The Trojan Horse of Ignorance

It’s 2024. A person of color, a biracial woman, is one of the two candidates running for President of the United States, and Donald Trump is reviving his racialized attacks about the candidate’s race. We have been there and done that, and the last time Donald Trump did this, the person of color ended up being the President of the United States for eight years. But that victory came at the cost of a severe decline in our collective ability to talk about race in a meaningful way that moved us forward as a nation. We have had a biracial President, but there is considerable evidence that we have lost ground in advancing racial equity and inclusion. How do we focus on winning the battles in front of us while keeping our eyes on the overall war? This question keeps me up at night and has become my primary guide as I do this work each day. I don’t purport to have all (or even many) of the answers, but I do have one small strategy that has been helping me fight back against the ignorance that litters our zeitgeist today.

Respond to the ignorance, not the BS that hides behind the ignorance.

We all know that ignorance is a Trojan Horse, inside which lie the dangers of xenophobia, racism, hatred, and other irrational fears. But a Trojan Horse is only dangerous if we don’t understand it for what it is. When the Greeks left a wooden horse filled with warriors outside the city of Troy, the Trojans treated it as a gift and brought it inside their city walls, allowing the Greek warriors to creep out at night and destroy the city. What if the Trojans had seen the wooden horse and said, “Huh, a wooden horse? That’s strange.” and left it outside?

Donald Trump uses ignorance to usher in xenophobia, racism, hatred, and other irrational fears into our national dialogues. The people who support and amplify him do the same. What if we only respond to the ignorance so that what’s hidden behind the ignorance doesn’t keep leaking into the environment?

Let’s take Trump’s recent ignorance at the National Association of Black Journalists last week. What Donald Trump actually said about Kamala Harris was, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Of course, we all know that his ignorant comment was all kinds of xenophobic and racist. Still, when the media takes that comment and runs headlines such as the AP’s “Donald Trump falsely suggest Kamala Harris misled voters about her race,” they are responding to the BS inside the Trojan Horse. They are enabling what’s inside the Trojan Horse to leak into our discourse without Trump or others who share his views having to do much work.

Let’s take another look at what he actually said: I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black? What if the media reported only on his ignorance instead of what the ignorance was hiding? What if the headline read, “Former President Trump Ignorant of Publicly Available Information on Vice President Harris’ Racial Background”? Trump never actually suggested that Harris misled him or the voters or anyone. He simply stated that he was ignorant about publicly available information that he and everyone on his team could access at any time.

In 2008, Trump used the same Ignorance Trojan Horse to attack Barack Obama’s citizenship with statements like “I’m starting to wonder myself whether or not he was born in this country.” and “I’m saying I don’t know. Nobody knows.” What if the headlines at that time said “Donald Trump Ignorant About Barack Obama’s Life” or “Donald Trump Admits Ignorance of Publicly Available Information About Barack Obama’s Background.”

Now, the Ignorance Trojan Horse isn’t always immediately visible as a Trojan Horse, nor is it as skillfully used the way Trump uses it, but it is usually just one or two clarifying questions away from being revealed for what it is. A few weeks ago, I was on a call with a senior lawyer from Texas who said in the middle of the call, “Arin, how do you feel about doing work that is illegal now in so many states?” Yes, I had LOTS of internal thoughts. However, externally, I asked my first clarification question: “What legislation are you referring to specifically?” His response: “You know all the legislation I’m talking about, like the one in Texas.” My second clarification question: “Yes, I’m aware of all the various passed and unpassed legislative measures, but which ones are you referring to specifically?” Not surprisingly, he moved on.

Responding to only the ignorance instead of what’s behind the ignorance allows us to stay emotionally sane, and it even allows us to get creative in our responses. For example, whenever someone asks me to articulate a “business case for diversity,” I ask them what they think about the “business case for homogeneity.” When someone asks me about Kamala Harris being a “DEI Hire” (yes, I’ve been asked about that ignorant statement several times now), I respond with, “Wait, who hired her? Vice Presidents are elected, right?”

This strategy does raise the question of whether we lose something by not focusing on what’s inside the Trojan Horse. Are we being naive by ignoring what the ignorance is veiling? Based on what I’ve seen in the 25 years of doing this work, I posit that the BS contained inside the Trojan Horse does not get erased when we deal with it directly, but if it stays contained, it prevents us from getting affected or distracted by it. The goal of the “respond only to the ignorance” strategy isn’t eradication of xenophobia, racism, hatred, and other irrational fears; the purpose of this strategy is not to waste our time tackling ignorant attacks when there is real work to be done that requires our precious time. It’s the difference between dialogue changing people’s hearts and minds and action changing their behaviors. People like Trump want to distract us with dialogue focused on changing hearts and minds; specifically, they want us to waste our time trying to change their hearts and minds with facts, logic, and reason when they know it won’t work. This is the “Can you believe he said that?” and “That just makes me sick.” reactions to his words; it’s precisely what the Trojan Horse is designed to do. Focusing on action to change people’s behavior instead of their hearts and minds allows us to shut down this ignorance and move on to what needs to be done to change people’s behaviors and make this country better for everyone.

I refer back to one of my favorite speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in which he said, “It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.” Dr. King worked hard to change people’s hearts and minds, but he also understood that if you can’t change someone’s heart, you must restrain their heartlessness. We have a job to do; we need to focus on elections, legislation, judicial decisions, workplace policies, representation in leadership, and teaching the right skills, etc., etc., etc. We have work to do to make this country more equitable and inclusive for everyone, especially the people who don’t yet have the power and the platforms to advocate for themselves. We have work to do, and we cannot waste time on the BS hidden inside the Ignorance Trojan Horse. We cannot change what the heartless people say, but we can restrain their heartlessness by shutting them down before they leak their nastiness all over us.

Whether you are engaged in these dialogues as a leader, a consultant, a mentor, an elected official, a journalist, a teacher, a student, a business executive, a parent, a business owner, or just a human being, you may not have a choice as to whether the Ignorance Trojan Horse will end up at your cognitive and emotional doorstep, but you do have a choice as to whether you let that Trojan Horse in or whether you call it what it is and shut the door on it.

I am not suggesting that the above is easy or that it is always successful, but it is a strategy that works to shut down some of the unnecessary drama while we do work that actually matters.