'They didn't mean anything by it'

I’ve noticed how common it is that, when talking critically about poor behaviour towards disabled people  and other groups that face discrimination - from rudeness, patronising attitudes to overt discrimination - the criticism is often brushed off with the explanation that the person hadn’t meant anything by it. “they didn’t mean anything by it”.

 

It’s a funny thing to assert, how does anyone know that someone else who has, to all intents and purposes behaved badly to me or someone else, didn’t mean anything by their words or behaviour. Were they perhaps merely an innocent conduit of unthinking channelling of society’s negativity towards disabled people? Is it that the negative attitudes are so ingrained, that people should not be blamed for innocently adopting them? I find it particularly strange that this excuse is used to cover such a wide range of utterances or behaviours – they can’t all mean nothing, can they?

 

people perpetually draw on the justification ‘they didn’t mean anything by it’ as both an excuse for  what would in any other circumstances be unacceptable behaviour, and as a putdown of disabled people’s legitimate responses to such behaviours. so much disgraceful treatment and behaviours are let pass because it is assumed that nothing was meant by it.

 

I experience this reaction to what I see as legitimate criticism as a putdown or dismissal, as if nothing was meant by it, what am I doing in my criticism, over-reacting, being ‘over-sensitive’, reading things into it  that weren’t there? – it is powerful and it is experienced by people from all equality groups. It is a way that apparently decent people so easily side with those who behave far worse than them and why? perhaps because they think it could have so easily been them.

 

I’ve known managers of services for disabled people excuse behaviours in their staff that should be the subject of performance management in this way. I’ve always tried to use the opportunity to find out what the manager thought  that they did mean and the answer is always that the person was of another age, stuck in old fashioned  attitudes that are unquestionnable, but are actually well-meant. It is as if there was a time not so long ago when it would have been perfectly acceptable to belittle and patronise because it was meant with kindness. This is too over-simplistic, but it is as if looking back on the days where a bit of casual racisim, disablism, sexism etc was perfectly acceptable because people meant nothing by it.