The movie The Princess Bride has one of the best sword fights ever filmed. Inigo, the sword master, waits at the top of the cliff for the Man in Black. Thinking to make it a more fair fight, Inigo decides to fight him left-handed. The Man in Black reaches the top, and after a brief exchange, they fight. I knew, right then, instantly, that the Man in Black was also really right-handed and would switch at the appropriate time.

How did I know that? I’m left-handed. I knew what two left-handed people sword fighting looked like. I recognized it. (You see, with left-left, or right-right, the swords cross your body. With left-right, they do not.)

Here’s the thing, the big thing, in many ways the whole thing; the people making the movie did it without thinking. They never even considered the superior move of having the Man in Black start right and go left at the appropriate moment. If they had, I would have stood up and cheered.

Being Left-out

Recently I had coffee (well he was having coffee) with an artist friend of mine — a man of color, dreadlocks and huge smile. We were chatting about just stuff, and sword-fighting came up. Then I made a connection I hadn’t before.

I’ve known for ages that I live in a right-handed world. In college, I would use two of those fold-up desks attached to chairs — because the one in my seat was on the wrong side. I used the one in the next seat to the left. Handwriting is designed for right-handed people. They pull the pen across the page, I push, and smear the ink. It’s even in the language: dexterous, that we use to mean agile, means right-handed. Sinister means left-handed. Do you say right when you mean correct? My guess is that you’ve never thought of such things.

The reason I’m bringing this up now is that the left-right-hand thing has far fewer connotations than other examples of diversity, exclusion, and persecution. Less emotional baggage. People won’t get up in arms about it the way they might about women, or gays, or blacks. People won’t get angry or defensive.

Here I am, ignored and left out by the world (left-out, i.e. not right), called evil. And you never even knew. Never guessed or thought about it. Ten percent of the people in this country live in a world stacked against them and you don’t even know it. Don’t acknowledge their existence.

The thing is I grew up this way. From the first day I went to school I have lived with how the world treats left-handed people. Learning to write might have been the beginning. The problem is it became so normal that I just adjusted and didn’t really think about it. Having to use two desks was just the way life was. A little annoying, but nothing I could do anything about.

There’s another thing: you really have no idea what’s it like to be left-handed, what it feels like, how you would behave. That’s an important idea. Pay attention here. You do not know what it’s like to be left-handed. The buttons on my mouse are on the wrong side. In restaurants, I have to think about where I should sit, to make sure I’m not bumping elbows with the person next to me. I’m half ambidextrous (check out that word) because I have to be.

Have I convinced you that the world is stacked against left-handed people? You may be saying, “Oh, it’s not that bad.” Maybe so, but how many times have you been called sinister? Or left out? Or even just smeared the writing? If everything was switched, and we lived in left-handed world, you would find it strange and difficult.

Why am I bringing this up? I’m hoping it’s a lever, a way to get you to listen. Personally, I’ve found many of my assumptions shattered when I started hearing. It feels bad when your assumptions are shattered, your privilege exposed, but you have always assumed the world is just right-handed. That’s the way it is. And you’re right (see that word). However, that right-handed world causes problems for one person in ten. Are you okay that one person is left out?

I hope not.

Making a Connection

And that brings us to the real point; if one group of people, the left-handed ones, can be casually, systematically left out, then there can be others too. If you don’t think that one left-handed person should be left out, then it’s time to think about others that are left out, or hampered, or worse.

All the other groups who are now seeking diversity and representation did the same thing as I did growing up left-handed. They adjusted. They made do. Because that’s just the way it was, the way it still is. What has changed in recent years? The cost of speaking out has changed. Before, if someone told a racist joke or grabbed a woman’s ass, they couldn’t speak up. It would cost too much. There would have been too much of a backlash, so they gritted their teeth, held in the fury, and lived with it.

Don’t think this is true? How about we go back to the movies. A man I respect, Steven Barnes, wrote about being black and going to the movies. He told the story of a 1977 movie called Damnation Alley; two white men and a black man are travelling across the country in a post-apocalypse scenario. When the trio met a white woman, Steven immediately knew what would happen: the black man, played by Paul Winfield, was about to die. Sure enough, five minutes later he’s eaten by mutant cockroaches.

Steven knew about this screen-death the way I knew the Man in Black was really right handed. We’d seen it before. We understand how it works. To be clear, being left-handed in America is nowhere near as bad as being black. For one thing, no one can tell I’m left-handed just by looking. Even the movies are different; Inigo and the Man in Black both survive the film, even end up friends. Paul Winfield’s character dies.

One of the biggest things is this: the writers of Princess Bride most likely never considered making the Man in Black left-handed. They just thought it would be cool if the Man in Black was doing the same thing Inigo was doing. The same things is likely true of Damnation Alley; they just thought it would be dramatic and scary.

None of this has every occurred to you has it? One more: I have a raincoat, with a drawstring at the bottom so you can pull it tight and no water will splash up from the bottom. Pretty cool, right? (There’s that word again.) Do you know where they put the string to pull it tight is? On the right side.

Who Should Be Included?

Now, if you want to include that one person in ten who is left-handed, then it’s time to include all the others.

There’s another way to put it: we white men, especially us, need to recognize our privilege for what it is. It doesn’t mean our lives weren’t hard; it means that we had easier than others. You had it easier than me, because I’m left-handed, and you aren’t. You don’t think about seats at restaurants or fold-up desks in college classrooms.

If you didn’t recognize that the world is harder for left-handed people, then maybe you missed some other things too. Maybe other kinds of people might have had difficulties you and I didn’t recognize or understand — blacks and Hispanics, women, LGBTQ people, and more.

If you don’t want to exclude those people any more than the one in ten left-handed person, then listen. Sometimes it’s hard, we have to fight tribal instincts, years of subtle propaganda, and the things we learned as children. It’s worth fighting those tendencies because it changes our view of the world, who we are and who everyone else is.

At least learn to listen. To hear. Please.