048 – An Approach to Language and Tolerance

[00:00:00] Santiago: Hi, and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. I am Santiago Borio, an Impact Activation Fellow, and I’m here with David Stern, one of the founding directors of IDEMS.

Hi, David.

[00:00:18] David: Hi Santiago, what are we discussing today?

[00:00:20] Santiago: Today I want to discuss something that I’ve been wanting to discuss for quite some time. It’s a delicate issue but it came up quite strongly in a follow up informal chat that I had with Kate, the incoming director, after she did one podcast episode with you, and you mentioned black economies and white economies, and she felt a bit uncomfortable with that terminology. Now that is terminology that has been commonly used in the past. But…

[00:01:05] David: Oh, I see. Yes. Particularly in an American context, I can absolutely see how that’s now become a sensitive issue.

[00:01:15] Santiago: Yes.

[00:01:16] David: I hadn’t even thought of that.

[00:01:17] Santiago: Black being bad, white being good.

[00:01:21] David: Well, yes, whereas as I understand it, and my first awareness of this was in discussions about the Second World War, where you had the black economy, which was the underground economy, which avoided taxation and so on. It was nothing to do with race. But I think there is a really interesting point there, which I’d never even recognized.

[00:01:42] Santiago: I had been trying to keep the podcast as politically correct as possible. You use phrases like man hours, and we actually recognized one change in the past in an episode where we were talking about an abstract scientist and someone referred to that scientist as he, and we recognized that as not correct and corrected it.

So the question is politically correctness is important, it’s good. I believe, and I hope I don’t get cancelled, I believe that it’s sometimes taken to an extreme. So do you have any views on this?

[00:02:35] David: It depends what you mean by views. I mean, one of the things that I think is correct is that there is an awareness and there is, even if there was absolutely no racial implications of thinking about or talking about black economies, white economies, the fact that it could be misinterpreted does mean that we need to think about that and have other names for it. I don’t actually know what better names are for those concepts, but it is something where that’s just showing my ignorance. And I am absolutely happy to recognize my ignorance in contexts like this. And I think this is just an education issue.

[00:03:16] Santiago: Well, I spent a while discussing with Kate what could be the alternatives. We thought of legal and illegal economies but it didn’t sound particularly representative…

[00:03:28] David: And it’s not correct either because the point is an illegal economy is not actually particularly representative of what we’re actually talking about.

[00:03:38] Santiago: No, and we came up with formal and informal economies. But again, that might not quite represent.

[00:03:47] David: And what’s really interesting is that I’ve heard those terms before. I don’t know that they actually represent the same thing as a formal academic concept. And so I’d need to look into that. I need to do some research on this because a formal and an informal economy, I understand. Black economy is an economy that avoids taxation or that is not going through the taxation processes.

Whereas the white economy is recognised as those which are recognised by the tax authorities within a country. That’s what I understand as the formal definitions of those. Now that might be wrong, in which case I accept my ignorance. But that’s always been my understanding. And I don’t have another term which as explicitly makes that concrete distinction because formal and informal is not defined as I understand it from the perspective of taxation.

[00:04:43] Santiago: It is a term that is used at least in Argentina.

[00:04:49] David: And is it equated with taxation?

[00:04:51] Santiago: It is related to people being formally or informally employed. Which I believe is what you were discussing.

[00:05:00] David: No, that’s not quite correct. That’s exactly how I’d understand it. You know, formal or informal employment, but you could have informal employment, which would be something like a… equivalent of a zero hours contract, which is totally taxable and all the rest of it, but still an informal employment arrangement.

And so there are potentially taxable informal arrangements, I believe. I don’t know that, but I believe. So I think my understanding is that these are separate concepts. Again, I’m maybe just showing my ignorance here, and I’m actually quite happy to sometimes really be discussing topics which I don’t know much about.

[00:05:39] Santiago: Yes, and I think that this relates to one of our principles, what is it, critically assessed?

[00:05:45] David: Exactly.

[00:05:46] Santiago: And you told me this in discussions, that you’re always happy to have a discussion about language that comes out, or that people have issues with, in our episodes. And you’re always happy to have a discussion as to why you use the language that you use. And that happened with man hours or manpower that it is a very well established term, but will it change in the future? Potentially.

