Hidden Biases?

Once again, I’m venturing into some potentially dangerous waters! And yet, the pivotal times we are experiencing right now call us to take some stands, whether they be popular or not.

Today’s post is the result of my own soul-searching, and I thought it might be helpful for you all to take a peek into that process and see if there are any lessons for you as well.

Let me start with a bold statement. I believe every one of us has multiple biases/ prejudices/ stereotypes built into our sub-consciences.  My self-reflection revealed (although I suspected they were there…) that I do, indeed, have certain stereotypes that I wish weren’t there. Sorry, not revealing all of them here!

Let’s broaden this discussion to more than the racial issues the nation is struggling through right now. Be forewarned, many of the biases I’ll throw out pale in comparison to the racial divide that is front and center after the tragic death of George Floyd. So my intent is not to assign the same level of importance or criticality to them all. But to draw some parallels to the ways they infiltrate our psyches – and how we should deal with them.

How Can I Discriminate? Let Me Count the Ways.

Here’s a sampling of the myriad ways we can hold biases:

• Black vs. White
• Any Race vs. Any Other Race
• Men vs. Women
• Police vs. Non-Police
• Urban vs. Rural
• Higher Education vs. The Trades
• Married vs. Single/Widowed
• Married vs. Divorced
• Career Person vs. Stay at Home Dad/Mom
• Any Religion vs. Any Other Religion
• Old vs. Young
• Tall vs Short
• Fat vs. Skinny
• Rich vs. Poor
• High IQ vs. Low IQ
• Straight vs. Gay
• Democrats vs. Republicans
• English-speaking vs. Any Other Language
• Dog Lovers vs. Cat Lovers
• Cyclones vs. Hawkeyes (for you locals)
• Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes (more on this in a moment)

There are a zillion ways we can hold unkind stereotypes of people, often without realizing it. How does it happen?

I think the answer to that is as varied as the ways we can hold these biases. They can begin when we are young children and carry on until the day we die. And undergirding all of this is the fact that we live in a fallen, sinful world – and we all have a sin nature that we must struggle against.

How Did We Become Like This?

Here are some of the ways bias can be infused into our lives:

• Parental influence
• Other important adults in our early lives
• Peer pressure
• Images and events we see/hear/read about through TV, radio, and newspapers
• Social media
• Generational history
• Cultural influence
• Personal experience (good or bad) throughout our lives with someone “different”
• Religious teachings
• Desire for OUR characteristics to be superior to others

I’m sure this just scratches the surface, and the causes will be as unique as the individual. Putting people in categories based on these criteria and more can take some of the randomness out of our worlds – and help us make some sense of it. It informs how we interact with someone on the other side of the “vs.” from us.

While that doesn’t sound terrible on the surface, the result can be an intentional or unintentional birth of a stereotype. Here’s an oversimplified example to make my point: this Hawkeye fan is obnoxious; ergo ALL Hawkeye fans are obnoxious. (I love my Hawkeye friends. 😊) Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? And yet it’s insidious in its nature – creeping in when we least expect it.

What to Do About It?

After my own soul-searching, here are some of the steps I want to take.

• Acknowledge that I have built-in or experience-induced biases.
• Take an honest inventory of my attitudes about others and own up to them.
• Be VIGILANT when I interact with others – examine my heart and my actions.
• Strive to eliminate the biases that might be the most destructive.
• Look at every individual as…an INDIVIDUAL! No preconceived notions.
• Know that we are all made in the image of God. And give due respect.

I talk often about sorrow and joy co-existing in the life of the grieving person. I think we can draw a loose parallel in our bias discussion as well. Yes, the sad reality is that we all walk through this life with ugly biases of various sorts. The good news is that we can be intentional about how we balance that bias with kind and compassionate and open-minded interactions with others.

Back to the blue eyes vs. brown eyes “bias.” If you haven’t heard the story of the experiment this Iowa teacher ran back in 1968 after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, it’s worth a few extra minutes of your time. The story is POWERFUL. Read it here.

And finally, I know of no better illustration of what our world could look like without our biases than the closing scripture. One more thing that God makes right in the end is eliminating all those prejudices we’ve lived with on this side of heaven. What a glorious day that will be!

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number,

from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,

standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes,

with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice,

“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Revelation 7:9-10