Gaslighting: A Tool for Manipulation and Fear in Conversations on Race
Have you ever shared with someone how you feel or how someone else made you feel and the person you divulge your feelings follows up with any mirage of the following:
“I think you’re making some of this up in your head.”
“That’s crazy!”
“Are you sure that’s really what they meant?”
“Yeah, but I don’t see it that way at all.”
“I don’t think you should feel that way because….”
In response, how do you feel? Do you shut down and choose not to share anymore and distance yourself from the conversation and the person you were sharing with? Do you feel a need to explain yourself further? Do you feel misunderstood? Or, maybe you question if you blew an experience or how someone made you feel out of proportion? All of these responses as well as others are normal. After your feelings were invalidated and minimized it would be a normal response to question yourself.
Let’s unpack what it means to gaslight. Gaslighting is a means of “sowing seeds of doubt” in a person, group of people or community causing them to question their memory, perception or judgement. To gaslight someone is to belittle their emotions and feelings and to “manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.”
Gaslighting is self-serving for the person or community performing the action. It occurs in every relational sphere of life — friendships, marriages, families, schools, places of employment and institutions. Further, it is not uncommon for those in power to do the gaslighting.
Let’s orient ourselves with how it might look between an elementary aged child and parent. Imagine the child comes home from school and shares with their parent that the teacher told them to shut up and the parent says, “are you sure your teacher said shut up?” The child replies, “yes, they told me to shut up and sit down.” And, then the parent responds, “I don’t think the teacher would ever use those words. Maybe they said please sit down?”
From this example, I hope it is easy to recognize how the parent has their child questioning their own experience, memory of what happened and their interpretation of it. I hope we also recognize we have normalized gaslighting in our social interactions with others — that unknowingly (or knowingly) we normalize telling others (indirectly) that how they feel is inaccurate, invalid or “only their perception.”
When we become aware of what gaslighting is and how it works we begin to acknowledge it appears everywhere and we also may become aware of times we ourselves were gaslighted. It is quite possible we are reflecting on how we might have and/or did gaslight someone within our circle or someone we love (and, possibly we were not conscious of our doing so). Though, when we know better, we can do better (as famous writer and activist Maya Angelou taught). We can refrain from gaslighting others and when someone attempts to gaslight us, we can name for them how they are either intentionally or unintentionally manipulating the situation to discredit or minimize our feelings and intuition.
Our feelings and intuition are powerful forms of information and often our bodies respond before our minds. Our bodies hold pain, fight, flee and freeze before our cognitive minds have a moment to react. We would be well served to learn to as well as encourage others to embrace being in touch with our/their bodies and intuition rather than separating ourselves from them.
Gaslighting is also a prominent technique used in race relations when we minimize, deny and or question a Black Indigenous Person of Color (BIPOC) when they tell us how they are feeling. Also, we have a responsibility if we are working towards anti-racism to recognize we are gaslighting individuals communities of color when we are in conversation with other white identifying people who hold whitewashed and racist beliefs and we say nothing. We make the gaslighting acceptable and further co-create and encourage racist thinking with our silence.
Contemplate for a moment the common statements below and possible responses you might have (in addition to the possible suggestion I provide):
The black community lacks and always has lacked leadership.
A possible response to refute the gaslighting:
Medgar Evers — assassinated. Malcolm X — assassinated. Martin Luther King — assassinated. [pause]
We had Obama for president — there’s no race issue in this country.
A possible response to refute the gaslighting:
Do you recognize that reports claim that there was a 400% death threat increase during Obama’s presidency compared to his predecessors? [pause]
I’m tired of talking about race or that everything is about race.
A possible response:
That feels convenient — some people live in a body that is not white. [pause]
What about black-on-black crime?
A possible response:
When you look at the statistics of “black-on-black” crime you realize it is no different from “white-on-white” or any other racial community’s same race crime when you isolate for socioeconomic class. So, really it is a lack of opportunity that looks to be the catalyst for crime. [pause]
Everybody has the same rights and opportunities in this country.
A possible response:
In 2019 alone we spent 23 billion dollars more on educating white kids than children of color. Does that seem like we are giving all of our children the same opportunity? [pause]
Slavery is ancient history.
A possible response:
Black enslavement accounts for 60% of US history to date. Jim Crow Segregation accounts for another 23%. [pause]
If “they” would just follow the law there wouldn’t be a problem.
A possible response:
Breonna Taylor was sleeping in her home. Tamir Rice was 12 years old and playing with a toy gun at a park. Atatiana “Tay” Jefferson, 28 years old, was playing video games with her son in her home. [pause]
[insert white washed response here because it is likely there will be some response that these are isolated incidents]
A possible second response:
In the first 8 months of 2020, 164 BIPOC (that we know of) were killed by police and there are only 3 US states in which there hasn’t been a police killing of a BIPOC. Does that not cause you to question the law? [pause]
If we are working to undo our own racism and be anti-racist, it is a moment by moment and day to day quest. We have a responsibility to be better in every conversation. Mostly, we would be living in integrity if when we are in community with our fellow white identifying friends, colleagues and family members we had the courage to end the gaslighting of BIPOC and communities. If we choose not to, we keep racism flourishing inside us and our relationships of influence.
Brave souls, what will choose to do?