[00:06:19] David: Yes, and should it change? Potentially. I mean, there are implications about it which I don’t know. And again, there is this sort of question about, well, how far should we go with these? How important is it? If manpower is its own word, does it matter that it is not gender sensitive in a correct way. But once you start going down all the things that, you know, that have that problem, you also get into sort of funny loops because woman has man in it.

So, you know, really, we maybe need to change language more drastically. I don’t have good answers to these. I accept my ignorance on this, and I accept that I will not always get this right, and I would like others to address these in constructive critical assessment.

[00:07:09] Santiago: And it sometimes will lead to edits to episodes like we did with the scientist because we felt that that was important enough and we had to recognize that sometimes, I said jokedly I hope I don’t get cancelled by this, but people do get cancelled sometimes or people’s careers get affected for using language instinctively that others find offensive.

[00:07:39] David: And I would argue as you say, this question about does this go too far? And the simple answer to that is both yes and no. Maybe it doesn’t go far enough. Maybe it goes too far. And maybe that depends on the context. One of our principles is options by context.

There is a real importance in actually both being sensitive to these issues and the real harm that they cause, but also being resilient. And the balance between those two is tough. I am very privileged to have been the victim of racial discrimination.

[00:08:25] Santiago: In your time in Africa, I suppose, when you were living there.

[00:08:30] David: And most of the time I was rather uncomfortable because I felt that I might have been getting positive racial discrimination. I tried very hard to work against that, but I was also in the situation where I did experience negative racial discrimination. Having spent six years working in Kenya in the statistics community, knowing almost everyone in the statistics community. I was then told, shortly after that working more globally that I couldn’t possibly know anything about Kenyan statistics because I wasn’t African. And I was told this by somebody from Benin who lived in Canada and who wasn’t a statistician.

And so they were trying to then lecture me on Kenyan statistics, despite knowing nothing about statistics, Kenya, and so on, where I had become part and helped build up that community in certain ways. And that was a great privilege to me, to have that experience. And I really appreciate that, because it put me into the perspective of understanding how privileged I am most of the time not to be in that position. And having that experience is really valuable and this is part of resilience.

So being able to be resilient to receiving that discrimination in that particular context, you know, I dedicated six years of my life to living on a local salary in Kenya, just prior to that, and embedding myself in the system to try and understand how things worked. And that was all irrelevant compared to somebody who felt that I couldn’t possibly have understood.

And I really appreciate that because that’s what others have on a daily basis, in a way which we have to recognize and it’s not acceptable. But I have so much admiration for many of my former students who are dealing with that on a daily basis and you don’t make a big deal out of it and who are resilient.

[00:10:40] Santiago: Well, I had a conversation recently with one of our former subcontractors on STACK who’s now doing a PhD in Italy. He’s from Kenya. And I say he because we have only two and they’re both male, so otherwise I would be saying they.

He’s faced a bit of racism already in there and his choice was, okay, this is the kind of people I don’t want to engage with. And he extracted himself from that context and he now knows that that person is someone he doesn’t want to engage with and he will try his best not to engage with them. And should he be having to make that decision?

I think it’s a very healthy decision. But at the same time, what purpose is it serving? What are the consequences of that? Is that person ever going to stop or decrease their racism?

[00:11:46] David: It’s not that he’s responsible as, in this context, arguably the victim, to resolve that. Just as in my very few experiences being on the receiving end, it’s not my responsibility to try and solve that. I tried to remain engaged and as constructive as I could, but it’s not my responsibility to resolve that.

And I think one of the things which is so important there is that, you know, you have to have the resilience to be able to receive this. And I’m quite proud of the fact that I didn’t react negatively to that, that I was able to receive it because I think quite simply, I’m so privileged to be receiving so little of it.

It’s the least I can do to receive the bit I did receive with grace. That doesn’t mean that others who are receiving this more should always receive it with grace. No, I’m not suggesting that at all. What I am suggesting is I have great admiration for those who do, and that’s what I was learning from when I received it. Now, now, I want to be really clear here. I am not a victim in this context. I gained experience, and that is something I value.

That is very different from people who are having to deal with these issues day in, day out, and who I have observed dealing with it with great grace. And some of them are doing it because they have to. And others are doing it because it’s a choice. And what I think is so important, and this is where I come back to the fact that we are both going too far and not far enough, we are not going far enough because these issues are serious, they are real, and we need to take them seriously.

