The Art of Doing Nothing

Posted on by Dexter Horne

This is an essay on the creative ways we justify doing nothing, and what that choice is costing us.

Trigger warning: this essay describes an instance of animal abuse.

Too Political

There is a tendency in corporate America to sidestep issues that are “too political” or “not in our lane.” I’ve seen this argument for risk aversion in other formal institutions as well: colleges, nonprofits, and professional organizations are all full of leaders that want to narrowly define what is “in our lane” by highlighting the things that aren’t. Another version of this argument is that [insert company/nonprofit/school] “is not a social justice organization” and thus, issues affecting the wider world around us do not warrant our direct action. Specifically, it is not [insert company/nonprofit/school]’s job to solve racial inequity, or do something urgent for the Black people among us.

The argument is a small-c, conservative one — not ideological, but again a measure of how much risk a group is willing to take on in the face of uncertainty. The reputations of our formal institutions, their average customer’s tastes, the views and values of important stakeholders, must all be weighed before an organization takes on a political risk. I understand this; in fact, I agree with this measured way of thinking. But, I recognize the smoke and mirrors in this way of thinking too. Ask yourself: when you hear this argument for risk aversion in your life, do the people making it ever stop to answer the questions; “what does it mean for something to be too political? Whose interests are considered a risk?”

When I was a boy, I knew the answer intuitively and I profited off of being non-risky. I had the privilege of charisma and affability at my side. I was friendly enough for the outgoing kids, reserved enough for the anti-social ones; athletic enough for the popular kids, and bookish enough for those less popular. I was funny enough for the bullies, and empathetic enough for the bullied. I was Black, but “articulate” so I was white when it benefited my white peers to claim me. I was agreeable – someone eager to please the whims of the average person in any room I stepped into, never too extreme in either direction, and rarely unable to make those around me feel comfortable. The issue, of course, was that every room I ever found myself in was overwhelmingly middle-class and white.

Most formal institutions attempt to take this posture too without seeing the underlying issue. Our 9-5 lives are strife with agreeableness and we make decisions without truly questioning who it is we are being agreeable to. By failing to ask, our decisions revert to the mean. Our formal institutions continually serve the preferences, desires, and interests of the dominant culture. In America, the dominant culture — the values and patterns of behavior imposed on the whole of society1 — is white, male, middle-class, able-bodied, cis-gendered, heterosexual, Protestant, and/or of European decent.

To this average person, things that are too political are the things that don’t reflect the dominant culture. When our formal institutions take on the mindset of this average person, they too are accepting that actions that are too non-white, too non-male, too class conscious, etcetera, are “not in our lane.” To be apolitical is to be agreeable…but only to the dominant culture.

Dubious language

This might be more clear to us all, if we weren’t so intent on confusing politics with partisanship. Most companies, schools, and professional organizations don’t want to be seen as partisan. Does that mean that they shouldn’t be political? No. These terms are often used interchangeably when they shouldn’t be.

Things that are partisan are political too, but partisanship has a limited scope. The partisan refers to actions taken to bolster the chance of electoral success for one party over another. Partisanship is tribal in that one’s political priorities may not fit neatly into either party’s agenda, yet there are only two real options so you choose a side anyway. We do this because partisanship is winner-take-all, it’s a zero sum game.

Politics is not a zero sum game.

Politics isn’t purely about Republicans and Democrats — those parties and their values are variable depending on the time. Politics is a constant that permeates everything we humans touch and do, because politics is about power. More specifically, politics is how we negotiate power and it’s important to understand the term in that context. Whose voices do we bring to the table, who has a reasonable income after taxes, whose needs and tastes are we satisfying with our programming, who has access to clean water and healthy food, who gets to express anger as a legitimate form of communication, who gets to have control over their own body, who do we consider to be American? All of these things are political, they are about power, and intuitively we know that the answer to each question could be “everyone.” Politics is not a zero sum game.

In my life I’ve heard the phrases “too political” and “not in our lane” most from nonpoor, white men — the group that already holds the most power in American society. I’m sure if you think hard about it, you’ll find that the same is true for you. It is significant that you never hear a homeless person claim that debates over housing and zoning are too political. Nor are you likely to hear a trans man stopping discussion over a nonprofit’s hiring policies because the diversity requirements are too political. It is also significant that I have I never heard a nonpoor, white man stop discussion over the construction of a golf course because that matter was too political.

Politics is about power and we, as people AND organizations, decide how that power is shared. We either work intentionally to address inequities in our day-to-day activities, or we ignore them and allow those overlooked, underserved, and underrepresented to remain that way. The former relies on choices that are political…the latter relies on a deliberate, or ignorant, choice to sustain inequities that already exist by doing nothing to challenge them. That choice is political too.

