By transforming the ritual of standing to attention during the National Anthem, footballers woke us up. Parts of our brains activate as soon as we spot deviations from routine, social norms, and in-group tendencies. We want to know what’s happening and why. We need to know if the deviation poses a threat to us or our group. This may start to explain why so many people reacted with such fear and rage to a few athletes kneeling on the field in the midst of a national ritual.
Breaking these norms is used intentionally to signal disagreement with the norms, as well as to signal that one is not conforming. It sparks strong emotion and backlash precisely because of its symbolic meaning - a threat to the status quo and existing power dynamic.
When you mix power differences with intergroup dynamics, more factors come into play. High-privilege people, such as a numerical majority, are more likely to misinterpret nonverbal behaviour. The experience of having power makes us less accurate in reading suffering on the faces of strangers and emotions in static photos of facial expressions. Powerful people are less able to take the perspective of others and they’re quicker to confuse friendliness with flirtatiousness or silent protest with threat to their power structure. This is the empathy deficit of people with long-term power.
What do you think?
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