Por Kathie Starkweather, ex empleada.
¿Somos parciales? La respuesta corta es sí, todos lo somos, nos guste o no. Nuestro cerebro clasifica a las personas según lo que hemos aprendido de nuestra familia, comunidad, televisión, redes sociales y otras fuentes.
Our brains, in part, function like a filing cabinet where we store “information” – accurate or not.
For example, when I was a kid, I was certain the only way ice water would be cold was if it was stirred with a fork. Yeah, I know, not rational. But my dad always stirred his ice water with a fork, so it had to be true.
We do the same thing with people. When we see anyone, we immediately, and nonconsciously, rely on what we “know” – true or not. We classify people by gender first, then race. And, we react based on the “information” we have learned – accurate or not (think of my fork “knowledge”).
We’ve all seen nonconscious bias play out. Two friends, a Native American and an African American, walk into a store to make a purchase and are followed by the clerk because the assumption is these two people will steal something. Or, we’ve seen a woman clutch her purse and move to the side of the elevator when a man of color enters.
We can change this though, by simply stopping to ask ourselves why we react this way. Have I ever had a conversation with this individual?
That one question – the why – will take you a long way in addressing your own bias toward gender and race.
This article is the first in a series of three on nonconsious bias in rural communities. The next article will focus on how bias in small towns presents itself and what we can do about it.
