There Are No White Hats or Black Hats
Nearly everyone is somewhere on the continuum of flawed human being
Shortly after Kobe Bryant was tragically killed, I wrote about how we were doing a disservice to both him and the woman that he assaulted by not allowing him to be a nuanced human being capable of both good and not so good. Subscribing to the rigid binary of him either as a good guy, a “white hat,” or a bad guy, “a black hat” meant that we had to only choose one. If we put him in the white hat, then that left the black hat to the woman who called him out on the harm that he did to her. And since Bryant had publicly apologized to her, it’s appropriate to speak of that as a fact, and not an allegation, although that’s a minor detail for the purposes of this story.
In this binary scenario, she was either the white hat and he was the black hat or vice versa. But not only is this strict binary unrealistic, but it’s also non-serving in a variety of ways. I had several angry women chide me in the wake of that story because it seemed to them that I was saying that Bryant was actually good and that he shouldn’t have to pay in some way for assaulting that woman. But that wasn’t what I was saying at all. I was saying that the system they were using to evaluate the situation was flawed because it was either/or.
Either Bryant was a magnetic basketball luminary who inspired so many and caused grown men to publicly weep upon hearing of his death, or he was just another clueless and entitled star athlete who took what he wanted from a woman, under the assumption that if that’s what he wanted, she must want it too. The problem arises when you can’t accept that he was actually both of those things. Kobe Bryant was neither an angel nor a demon, but instead, a flawed human being. To what degree he was flawed (whether merely misunderstanding that the encounter was not consensual or not caring whether or not it was) is up for debate, but that isn’t the point of this piece either.
Even a person who has knowingly raped or killed someone can still have some redeeming qualities. That’s a terrible thing to do, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they are a complete monster. People are responsible for their actions, particularly when those actions harm others, but humanity is complex, and many things go into making a person what they are, including their own wounding and dehumanization. In other words, it’s possible to condemn someone’s behavior or actions as bad, without labeling that person as irredeemable.
Where does the line get drawn about how much of that tips you over from being a good person who has made mistakes to a bad person?
Saying that all rapists are shit and need to die might feel good, but it doesn’t actually interface with the complexity of human existence. We’ve all done bad things; every single one of us. Maybe not rape, maybe not kill, but bad nonetheless; hurtful to someone else nonetheless. Where does the line get drawn about how much of that tips you over from being a good person who has made mistakes to a bad person and who gets to determine where that line is? Kobe Bryant gave a meaningful and substantive public apology to the woman he hurt — something that as far as I know, no other high-profile person accused of assault or rape has ever done. He took responsibility for himself in an unprecedented way under these circumstances. Does that or does that not count for anything?
“First, I want to apologize directly to the young woman involved in this incident. I want to apologize to her for my behavior that night and for the consequences she has suffered in the past year. Although this year has been incredibly difficult for me personally, I can only imagine the pain she has had to endure. I also want to apologize to her parents and family members, and to my family and friends and supporters, and to the citizens of Eagle, Colo.
“I also want to make it clear that I do not question the motives of this young woman. No money has been paid to this woman. She has agreed that this statement will not be used against me in the civil case. Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did. After months of reviewing discovery, listening to her attorney, and even her testimony in person, I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.
But again, this story isn’t really about Kobe Bryant and I’m not trying to be an apologist for him in any way. That’s just a useful illustration of how we cannot truly pigeonhole most people as “good people” or “bad people.” There are too many factors that complicate that kind of blanket and binary characterization, and if we have to choose between only “white hats” and “black hats” then quite often it is the victims who get characterized as being the bad ones. They have tarnished the perfect image of a known “white hat” so they must themselves be evil. Based on the death threats and other forms of vilification that this woman faced for speaking up in the Bryant case, that is exactly how it went. We all know that he was good, so she must be the one who was bad.
The other issue is that when we decide that someone wears a “white hat” it blinds us to the possibility of them actually doing something that is harmful. It took 60 women to bring down Bill Cosby and that’s because we were all so sure he was a good guy, that it was inconceivable that he could have done such bad things until the evidence against him was too overwhelming to ignore any longer. When we frame people in this type of binary, it creates a cover for those who have the veneer of wearing a white hat so that some of them can actually perpetrate really bad things undisturbed and unquestioned.
This was also the case of beloved British TV personality Jimmy Savile, who had been knighted and was well respected for his charity work. After his death, it came to light that Savile had sexually abused hundreds of individuals, both male and female, all the way from children to adults over his life and career. How did he get away with that for so long? People overwhelmingly believed he was a “white hat.”
It is possible to be an intelligent and engaging person who cares about the plight of others who are less fortunate than them — or who is otherwise kind — and still be a person who is capable of terrible things. This is particularly so when sexual abuse is involved. Almost without exception, those who perpetrate sexual abuse were themselves abused. This does not absolve them by any means, and certainly, not everyone who has been abused becomes an abuser. But when you move away from a binary view that is predicated on moral absolutes and instead focuses on the nuances of both humanness and society, the world actually becomes a safer place.
If we were to look at people more as full human beings capable of both good and bad, it would be easier to spot the person who is harming others because we would treat allegations against them as something that should be taken seriously and investigated, and not as the delusions of a “black hat” with an agenda. But we are uncomfortable with a world where bad things happen to good people because that means that we cannot ward off misfortune in our own lives simply by being strong and worthy.
We desperately want to believe that we are in control of our lives and determine our own fate. Because of that, most of us fall prey to the psychological concept known as the “fundamental attribution error”. This is a natural tendency to see the behavior of others as being determined by their character — while excusing our own behavior based on circumstances. We’re deeply invested in what other people’s “character” tells us about them as a way to decide which box to sort them into, but in truth, most people’s character is full of contradictions.
Is a 17-year-old from a poor and broken home who found something like a family and a sense of self within a gang, a terrible person who deserves to wear a black hat for the rest of his life, or a human being with potential for both good and bad depending on which side of him was nurtured and given an opportunity to flourish? How many people have started off with a balance sheet leaning towards “black hat” and then completely turned their lives around?
Reducing people to labels makes it a bit easier to sort them into categories so that we don’t have to actually do much conscious thinking, but it also wreaks a lot of havoc, particularly within a society that tends to blame victims for their own troubles. Human beings are full of vices, foibles, and weaknesses. There may be some who have no socially redeeming qualities whatsoever, whom we could feel pretty justified in classifying as bad, but those people are in the minority. Most people cannot be so neatly categorized.
Instead of deciding whether someone is a good person or a bad person, we can recognize that nearly everyone is on a continuum of flawed humanity. This doesn’t mean that harmful behaviors should be excused, but it does free us up to notice that harm is being perpetrated and to take people to task for it, even if we admire them in some other capacity. The good aspects are a lot less likely to obscure the possibility of not-so-good parts.
Most importantly, it allows people to be more than symbols and icons and it gives them the gift of their humanity. It’s nice to be admired, but few people truly want to be deified, because when you put them up on a pedestal, the only place they can go from there is down. Otherwise, they have to be perfect all of the time, in order to meet your expectations, and no person is perfect. Get rid of the idea of white hats and black hats and do whatever extra effort it takes to see people as complex individuals. What a gift that would be to us all!
© Copyright Elle Beau 2020
