I’M BIASED AND SO ARE YOU

A lot of memories stick in my mind from the devastating summer of 2020. But one in particular was a response to an Instagram post of mine when someone I know implied that racism no longer exists and she--like many others-- is truly “color blind” and therefore treats everyone completely equally. The implication was that we were all getting riled up over something (structural racism) that isn’t even a problem anymore! People don’t even see race! And this is something she knows to be true because she doesn’t see it.

Except, everyone sees race. Because we are socially conditioned to. Race might be a social construct not based in science, but we are social animals who live in realities of our own making. And that reality is filled with all sorts of unavoidable bias and prejudice. Unless you grew up not interacting with a single other person--or the media—it is impossible to have made it to adulthood completely free of biased thinking. That part is a given. What’s malleable is how we choose to deal with it. Are we willing to confront our biases head on? Or, like the commenter, are we going to cause more harm by pretending they don’t exist?

Confronting one’s bias is uncomfortable work. No one likes to admit that they hold unseemly views or make snap judgments about other people based on things like race, gender, sexuality, disability, health, weight or socioeconomic status. It’s a lot easier to pretend that the world is actually a fair and equal place, and any inequalities are due to individual failings instead of systemic oppression based on those very biases it would be easier to ignore. But I think refusing to examine your inherent bias causes you to become the thing that you are so afraid of in the first place: a not very good person.

Our defense mechanisms are built around trying to protect us from thinking we are “bad” or “wrong.” That’s why you often see people do Olympic worthy mental gymnastics to avoid taking responsibility for their harmful actions or admit when they’ve made a mistake. It is too painful to go there. Their egos are too fragile to allow for any perceived imperfection. What is missing from this approach is the acceptance that we all make mistakes. We all have bias we have to contend with. That is our starting point, not a condemnation. To me, a moral and safe person isn’t someone who has never made a mistake or thought an unfavorable or problematic thing. Those people don’t actually exist. Instead, I try to surround myself with people who know they have fucked up, who know they need to actively uncondition themselves from false and faulty assumptions and are willing to do so even though that process will inevitably lead to self-judgment and discomfort.

The existence of self-judgment around our own bias is hard to avoid, but I hope it can be softened through the understanding that none of us asked to view the world this way. I don’t think any of us were toddlers who demanded to see the world with prejudice. “Good” kindergarteners didn’t reject it while “bad” five-year-olds sought it out. It was injected into us over time, often without us realizing it. But while we might have been ignorant of its implantation, we can no longer pretend it’s not there. There is too much research and behavioral science that prove bias and prejudice live in all of us. Pretending it doesn’t is what feeds it the most.

So how do we go about confronting it? The first step, like in many journeys, is to acknowledge it is there. To not lie to yourself and say that you are somehow better than everyone else around you. To let go of the idea that you are effectively immune from being human and think about the world completely unprejudiced. No one can say that. The next step, at least for me, was to try to locate my bias. Instead of thinking all of my thoughts unchallenged, I started to push back and ask, “Why do I think that?” or “Is it possible that’s not true?” This part can be even more painful than the general acknowledgement because you might be shocked to find out just how much of your thinking is based around bias and prejudice. You will start to feel your understanding of the world begin to shift in a way that might initially be disorienting. You might worry that you are somehow more biased or prejudiced than a regular person. But really what you are uncovering is the staggering amount our bias and prejudice have snuck their way into all aspects of our lives.

Learning to challenge our biases doesn’t make them automatically go away. Instead, it creates a new step in your thinking patterns. You get to decide how you want to proceed. Do you let the bias win out and influence your actions and behaviors? Or do you get better and better at diverting away from your initial thoughts, so the bias has less of an impact on your life and the lives of those around you? In the same way that I am dubious of anyone who claims to have never had any bias I am equally unconvinced by anyone who says they have successfully banished all of theirs after confronting it. This is the type of work that is never done. It might get easier or more instinctual with time, but it doesn’t go away. Therapists are told to check their bias not to expel it. Because the later can’t fully be done.

I am a few years into accepting my biases and I still have thoughts that surprise me. I could let that get me down or try to convince myself that my specific form of prejudice is actually based in fact or some other such nonsense. Instead, I try my best to hold myself accountable while also understanding why I am the way I am. Why we all are the way we are. And then I keep doing the work because, as an extremely privileged person, it is literally the least I can do.

xoxo,

Allison