But we are going too far, because at the same time, being over sensitive to this is also diminishing those who are dealing with this with grace and with incredible strength and inner resilience and the power that that brings. And so it is not for me to fight anyone else’s battle on this and it is for me to support.

[00:13:53] Santiago: But you call it resilience, others who are engaged in trying to change things might call it brushing it under the carpet.

[00:14:04] David: There have been elements of that in the past and one of the things that I’ve learned over the years is to be a good ally, I can’t fight the fight. You know, a good ally doesn’t fight on your behalf, you support, you engage, you enable. Now, sometimes some of these things are not my fight to fight. You know, if I can support people who are the right people to fight this, to fight it in the right way, I will try and do so.

But it’s not my fight to fight, and I don’t understand the complexities of which fights they want to fight. Because this is the point, you can’t fight every fight, and if you start fighting every fight, you get nowhere. And that’s where actually to understand what is your place to do, what is worth fighting, what is not worth fighting, and when I talk about observing resilience, the people I know who do this best, they are resilient and they do ignore and brush under the carpet things that don’t matter. But they fight for the things that do.

[00:15:16] Santiago: Yeah.

[00:15:17] David: They’re the people I respect the most. Fighting for everything, there’s no point. Picking your battles and fighting for the things that really matter, there’s no point fighting for elements where it’s, in search of a better word, just being pedantic. But there are some things which are not pedantic, which have real meaning and real impact.

[00:15:42] Santiago: Well, let me go back to the example, our former subcontractor in Italy. Mentioning politely or sensibly or trying to engage in a conversation with this person explaining why they’re being discriminatory by what they’re doing. That would not have affected that person in any shape or form. He showed resilience by walking away. But also picked his battle because there was no winning outcome from that. Is that kind of what you’re trying to say?

[00:16:18] David: I can’t comment on that context because I’ve not had those discussions. I don’t know the details. You know, from a position of ignorance, I can’t comment. What I can say is on things that I’ve personally experienced is that trying for me to then convince or to actually fight my own battle on that case would have been not only pointless, but it would have been unconstructive.

And so I am proud of the fact that I could just accept and recognize that I disagreed, that I have an understanding of things because of what I’ve been through in my experiences and the humility to recognize that I still didn’t know everything. There was a lot I didn’t know about statistics in Kenya.

I’d been involved and been deeply involved in the community for quite a while, but there was so much that I didn’t know. To put myself forward into a role would then have been also incorrect. And so recognizing that the fact that I knew more than the person I was talking to, if there were other people who I was talking to, they would have been right that I didn’t know as much as others maybe.

And so, to be able to sort of have the humility in that context to say this isn’t a battle for me to fight at this point. What was very interesting is when others who had observed this discussed with me afterwards, they were then laughing about it. But this is sort of something where, again, that just shows my privilege, that I was in that privileged position where I had observers who could recognize the nature of that interaction and what I did and therefore leave me with the positive reinforcement. And so again, even in that context, I was privileged. And this is why I talk about that privilege of both observing it, receiving it.

So in that particular case, I can say it would not have been constructive for me to fight that battle. It would have been unconstructive. And so I am proud for having walked away.

[00:18:17] Santiago: And they agreed with your walking away. They thought that you made the right decision by not challenging.

[00:18:25] David: Yes, in that particular context. And there are other contexts where I can actually say, and this is even things that I’ve been able to do as an ally, where I’ve been in that observer role and I’ve seen things happening and I’ve felt people who are there who have received something and I have been able to intervene, not to fight the battles, but to at least raise awareness. And that coming from an external observer can at times both diffuse and support and enable.

[00:19:05] Santiago: Exactly like I’m doing now with the black and white economists.

[00:19:09] David: Exactly as you’re doing now, bringing up this issue of black and white economies. Bringing this up as something which it never even crossed my mind. And I admit that this is not where, there was no racial thought or process around that. It was just what I understand as the academic terms that have been used in the past. And I was not aware of this as a potential issue.