The phrase “too political” is itself a political tool of the dominant culture, frequently used in the art of doing nothing.

The economic cost of doing nothing

My agreeable reputation as a youth bought me a lot of social capital. I could join any club, any team, be on the morning announcements, be elected class officer, be the face of any institution all while receiving the love and support of a diverse group of friends and family. In short, I’ve always had access to a peculiar form of power by being simply agreeable.

I suffered from a peculiar sense of loss by being agreeable as well. The anti-Black messages that I received as a child made me believe that my peers who were not middle-class, not “articulate,” had done something wrong, that it was a bad work ethic that left them wanting. I felt the need to distance myself from them. Similarly, the myths around wealth and self-value caused me to avoid the homeless when passing by, burying the knowledge that members of my own family had experienced homelessness and that one of its primary causes, addiction, was something that challenged the lives of several of my loved ones. I did mental cartwheels trying to justify why the neighborhoods considered dangerous and a blight on society were filled with people who looked like me, yet I was somehow not them. I was forever looking for ways to cast myself as appropriate in the eyes of the dominant culture, and in the process, muting parts of myself — being less of a citizen, less of a cousin, less of a nephew, less of a brother, less of a friend, less than who I should be.

Most organizations think that middle ground, agreeable postures reward them with more benefits than costs. The argument goes that taking a stance on any issue or piloting any project that might make the dominant culture uncomfortable is too political, and not worth the risk. This argument is disingenuous. Worse, it’s counterproductive to all of our interests. Every group, public or private, is also harmed by the harms done to marginalized people. Inequity cuts both ways. As author Wilfred D. Brown illustrates in an article written for the Kinder Institute;

“Would you care about a war breaking out between Iran and Iraq in the Arabian Peninsula? I would guess most people would not. However, you would certainly care about the $4-a-gallon gas prices you would have to pay because of the same war…Just like how our theoretical war in the Middle East negatively affected us by raising gas prices here at home, the racism that black Americans face daily, also negatively affects white people’s economic well-being.”

What’s often missed is that, even if you feel your primary “lane” in society is to mind your own business and provide for your family, your ability to do so is being constantly suppressed by the inefficient nature of our nation’s racial caste system. Beyond the emotional and developmental wreckage that racial inequity levels on our cities, race-based economic inequity further chokes our local economies and leaves everyone worse off:

In Louisville last fall, there were rumors that players on the Toronto Raptors, a professional basketball team, didn’t want to consider our city as a temporary home for their 2020-21 season because of how we handled the murder of Breonna Taylor. That’s a lost opportunity due to racial inequity that took weeks to unfold, not years, and one can imagine that behind closed doors similar missed opportunities for our city are happening all of the time.

Companies with workforce diversity goals might look past this city when they see that the Black-white gap in education leaves our workforce lacking in the multi-cultural talent they desire for success. High-skilled Black residents of Louisville may look to cities like Atlanta or DC for their career progression when they realize that the inequities in their hometown leave little room for their growth. Then, there are the preferences of our future talent pool, the increasingly non-white, non-binary, and non-heterosexual youth2 that value diversity and inclusion and will likely choose the place they will work, live, and play based off that area’s commitment to equity. Will they see Louisville as a place that meets their needs? Answer honestly.

Social justice is not its own lane separate from the mission of banks, universities, media companies, and professional organizations. One of the most pro-business, pro-economy things we could do is to “get political” right now and eliminate racial inequity by any means necessary. The costs of doing nothing are too high.

The psychological and human cost of doing nothing

And then there’s the turtle. When I was the agreeable kid I’ve come to criticize in this essay, my friends and I did something terrible. In the process, I saw firsthand the horrifying physical and psychological consequences of doing nothing.

I grew up in the exurbs during the mid-2000s, pre-recession. Row after row of ticky tacky boxes were being raised on former woodlands at the border of Jefferson and Oldham counties, and between them my friends and I roamed. In that world, around 4th or 5th grade, we found a shell in the grass between two houses on an embankment. It was an uncomfortably hot day, and being young we had nothing to do but find things and make-believe something out of them. Most of our parents worked on the line at Ford Motor Company, just a few blocks away, but also living in our neighborhood were mid-level managers at UPS, accountants, college administrators, and other information professionals, some of them much younger than our parents. We sometimes saw those other people as having something we didn’t have, and we thought that the shell could be one of their special things.

The shell, we figured, could be in the way of treasure and that treasure could be ours — if only we were clever enough to open it and divide the small valuables inside. But the shell was stubborn and wouldn’t budge. Cheap basketball shorts sticking to our thin legs, we summoned the few muscles time afforded us to squeeze and pull at the shell. It was a fruitless endeavor, and with every second that passed I found myself more aware that we were doing something wrong. Sweat rolled from my brow as I nervously looked over my shoulder, hoping that someone else would say something.

