Acceptance is not enough

Last month, my article for the Victoria Foundation was published alongside the results of their annual Vital Signs survey. This annual survey intends to get a sense for what is or is not working in the city in a number of areas. One of the focuses of this research was on Belonging and Engagement, and I want to unpack one of their results. 

The survey found that 95% of respondents agreed that they are “very accepting of people from different cultural backgrounds.” 

In the same report, only 63% of racialized people agree that they feel accepted for who they are in Greater Victoria, and only 58% feel included and 60% feel respected (for white respondents, results showed 83%, 73%, and 74% respectively). Notably, another local study by the Greater Victoria Local Immigrant Partnership found that 71% racialized people regularly experience racism and 70% feel isolated, unsafe, and lonely due to racism. 

These numbers are in stark contrast to each other, and potentially point to two biases often at play in self-reported measures. First, social desirability bias occurs when survey respondents provide answers that reflect what they believe is correct or socially acceptable instead of the answers that more accurately reflect their opinions and experiences. This can occur within and outside of an individual’s awareness via impression management and self-deception, respectively. In other words, people may misrepresent themselves in the questionnaire by indicating that they are more accepting than they truly are because it is more favourable to be viewed as an accepting person in our society.

Second, because the Vital Signs survey was available on their website for anyone to complete, the survey is at risk of self-selection sampling bias, which is when the sample or group of respondents is unique in a systematically similar way because they self-selected to participate in the research. For example, those who submitted the Vital Signs questionnaire may be more motivated to engage in local initiatives and/or maintain the appearance of Victoria as an inclusive place for racialized people.

However, regardless of how accepting people are of others, I wonder if acceptance is truly the goal we want to pursue as we work to build thriving communities.

Defining acceptance

According to Marriam-Webster, to accept means to give approval to someone or receive something willingly. For example, we may accept immigrants and refugees into the Canadian nation-state. The definition of acceptance does not speak to meeting another with mutuality, accessibility, kindness, enthusiasm, or dignity. Acceptance is, rather, the bare minimum as a form of tolerance. You can accept me as you accept when your sock has slipped inside your shoe and you will have to wait to pull it up again - with mild annoyance and defeat.

In addition, acceptance can be oh so delicate and conditional. I have experienced over and over how fragile the acceptance of another person is, especially as a racialized person. Too often, I am accepted as long as I do not disagree, challenge the status quo, or rock the boat in any way. I am accepted as long as I fulfill the role of quiet, submissive Asian. As I wrote about in my blog post Abolish the Good Person, when I inevitably step outside of this false and limiting narrative, acceptance is quickly revoked as I am deemed a Bad Person for being “aggressive” or “confrontational.”

To be clear, being offered acceptance is, of course, preferable to being treated with hostility or contempt. However, I believe that acceptance is not enough.

When acceptance is insufficient

Acceptance falls short for several reasons. Quite saliently, acceptance is a subjective experience and while one may believe they are exemplifying acceptance, their actions can impact others in a way that suggests otherwise. Particularly when power and privilege are involved, individuals may be unaware of how their behaviour affects another person as they may not realize that they enacted a microaggression, which are every day slights that demean, invalidate, and/or insult marginalized peoples. For example, someone may be intending to portray their acceptance of me as a person of colour by asking where I am really from, but instead they are microaggressively communicating that they see me as an Other, or that I do not belong.

Acceptance also implies hierarchy. Who is in a position to accept whom into what? The paradigm of acceptance still centres whiteness and dominant ways of being, doing, and relating with each other. This is reminiscent of issues regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion that also maintain oppressive structures and systems while simultaneously working to invisibilize them. Diverse from what? Include whom? Unequal to whom? Thus, acceptance can be understood as unilateral, flowing in the direction from dominant group to marginalized group. As people of colour, whether or not we accept mainstream white Canadians holds no structural power and does not impact their ability to thrive. Meanwhile, it is mandatory for us to accept Euro-Canadian worldviews and institutions to simply survive in this society.

One of the main deceptions of acceptance is that it does not require any material change. What is the purpose of increasing acceptance if the conditions of oppression and colonialism are not addressed, dismantled, and replaced with communities of care, justice, and liberation? In this way, acceptance becomes a tool of liberalism, which upholds individual freedoms, rights, and enterprise at the expense of relationality, interconnectedness, and mutuality. 

Going beyond acceptance

You may accept my existence, but will you also conspire and advocate alongside me to abolish systems and structures that cause me harm and impose barriers to my ability to flourish? What would it look like for you to accept me, and no longer accept the structural conditions that falsely pit my and all living beings’ abilities to thrive against yours? Let us move beyond acceptance towards genuine and reciprocal relationships and systems that serve all beings on this planet.

Instead of spending our time on acceptance, I long for us to change the power dynamics and structures because I don’t want my well-being, access, or survival to depend on someone else’s acceptance of me. I want us to be liberated from the destructive forces that coerce us into boxes and demand us to shed our ancestral connections for acceptance. I want us to be released from the restrictive barriers to accessing resources and opportunities. I want us to be free to be our unique, precious, and stunning whole selves.

“I hope you find or create spaces where you can flow, shine, speak, and simply breathe.” - Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis