...Not My Proudest Moment

I kinda can't believe I haven't told this story yet...maybe it's because of all the shame!

----

[miacoss]

Vlogbrothers schedule (kinda):
John: Video about his life
Hank: Video on same topic because they're BROTHERS
John: Video about poetry/football/both
Hank: CUTE ANIMAL VID
*repeats*

[thesamuelbutler]

“Sometimes racism is just that a white kid looks different to you kicking the door off a locker than a black kid does.”

This is something I struggle with personally, and I think it’s something all of us struggle with to varying degrees. It can be super hard to recognize when your biases are showing, and often it takes people calling you out. The first step is acknowledging the existence of bias and recognizing its power, but the second step of discovering your biases is difficult and requires a lot of humility. No one likes to be called racist, but it’s something we need all need to take seriously.

[danstiver]

Hank kicked a locker door right off it’s hinges as a kid... MUSCLE HANK IS REAL!😱

[raychumon]

this is actually making me re-evaluate some of my experiences in school, as a white person who also used to "get away" with that kind of behaviour. thank you, hank.

[qnicole]

Wow I had almost exactly the same experience! I got off the hook for a load of admittedly terrible behavior in high school (mostly ditching classes constantly). At the time I thought I was really good at getting away with things and good at getting my teachers to sympathize with me, but now I look back at it as more of a combination of my teachers' overwhelming generosity and tendency toward forgiveness + the fact that I was a cis white girl + I had the privilege to be in AP & honors classes so in some sense I'd already "proved" myself. Taking the advantages I'd been given at face value was how I lived the first 18 years of my life, and I think never striving to look deeper is what causes people to morph into self-righteous "work hard and you'll make it" kind of people.

[CarolCamp]

“The more you have, the more people are wary of taking things from you. And the less you have, the more society is ok with exploiting you.” Damn... got some fun stuff to think about this fine morning!!!!

[laurelrhinehardt]

“I’d go sleep in the band room.” Oh the nostalgia!

[skylerwitherspoon]

Okay but when are you gonna tell us your most embarrassing story ever (the one John deleted from the pod to save you which I have been ENDLESSLY curious about ever since)

[AnnabelleLeeTx]

As a brown girl this made my blood boil.
I brown person would have been put in juvenile detention for that!. I knew white people had privilege but I didnt know the words in high school. I was just all ragey. Having to be saint-like and ragey was not a great combo for me. Anyway thanks for this Hank. You didnt have to tell us this but you did. And you explained it well. Wish you were around when I was in school

[McMomfaceplustwo]

I think some of the problem is this weird assumption people have that if you have a lot then you’ve done something to deserve it and if you have very little, then it must be a moral failing or laziness. I think it’s an especially American problem since the country was based on hard work being the way to wealth after leaving the monarchy. People forget or never realize that some are born with more without ever doing anything. More might be money or a better place in society ‘s perception. I was also a lazy student that got by in good grades and being a white girl. Sure I faced diversity in college science classes, but till then I was basically cruising through life.

[protoman]

It's a weird thought that de-demonizing racists may actually be a good thing. People don't think they are monsters, so they can't be a racist, right? When in reality, racism is in all of us. We see someone and we make assumptions about them and thus we treat them differently. It is innate and unavoidable no matter what you may tell yourself, BUT that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and fight it and expose ourselves to more different people so that the THEM can slowly be demystified and maybe become part of US.

[notquiteneutral]

Oh wow this went from a funny video to a really serious video... that was unexpected. I quite appreciate this video, it brings up a lot of really good points. Thank you Hank.

[notquiteneutral]

HIGH SCHOOL HANK LOOKS WONDERFUL THANK YOU FOR THAT

[quilespiritu]

"All I wanted was to break the rules like you" - Janelle Monae, Crazy Classic Life

[church]

Not a sociologist, and only a semi-nihilistic psychologist, but there is some evidence to suggest that we are more willing to treat others poorly if, in our interpersonal dealings with them, they offer us less value than what we perceive ourselves to be worth. Essentially, aggression is the result of feeling like you got a bad deal (Sell, Tooby, & Cosmides, 2009).