In being agreeable, in doing nothing, I too am responsible for its awful screams.

After a period of frustration, one boy picked up a rock and announced that he would force the shell open. The idea was followed by excitement from the group, and one by one the boys picked up the rock and slammed it as hard as they could down on the shell. Standing to the side, laughing along when appropriate, I watched.

To be clear, I thought the shell was fake too. I didn’t help them because I was an everyman and a rule follower. The shell wasn’t ours. It didn’t feel good to take it, and even worse to potentially break it. At the same time, I knew being the “crybaby” that raised an alarm over every little mischief threatened my power in this group. To protest would have been to turn against the will of my friends, it would have required an extreme act of pushing back which carried more personal risk than reward to me. So I took the middle ground, not participating, but smiling along as the rock smacked hard against the valuable thing. I decided to remain agreeable.

Then, a crack. The shell broke and a noise split the air that sends my heart to hell every time I think of it. When the beautiful thing broke, a head emerged from one end. There was no treasure. In search for wealth, we smashed a rock down hard on something living, and feeling its back break, the turtle let out a blood curdling scream.

Hot tears breached now serious faces. We rushed the turtle to a small stream that moved slowly along the feet of the embankment. The turtle wiggled in the shallow water with labored steps. A clear liquid ran along the zig zag crack in its back. The boy who had the idea to open it with a rock was on his knees now trembling, his shaky hands working frantically but irrationally, one moment they scooped water to pour along the crack, the next moment they were pulling grass hoping to feed its crying head. But even then I knew, and I’m sure my friends did too, that it was too late. Our actions at that point were more for our own sense of goodness than for the wellbeing of the turtle we’d brutalized.

It wouldn’t stand a chance, and we were the reason: the rock, the whacks, and the agreeable bystander who laughed along as it happened. I never touched the rock, am I not absolved from the carnage? No. Even as a 10 year-old I knew that my silence was just another blow against the creature’s back. In being agreeable, in doing nothing, I too am responsible for its awful screams.

Why did I do nothing to stop my friends when I sensed that something was wrong? You, reader, would have saved this turtle were you in a position to do so: wouldn’t you? Why did my support and empathy only come after an act of terrifying violence? You, reader, wouldn’t have waited for the creature’s back to crack before recognizing that beating on small things was wrong. You would have done something to prevent that injustice from happening. Right?

Why didn’t I do more? For the same reason we have seen the rock of inequity, and the rock of police brutality, and the rock of white supremacy crashing hard against the back of our society while our country’s formal institutions have done almost nothing to prevent or remedy these horrors. It’s the same reason why, almost one year since that shameful night when the city of Louisville killed Breonna Taylor, our most powerful organizations have done little more than release statements, raise task forces, and move money towards diversity training.

When you are powerful, pushing against the social order around you is too risky, “too political.”

A request for doing something

Every day that we wait for some other organization, one that maybe calls itself a “social justice organization,” to come and fix our problems is another day we contribute to the awful screams of people across our nation. There is a price to pay for doing nothing. Delayed, though that price may be, what we accrue from leaning away from difficult problems is a debt that ultimately overburdens our ability to become our better selves.

In these essays I usually try to end on tangible advice. Not in this one. Every day, employees and board members bring up risk-taking, innovative ways to make your organizations inclusive and commit them to equity. And every day, these ideas are shot down for being “too risky,” “too political,” or “not in our lane.” Due to this, I only have one thing to leave you with, and it’s a request.

When your organization says something is “too political” ask aloud to everyone in the room, “what is it that we’re really saying?” Whose interests are too political for us to care about, and what are the consequences of us neglecting them? Every time we allow dominant groups to use the political as an excuse to not act, we have our hand on the rock of inequity. It’s only a matter of time before that rock falls, another back cracks, and the streets are filled with our agonized screams again.

  1. dominant culture. Oxford Reference. Retrieved 10 Mar. 2021, from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095725838.
  2. Jones, J. B. M. (2021, February 26). LGBT Identification Rises to 5.6% in Latest U.S. Estimate. Gallup.Com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx
  3. Image of businesspeople around a conference table from http://www.clipart-library.com
  4. Shoutout to Amy Clay for the insights, careful eye, and encouragement that pushed this essay through the finish line. Thank you for caring.

Note: the views and opinions expressed on PolitiFro are those of myself only and do not necessarily reflect the position or views of my employer or any entity with which I am associated. Welcome to my mind and beware: it changes.

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