It’s no secret I’m not a big fan of how highly we regard intentions. There’s even a whole chapter in my book about it, and it recently led to a great conversation, which led to this more visual representation of the dynamics between intentions and outcomes. Use it how you want and let me know what you think! (oh, and you can read a bit more about it below)
Click the graphic to biggify!
It’s not that I don’t love well-intended people — I do. It’s just that a well-intentioned person who uses bigoted language has the same impact as a bigoted person who uses bigoted language, as an example. The targeted identity is still attacked, marginalized, and dehumanized. And when we start making the distinctions between whether or not the person who used the bigoted language _meant _it or not. This sometimes turns into a victim-blaming-type conversation where we get mad at the person who was offended because “they didn’t mean it” and “you shouldn’t be so sensitive” and I blame most of this on our belief that intentions are often more important than outcomes.
I could go on. But, well, I already did. Hope this edugraphic helps clarify things for the visual-oriented learners!
