One Of The Good Ones

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"One of the good ones" is a phrase that encapsulates the idea of comparing an individual favorably to the other people in their demographic, with said demographic being based on gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, transgender status, religion etc. Depending on whether this phrase (or a variation such as "not like the others") is applied to oneself or another person, it can come across either as internalized discrimination or as a discriminatory backhanded compliment.

You're better than the others[edit]

This form is used to superficially compliment an individual from an oppressed group on being "different" or "superior" to what the speaker would expect from that group. This is unlikely to be appreciated, as it only serves to insult the demographic in question and entrench harmful stereotypes about it, suggesting that the demographic described is inferior by default. Such statements are sometimes made out of genuine ignorance, but this does not make them any less harmful.

This phenomenon is particularly prominent in the history of racial relations. Frank Chin, Asian American playwright, opined that "Colored minorities in white reality are stereotypes", with the "bad" stereotype being defined as such because it cannot be controlled by whites, and the "good" stereotype being tractable.^[2] The antisemitic H. P. Lovecraft considered his Jewish wife "well assimilated",^[3] a CIA document described Che Guevara as "fairly intellectual for a Latino",^[4] and Hitler lauded certain Jews as Honorary Aryans. More recently, Ann Coulter, describing black Republicans, stated that "our blacks are so much better than their blacks",^[5] and during his presidential campaign, Donald Trump offered to exempt Sadiq Khan, first Muslim Mayor of London, from his Muslim ban; this offer was unsurprisingly not appreciated.^[6]

Please respect me, I'm not stereotypical![edit]

In a manifestation of respectability politics, members of oppressed demographics may try to single themselves out as being "normal" and "one of the good ones", effectively sucking up to the privileged class. They may even see themselves as pushing back against the harmful stereotypes, but often what they are actually doing is perpetuating those stereotypes by emphasizing them as being bad and undesirable.^[7] This type of thinking originates from internalized discrimination and self-hatred, and can affect some women, people of color, and gay and transgender people.

This has been the subject of parodies, such as the "Other Girls Vs. Me" memes and their spinoffs.

Only the good ones[edit]

The inverse of "Please respect me, I'm not stereotypical!" is that, particularly among oppressed demographics that are subject to gatekeeping, "One of the good ones" can quickly, via the process of No True Scotsman, become an assertion that only "the good ones" count as members of that group.

A common claim in TERF rhetoric is that they have no problem with "genuine transsexuals", by which they invariably mean the handful of trans people who are politically aligned with them, thereby implying that the trans people who displease them are not "really trans". They will often dismiss other trans people as "transtrenders", or as "trans activists" (as if that's mutually exclusive with being a genuine transsexual). Thus, the TERF claims, "I can't be transphobic, because the people I hate aren't really trans." This is what ultimately led to The Times creating the headline of "Trans community rallies to defence of threatened professor Kathleen Stock"^[8]. Many more trans people emphatically did not, but the so-called "trans community" alluded to in the headline was cherry picked from "the good ones".

Elsewhere, this can be seen in the 2015 incident where a man shouted, "You ain't no Muslim, bruv!" at a knife-attacker,^[9] a statement that was later repeated by then-UK-Prime-Minister David Cameron. While one can applaud the intent of attempting to separate Muslims from stereotypes of violence, this, too, is a form of gatekeeping: It is discriminatory to place such conditionality on membership of an oppressed demographic when one would not place the same conditionality on membership of a demographic that is not oppressed.

One of the good privileged folk[edit]

On the other side of the coin, the idea of being "one of the good ones" is also used as a defensive mechanism by members of the "privileged" demographic, as a way to try to distance themselves from the oppression that is associated with this demographic. In a general form, this can often be a motivation behind self-identifying as a (male/white/straight) "ally". The central fallacy here is that one cannot be an "ally" or "one of the good ones" simply by proclaiming it^[11] — only by actually putting in the work and self-reflection.

This is the type of thinking behind cries of "not all men" from guys who take generalized criticisms of men's behaviour toward women personally and are desperate to communicate that they individually do not behave like that;^[12] it is also a prime driver of nice guy syndrome and all that that entails. Men who self-identify as feminists have to be careful not to fall into the trap of being motivated primarily by a desire to be seen as "one of the good ones".^[13]

This thinking also runs rampant in the context of racism and anti-racism activism, wherein white people are very keen to be seen as "allies" and to be safe from accusations of being racist. Joan Olsson described many manifestations of this in her paper, "Detour spotting for white anti-racists",^[14] such as colorblindness, friend arguments etc. At its most pathologically extreme, this mindset can result in such cases as Rachel Dolezal.

Similarly, in the sphere of LGBT relations, some self-proclaimed "allies" can fall into the trap of being overly concerned with their self-image as a good person, and fearful of being thought homophobic or transphobic.^[15]

See also[edit]

• Colorblind
• Clarence Thomas
• Friend argument
• I'm not prejudiced, but...
• Not all
• Uncle Tom
• Transtrenders

Notes[edit]

References[edit]