Understanding the Intent vs. Impact of Ableist and Rude Comments

“Must be nice to be able to skip the line,” said to the person in the wheelchair at the airport.

“I wish I had your disease so I could lose weight really fast,” said to the person with severe food intolerances who isn’t sure if her next meal will send her to the hospital because she hasn’t yet figured out which foods cause a reaction.

“You shouldn’t be using the disability parking space, you look perfectly healthy. Did you steal your grandmother’s placard?” said to the person who outwardly looks fine but has an invisible condition, whether it’s pain or autoimmune or they only have one lung or plenty of other possible conditions.

How do you handle comments like these? There’s no one right answer. Do you speak up? Let it slide? Pretend like they were joking? Answer them with a rude comment of your own? Or, you might be so in shock that it takes you a few days to process it, and at that point, it’s too late to tell them anything.

The word for comments like these is microaggression, “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally
marginalized groups.” One of the challenges of microaggressions is that each individual comment is small, but there are lots of them. If you react to one, the other person might think you are overreacting because “it’s just a little thing,” but it’s not little when you add them all up.

I won’t go into detail with how to handle microaggressions, there is too much content to go into for a single blog post. I will, however, talk about one specific topic: intent versus impact. I first heard about this concept in a book called “Difficult Conversations,” and since then, have seen the topic come up in a number of courses and articles, videos and talks. It’s a pretty simple concept. Intent is our intention or purpose in saying what we said were doing what we did. Impact is the effect it had on someone else. Most people don’t wake up deciding to be a jerk to people (intent) but they still can end up being a jerk to people (impact). Good intentions don’t get you off the hook for bad impact.

Let’s look at these three statements I made at the beginning through this lens:

• “Must be nice to be able to skip the line.” – Maybe their intent was to make a lighthearted joke, or to complain about the length of the line at the airport, or to express jealousy or frustration that some people are getting special treatment (in their view). It’s pretty much impossible to figure out what their actual intent was without talking to them. But their impact is vastly different: you feel diminished, put down, or feel like they aren’t taking your whole situation into account (because you probably would gladly trade places with them).
• “I wish I had your disease so I could lose weight really fast.” – Just like the first example, there are a lot of possible intents. Maybe they were uncomfortable with your situation and wanted to make light of it so they feel less uncomfortable. Maybe they’ve been looking for an easy way out for their own health and wellness. But just like the first example, their impact is a much more negative one on you. They are diminishing the struggle and reality of your situation. Would they say a comment like this to someone who has cancer and lost weight quickly? Of course not. Then why would they think it’s OK for someone with a different illness?
• “You shouldn’t be using the disability parking space, you look perfectly
  healthy. Did you steal your grandmother’s placard?” – The first two examples are more of an “unintentional jerk,” whereas this one is much more directly rude. Their intent is to correct someone who (in their view) is cheating the system and their impact is that it denies that invisible conditions exist and makes you less likely to use accommodations you legitimately needed for fear of someone making rude comments like this.

One important thing to note: you are never obligated to confront them on a comment like this. You might choose to, but it’s not required. If they’ve hurt you tremendously, it might be a better idea to leave the situation entirely. If they don’t seem open at all or wouldn’t be receptive, then maybe you’d be wasting your time and your breath. Or, if it’s someone who you know well and have a strong relationship with, you might decide to talk to them about it. But in any case, you aren’t obligated to do so, it’s your decision.

So let’s say you decide to confront them on one of these comments. What you’re doing is telling them it had a bad impact on you. Unfortunately, what they hear is you telling them they had bad intent, so they respond by defending their character against your unfair accusation.

They might say something like “I was only joking,” which is a way of saying “Look, I didn’t have bad intent, I’m not a bad person.” They might say “I was only trying to help,” which is a way of saying “not only did I not have bad intent, I actually had good intent.” They might say “you’re too sensitive,” deflecting the problem to be you instead of them. All of these defensive reactions are ways to try to affirm their own good intent.

