I met someone the other day who told me about how he tries to be more aware of his bias. This guy tries to not let his bias make him behave badly.
He told me a story of a bias he saw in himself. He remarked that despite his many years of social justice work, there it was: his bias, staring him in the face.
This guy’s attitude was light and airy. He said, “Of course I have bias. I try to see it and work on it.”
Bias is System I thinking, in Daniel Kahneman-speak. We’re all going to have it because we have human brains.
I think that there is a tendency for people to feel shame about their biased thoughts. Especially liberal people in privileged groups who want to be allies to the disadvantaged.
When people feel shame, they often hide the supposedly shameful thing. That’s what shame does — it promotes hiding. Or shame can cause us to deny that we had a biased thought or commited a biased action.
Shame can keep us from moving forward. It can be appropriate to feel guilt for behaving badly, but feeling guilt or shame about having an automatic thought that was culturally absorbed is not helpful. We didn’t choose to get born into a culture with tons of biases swimming about — ones based on age, race, gender, money, sexual orientation, weight, what have you…
We won’t ever be able to wash ourselves clean of bias. But we can see it, smile at it, talk about it, and realize that our bias is not the truth.
Thanks to my friend Nicole for a conversation that inspired this post.
danscreativeoulet 