[00:19:35] Santiago: Yeah you mentioned two issues earlier within this. I think there’s a third issue that is quite important, which is generational change. You know, you’re in your mid forties, if I’m not mistaken. I’m almost 40. Things have been almost naturalized as we grew up in our use of language that now come instinctively and it’s not really feasible to be thinking of every single word that we’re going to utter in case someone gets offended. But we’re always welcome to someone coming to us and saying, actually you should be a bit more careful with that particular use of language.

[00:20:23] David: And more than that, there was really interesting, and I’m sure there will be an episode on this relatively soon with Lily, because it relates to responsible AI. There was a really interesting issue recently about the use of language and AI, and how certain sort of uses of language which are maybe not now the mainstream and accepted in certain cases, are then associated to AI.

And this was really Nigeria was the group that really took offence at this. Words which in their context would be used, you know, just naturally in conversation, as suddenly being thought of as, oh this has probably been AI generated because it’s used these particular terms, because they’re not used in other contexts.

And so there is an element there as well of, yes, being careful with language is something which is important. And I like it when people pick me up. But I also love the diversity of different people using language differently. And I want to support and enable that. And I don’t want to sort of stop people from actually expressing themselves in their language, even if that language could be received by others in a way which may be different from how they intended.

[00:21:41] Santiago: I think it was in the STACK conference, which we mentioned in a previous episode. There was a Kenyan person mentioning student results, and they always refer to the students as he, and that is what they would normally do, even though they don’t know the gender. And they have no intention whatsoever of causing offence to any particular individual. But I can see how some people might take offence in that.

[00:22:21] David: This is exactly what I mean by resilience, because there are two things, there is what is sent and there is what is received. And I think that is so important to recognize both sides of that equation, and recognizing that actually sending ill intent is something which people do, which where they make conflictious decisions, where they’re doing this and they are sending them. What is received is also something where people can make a choice as to are you receiving something as ill intent, or is it not? So how are you receiving?

And the simple thing is: tolerance is not expecting others to be extremely sensitive in what they do. Tolerance is being sensitive in what you do and holding yourself to higher standards than you expect others. And this is something which I believe very strongly, I would not ever want to expect more of others than I do of myself.

And I know I’m imperfect on this. Some of these things just have slipped me by. So I don’t want to be less tolerant of others than I expect people to be to me. And I’m very happy if people are less tolerant of me than I am of them. And that’s a really important issue around language.

[00:23:44] Santiago: Okay, let me finish this episode with a thought myself rather than asking you for a final thought. We will in episodes say things or use language that people might not feel is correct language. Sometimes we recognize it ourselves and we change it, sometimes we recognize it ourselves and we have an internal discussion and decide to keep going with it, manpower.

But what I would like is to give a message to our listeners. Don’t hesitate from telling us if you feel that we’re using the wrong language or if you feel that we should be thinking about why we use the language we used. And we can engage in a discussion, in a sensible, polite, respectful discussion.

[00:24:43] David: And I think this is exactly where this episode has emanated from: such a poor choice of language on my behalf, which left my co… I don’t know what you even call, my co podcaster, my…

[00:24:59] Santiago: …you’re interviewee in this case.

[00:25:03] David: In this particular case, my interviewee, thank you, uncomfortable, and I am delighted that this has come out as something which is an open discussion. And I certainly hope that nobody fears we’ve actually resolved it, because I don’t know how to resolve any issues around languages. They’re way too complicated for me. I can only do easy things like maths.

[00:25:23] Santiago: But we can engage in discussion.

[00:25:27] David: As we have, and as we do. Exactly. We want to be critically assessed. We want constructive criticism to enable us to reflect and to think through. Not everyone will agree with us on every occasion and we’re okay with that. But we really appreciate it when people actually draw our attention to things and help us to engage and to be more thoughtful in what we do.

[00:25:53] Santiago: And we accept that we will occasionally get it wrong.

[00:25:56] David: Absolutely. We absolutely accept that we will get it wrong. We really encourage thoughtfulness on this. We want to be thoughtful ourselves, and we want to promote and be tolerant of others. And so to be both sensitive, and tolerant is part of what I believe, and to expect more of ourselves than we do of others.

That to me is the heart of tolerance. And I think a lot of this around language, this is what I believe is needed. I believe we need to be able to engage in constructive discussion and we need to be really tolerant of others.

[00:26:35] Santiago: Thank you very much, David.

[00:26:37] David: Thank you.