mistaken for immigrants more than people without.
The implicit criticism of people who make that mistake is … that they do not sufficiently suppress their normal Bayesian instincts when it comes to race. The critics aren’t actually pointing to evidence of racism. They’re pointing to evidence of insufficient conscious acts to minimize offense to people who are bothered by the mistake. In effect, Obama is saying, “you didn’t affirmative act enough”.
I have a certain amount of sympathy with that … if it happens all the time to the same people all the time, it gets annoying. So I’m happy to have my attention drawn to it so I can avoid piling on.
But … if it happens, like, twice a year, then … well, then *I* get offended, because your own indignation is completely uncalled for. You’re making a demand on me that is completely out of proportion with your inconvenience.
If it’s a societal issue, if you’re unhappy that blacks are over-represented as valets, and under-represented in higher-status jobs … well, actually, I’m not happy about that either. But I am not personally responsible for that, and I resent your demand that I change my behavior to pretend that isn’t the case.
And, besides, if it’s the societal issue you’re concerned with, why are you taking PERSONAL offense? Why are you making it about you, that how dare I not notice how important YOU are?
Ken B – One definition is “worthy of attention; striking” That “striking” is important. Vocabulary.com says “Save this word for things that are really and truly exceptional.”
#43 “We’ve already disproved systemic racism by electing Barack Obama TWICE!”
This is false. You cannot disprove the existence of systemic racism with one example, any more that one example of mistaking a black lawyer for a valet proves racism.
How do we ascertain if something is systemic or just confirmation bias? We do research! We must get beyond anecdotal evidence if we want to discover the truth. How many studies do you think have shown that there is no race bias in the USA? I couldn’t find any, almost certainly because there are none, but I would welcome an example if someone could supply it.
Here are few interesting findings of research. There is such a thing as aversive racism. People who consciously believe themselves to be non-racist act in a non-racist manner when the results are obvious to themselves. However, they may still harbour sub-conscious negative attitudes. “They do discriminate in situations in which appropriate (and thus inappropriate) behavior is not obvious or when an aversive racist can justify or rationalize a negative response on the basis of some factor other than race.” So white people are just as likely to help a black accident victim as white victim when there are no other witnesses that could help. When there are other people who could help whites helped the black victim half as often as the white victim. They rationalised not helping in non-racist terms.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/1996/july-august-96/spotlight-on-research-is-racism-on-the-decline-in-america.html
A black and a white actor were pretending to be part of a study with over 100 participants. As the participants were meeting, the black actor “accidentally” bumped the white actor as he left the room. The white actor said something like “I hate it when black people do that”. The real participants had to later select either the white or the black actor as a partner in the study. Those that either saw the incident on video or read a transcript overwhelmingly chose the black actor. However, of those that were actually present in the room 71% chose the white actor. The authors speculate that “people who witnessed the event in person were less offended by the racist behavior because of a psychological phenomenon known as the impact bias of affective forecasting, which is the tendency for people to overestimate how strongly they will react to emotional events. Failing to feel outrage, the participants may have then rationalized the racist comment as somehow acceptable and let it pass.” Do you have a better explanation?
How many people would think they would behave like that? Certainly I would not have thought so, but I do not assume that I am immune.
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1870408,00.html
Studies have shown that people shown black and white people with either guns, tools or mobile phones mis-identify the black people as having guns much more often that white people.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/08/michael-brown-study-racial-bias-weapon
So if anyone doubts the existence of racism, have a look at the research. If the examples above are unconvincing, then look further, they are really the tip of the iceberg.
Obama does not “bring up” this stuff. It is pervasive. If Americans will not address this issue it will not get better.
Roger “But if you want to take a racial look at crime,” what makes you think I want to do that?
Harold: “Ken B – One definition is “worthy of attention; striking” That “striking” is important.”
So is that semi-colon.
Here is the full definition from Collins:
adjective
1. worthy of note or attention ⇒ a remarkable achievement
2. unusual, striking, or extraordinary ⇒ a remarkable sight
Harold – well getting elected did represent around 100 million individual acts, so probably deserves more weight than a goofy Target story. Of course doesn’t prove there aren’t still millions of racists, but I also fear one could spend one’s whole life trying to prove what people are or are not feeling, and whether those feelings have any reasonable basis, while it seems more productive to focus on actions. Those actions include the anecdotes a president chooses to talk about, either to illuminate or trivialize an issue. Also difficult to assess the weight of any anecdote that involves the action of assaulting a police officer.
53. “one could spend one’s whole life trying to prove what people are or are not feeling, and whether those feelings have any reasonable basis” We are not so concerned about how they are feeling, but how they are acting. Some people are doing that – see research mentioned earlier. We do well not to ignore it.
Ken B – OK, you have found a definition that does not specifically include a mention of exceptionality. Webster, Oxford, Longman and others all do include such a requirement, but I will give that one to you and Steve on a technicality. I believe it is a poor choice of words since it generally conveys a different meaning, but I can no longer say it is wrong.
Professor Landsburg,
I lean conservative, I support global trade, and have been trained in mathematics and neoclassical finance so on most topics you blog on my view is not too far off of yours. But in this particular post I feel like you’re being extremely obtuse. As Chris Lawnsby (comment #7) noted, the subtext here is the stereotyping of minorities. Imagine if a woman CEO relates that she was often assumed to be the secretary or the help or a housewife or a junior person not in charge then would you conclude that she is an egomaniac? Isn’t it more likely that she understands that this has been the experience of a large number of women and that women experience this more often than men and that is really the subtext as opposed to her ego being slighted? I think silly posts like these take away from the credibility of your more thoughtful posts.
Are these stereo-typically black occupations? I eat at restaurants a lot, and now that I try to think about it, I can’t recall the last time the servers were black. As for valets, I thought the stereotype was teenagers or old white men.
It pains me how people try hard to ignore the existence of racial discrimination.
It’s not like accepting racism or racial profiling exist will make you a racist.
Many people will see Obama’s remarks as egocentrism but many others will see it as a community leader making a statement. As a black man (though not living in America) I think what he said was quite powerful.
Harold 54 – sorry for delay. Well on the surface what you’ve described so far seems more along the lines of observing ‘inaction’ and speculating about intent. Or blurring with probabilistic (/rational?) perception-forming, or…I’m not really sure what the actor example is supposed to prove – that we’re unbiased at heart but some other (unrelated?) psychological phenomenon can influence results? Wouldn’t it be helpful here to reverse the actors’ roles as well? Anyway my point was there would seem to be a more objective (/productive?), if somewhat narrower, standard on which to focus the bulk of our energy – people taking ‘positive’ actions that harm others