Those without resources are more likely to be perceived as giving us a raw deal. Thus, we may treat them poorer. Opposite goes for those with resources.

Disclaimer: this model of aggression is not the absolute truth, but is instead probably one of many ways aggression may manifest. It just happens to theoretically apply to this question.

[sighcantthinkofaname]

Prejudice in school can be so weird. I remember one girl complaining that thin girls didn't get dress coded nearly as much. It's nothing I ever noticed, but she was probably right.

[KatBaumgarten]

This is something that I study constantly in uni (I am graduating in Anthropology)
The cycle of racism, how prejudices evolve, the changing values and how polarization is a tool against change.
I love these kinds of videos, guys. Keep up the good work

[Karishma_Unspecified]

Right, so I was a big time nerd and academic topper in my high school. I remember being aware of the fact that I could get away with stuff, just because i was the "smart kid" (and also, because i grew up in a system that didn't have any ways to accommodate for disability... and I had a pretty serious disability... so sympathy all around). The first quarter of the video really struck close to home. The whole, "I know I can pull this off - I can rig the system!" feeling. The next quarter reminded me of the moment *I* realized that the rules were made lighter for me... that I wasn't rigging the system, so much as, the system was rigged for me. I remember that when I did come to that realization in high school, I felt fake and pathetic. I was reminded that yes, I worked a hell lot harder than everyone around to catch up (again, refer to disability in a backward system)... but also, that people were being nice to me. It wasn't so much, me being the underdog in the hero narrative - it was more, life is unfair in more ways than one. Some times, the unfairness actually worked in my favour.
It really broke down my underdog narrative.

I still show that narrative sometimes - having disabilities that aren't exactly accepted as they are at home, and having to compete with "the normal crowd" does that to you - but its videos like these that remind me that there is more nuance to the narrative than that.

I'm not White or Black or in America. I feel like I can't fully give you input on the Race thing.

But Hank, it felt validating (but still painful) to know that yes, looking, talking and seeming like an intelligent inspirational story with 'so much potential' helped me more than I could really fathom. The "the kid looks smart, so s/he must be" phenomenon, is real Hank. You've experienced it and so have I.

Admittedly now, I have a fair ton of other issues in my life... but it helps to remember that the entire world is not against me - and that I have gotten many advantages that my peers have not... just as I have many disadvantages that they don't have. Its not all fair. And that I shouldn't get on my high horse about being "a fighter".

Thanks for the video Hank - it helped me understand a few of my thoughts better.

[Lic]

When I was...11 or 12, I got my first ever detention. I remember it was in English class but I don't remember what it was for. Probably something as silly as forgetting my homework. Regardless, I was so upset about this, I instantly burst into tears in the middle of class. My teacher (incidentally one of the few male teachers at the school) freaked out that he'd 'made me cry' and said I didn't have to do the detention.
Then I realised the....power(?) I had as a small, sweet-looking, usually very well-behaved and intelligent young girl. I couldn't cry on command, but I could use my perceived innocence and reputation as the sort of kid who would never do anything wrong maliciously to...get my way a lot.
My older brother was charismatic in more obvious ways, he could talk his way out of things just by being charming, but I could more subtly get my way by making people think I never meant to do the wrong thing in the first place and that an honest mistake should be given an extra chance to get it right next time. Luckily the fear of being punished usually meant I would do it right the next time, but not always.

[DianaMcManaman]

One of the (many) things I appreciate about you guys is that you have this incredible gift to look at yourselves and at your circumstances and at the things that happen to you and consider what your experiences might mean for people in general. It's not something that a lot of people have any skill at. Thank you for teaching me how to consider the ways in which my limited experience of the world is indicative of the world at large. DFTBA