At this point in the conversation, a subtle shift has occurred: the two of you are now talking about two different things. You are talking about their bad impact. They are talking about their good intent. It might seem that you’re having one conversation, but you’re actually each having a separate conversation and it’s really difficult to spot. That’s why you end up talking past each other. That’s why it seems like these conversations don’t go anywhere.

What can you do about it? You can help them separate intent from impact.

1. Affirm that they probably didn’t have bad intent. Maybe you say something like, “I think that comment didn’t land the way you intended to,” or, “it seems like you were trying to make a joke, but what it felt like to me was…” Comments like these make it clear that you aren’t calling them a bad person, that they probably have good intent, and then redirect the conversation to being about their impact. You probably will need to do this multiple times in the conversation, it’s easy to feel attacked when someone corrects you.
2. Point out the specific behavior (“when you did XYZ…”). By explaining the specific behavior you were talking about, both of you are on the same page. If it’s a comment, remind them what they said. If it’s something they did, tell them what it was. You don’t have to go into a ton of detail, but you don’t want them to be confused about what you are bringing up.
3. Point out their bad impact, often with an “I feel” statement (“when you did XYZ, I felt…”). No one can argue with your feelings. If you tell them you feel hurt or angry, they might not understand or agree with it, but they can’t tell you that you don’t actually feel hurt or angry. Doing it this way also makes it harder for them to feel attacked. If you say, “You’re insensitive and rude,” that’s an accusation they can fight. If you say, “I felt belittled when you made that comment,” you are showing them their bad impact.
4. If you have a specific request, make the request and ask if they would be able to do it. For example, “I know you intended that as a joke, I’d like it if you don’t make jokes like that around me in the future. Could you do that?” By asking them to commit to it, there is now social pressure for them to agree to the request (which you can then hold them to in the future), and if they don’t agree to it, they appear rude and that’s not something people usually like.

At this point, they might bring up their good intentions again, and you can agree with them that they probably had a good intention, but good intentions don’t get you off the hook for bad impact. Maybe they made a comment they thought would cheer you up because it would’ve cheered them up in the same situation, but you instead felt discouraged after it, so you could say something like “I know you were trying to cheer me up, but it ended up having the opposite effect.”

If this is someone you know well and they genuinely want to cheer you up in the future, it might lead to a conversation about what you found discouraging in their comment, and the two of you could together think of things they could say in the future that might work better. You know they weren’t intentionally trying to be rude, and you want to make sure they know you didn’t think they were intentionally trying to be rude.

Or, they might shrug it off and say, “It’s just a joke,” and then you could repeat step number four and ask them to not make jokes like that. That last part, “Can you do that?” puts them in a position where they need to answer Yes or No. If they are unwilling to commit to a simple request like this, then maybe they aren’t the kind of person you want to spend much time around.

Perhaps they say, “I feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time around you if I have to watch what I say,” and then you can point out that before you brought this up, they had no idea what impact they were having on you, but now they do. Now they can make an informed choice. They can choose to be inconvenienced or burdened by watching what they say, or they can choose that you should bear the burden of what they say. Asking someone to commit doesn’t guarantee they will say yes, but it might show their true colors.

Following these four steps won’t eliminate snide comments or other ableist microaggressions. Sometimes, you might choose to confront them on it, and other times you might choose not to. If you choose to call them out, they might respond well or they might not. The conversation might go really well or really terribly. You can’t control how the other person will react, but you can control how you bring it up. If you are able to help them separate their intent from their impact, the more likely this conversation is to go well.

It’s a good skill for you to have in your toolbox. Even if one conversation doesn’t go the way you hoped, you are growing in this skill. The more you practice, the better you get at it. With time, you will be able to see that their bad impact on you doesn’t automatically mean they had bad intent. You’ll be able to tell them that. And hopefully, they will be more conscious of how they’re affecting you, intentionally or not.