So this polar vortex has created quite the winter, especially
for my dear friend whose car lacks heat!
Naturally, he has been drooling over the idea of a new vehicle, but the
tough part is his decidedly upmarket taste in automobiles. “Why can’t I like a Hyundai as much as a
Mercedes?” he wondered. “The features
aren’t all that different.”
“It’s Branding” I reply
“Hmmm. If branding can do that, maybe we should consider
rebranding black people!”
+Wieden+Kennedy you up for it?
Sound crazy? Well, you
can start to see how “brands” could apply to people groups based on this definition
from the Economic Times: “A brand is a name given to a product and/or service
such that it takes on an identity by itself. It is akin to a living being: it has an
identity and personality, name, culture, vision, emotion and intelligence.”
Because brands come with an identity and personality, they
can alter perceptions dramatically. For
example, Mercedes has a brand of being the best in safety, comfort and design,
so when one breaks down, you may chalk it up to the intricacies of German
Engineering. A Daewoo has the brand of
being, well, cheap. When one breaks
down, it is instantly a piece of junk.
Similarly, we place judgments on people’s words and actions
based on the brand of their in-group.
Black, White, Latino are not just innocuous adjectives. They are charged with identity and emotion
that paint whomever wears them.
Now some might say, hey, black folks have a pretty good
brand already. We are assumed to be
amazing at sports, asked to sing gospel music at random times because surely we
can, and our hair is so awesome that everyone wants to touch it.
It’s the negative bits about the brand, though that are just
so condemning.
For example, much has been made of the whole Richard Sherman
controversy, and even more with comparison to the recent arrest of Justin
Bieber. What makes it socially acceptable, even natural
to refer to a Stanford grad and elite athlete as a thug? Branding.
And sometimes, the power of brand can be deadly
serious. Not once, but twice in the past
6 months, African Americans have been involved in automobile accidents, then
shot and killed while seeking help for their injuries. In September, Jonathan Ferrell crawled out of
his back car window and made it to the nearest home after a serious
accident. The woman in the home promptly
called the police. When police arrived,
Ferrell ran towards them for help only to be met with deadly force. The officer who shot Ferrell 10 times was recently indicted.
In November, 19-year-old Renisha McBride was fatally shot in
the back of the head by a homeowner while seeking help after a car
accident. McBride was intoxicated and
injured at the time of the shooting.
What makes you decide if the person at your door is a victim
or a threat? Branding. Per a 2002 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
both White and Black Americans given
a video game simulation in which they have to identify and shoot “armed”
suspects are faster to shoot African American subjects. The most common mistake observed in
this simulation was shooting unarmed African Americans. No matter our race or background, every one
of us keep unconscious biases in our heads.
These pre-developed brand identities turn a Mexican American into an
illegal immigrant, a beautiful Asian woman into a sex object, the private schooled
Caucasian teen into a spoiled rich kid, or an African American student into a
criminal.
Of course, this is nothing new. Christ himself faced a negative brand
identify related to his city of origin. Nathaniel,
one of his future disciples, was quick to judge on this basis, exclaiming “Nazareth!
Can anything good come from there?” However,
after his first encounter with Jesus, he instead proclaimed, “Rabbi, you
are the Son of God; you are the
king of Israel.” You see, Nathaniel
could easily decry the redneck, backwater of Israel as a place where no good
could originate. When he came face to
face with his Good, his brand perception was instantly and irrevocably altered.
And for us, church, the
same can happen as we come face to face with the Christ in diverse others. Changing
the brand identity we hold of an out group doesn’t take a 30 second spot or a
digital campaign. Neither The Man your Man Could Smell Like nor Momsong will be
required. The best way to change our
perceptions is through contact. This is where our multi-ethnic and
multicultural churches play a tremendous role. Diverse individuals in our pews
become part of our friendship circles.
When we have a number of close relationships with persons of different
ethnicities, the generalizations in our heads are replaced with a very specific
knowledge of and love for those in our church families.
A second and also
important way of changing our brand perception is by slowing down our way of
thinking. In Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman outlines how our “fast system” of
thinking makes snap, unconscious judgments based on past experiences and
perceptions. Our “slow system” however, is
capable of conscious, rational thought.
We must decide to access our slow system when it comes to judging
others. The next time you find yourself
placing a snap judgment on someone due to their words or actions, slow down
your thinking a moment to consider:
- Would I think the same thing if this were a person of a different
ethnicity?
- Would I think the same thing if this person were a woman/ man?
- Would I think the same thing if this person were a member of my family?
- Under what circumstances might I behave similarly?
You might surprise
yourself by finding your perception had less to do with that particular person’s
actions and more to do with how you perceive their in-group.
Brands are powerful, but God has the power to wreck our
human constructs. When Christ came, he
promptly obliterated every brand perception his contemporaries held dear. From the value of women to the piety of the
Samaritans, from the wisdom of Galileans to the faith of Gentiles, nothing was
left untouched. Through the Spirit of God,
the church can do the same by including every ethnicity, race, and culture in every
one of our local churches. Through
fellowship, we will come to know and celebrate each person for who they
are.