I had the privilege of volunteering at a local soup kitchen with my mother and father last weekend. It was everything you would hope the experience to be. The folks who were running the program were aspirational in their dedication and passion, and, incredibly nice. The location happened to be lovely, and we satisfyingly helped prepare over 100 meals for folks in our direct community.
I talk a lot about giving back and having a sense of the people who share the same planet, and yet, there is something profound about letting that fact sink in. There are not just one hundred people who need a hot meal on a Sunday that live in my backyard. Not even close. But, this particular soup kitchen helps prepare a little over one hundred meals on weekly basis, with the understanding that while they are doing something, there is still so much left to be done. There are folks that won’t be able to avail themselves of that hot meal. There are so many others that aren’t even waiting on that line because they can’t, or because they aren’t even aware of this resource or opportunity.
I have to laugh, or cry, when calling it an opportunity.
Is it an opportunity? Maybe that’s just a middle-class woman using a word that’s unfair or inappropriate. Maybe I’m making assumptions. Maybe I think I am open-minded and caring and compassionate, but I carry with me unconscious biases just like everyone else.
I mean, I do. Right? We all do.
Maybe that’s the first place to start.
A friend of mine recently had to complete an assessment for work. The point of the assessment was to examine different parts of his personality as it relates to his ability to be a leader in his field and at his organization. He was fairly appalled when the results came in. Of course, he has something of an attitude generally when it comes to that kind of corporate mumbo jumbo. It wasn’t just that though. Not at all. There was something about the results themselves that got under his skin.
There were several sections that he took issue with, but the primary cause for outrage was the highlighting of his unconscious biases. How could he possibly have unconscious biases? He’s a liberal for goodness’ sake! He loves everyone. He welcomes everyone. He doesn’t think of himself as a racist or a sexist. He’s an equal opportunist. He works at every turn to master verbiage and polite society labels and pronouns.
Well, let’s start at the very bottom of this dark and deep pool, shall we? Do you know what an unconscious bias is? Well, it’s a social stereotype about certain people or groups of people that are formed by individuals outside of their own conscious awareness.
What are some examples? Well, you aren’t a racist, but you hold your purse a little closer to your person as a white woman when a black man passes you on the street or you make sure your doors are locked when you drive through a predominantly minority neighborhood.
You may believe that all genders are capable, but you find yourself asking a man to help you with more laborious tasks and you ask a woman for advice on something that relates to the home or child rearing (regardless on their experience with such things).
You respect our aging, and yet, you automatically assume that your elderly neighbor is technologically inept and maybe even a bit frail.
Strangely enough, unconscious or implicit bias will also encourage a friend or family member to suggest that I date a single male my age, regardless of who the person actually is and what traits he may have.
I can’t say that there are any unconscious bias that are harmless, but there are certainly those that are more benign and less apt to cause significant damage. That said, none of them are “good” and they all cause some sort of friction point.
I own that I have unconscious biases, some that I am able to call to mind if I work at it and many I’m sure I haven’t even begun to explore yet. There are bits and parts of me that have feelings about all sorts of things and individuals in the world that are only based on the spaces in my head and not on the reality of a thing.
I can also share that I want to do the work to identify them and explore them and maybe even shatter them. I don’t think I can get to zero, but I sure want to try. I’m not just saying that either, I really mean it.
So, how do I go about doing that? Well, when I have a feeling and I take a beat and identify that feeling as an unconscious bias, I can actually take a moment to ask myself why I feel the way that I do and if it serves me. Am I really unsafe? Is that person really incapable? Do I really know the reason why that person is in the circumstances they find themselves in? Do I even really understand that individual’s situation outside of what I’ve presumed it to be?
I spend more and more time looking at our broken system and trying to understand the fracture points. Why can’t we figure this out when we are all in this together? Why are we so apart when we should all be in this together? How are we so separate if we are supposed to be in this together?
Well, the first step is recognizing common ground and accepting that we all share the planet as humans. No one is less than because they’ve fallen on hard times or have been born into different circumstances or have made some not so great choices or have been plagued genetically or situationally with a brain or environment that does that really promote health and stability.
Are there bad eggs? Sure. Yes. Everywhere. They are people that aren’t so nice and who bring dark and twisty shit on themselves and sometimes, their loved ones.
That doesn’t mean that we should just give up on the good ones. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to try. Do you really want to continue with the kind of individualistic horseshit that says that we should refuse a good soul a hot meal when they have no other source of nutrition?
Come on now.
Really.
x
L.
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