Substitution: A spotlight on biases and prejudices

 

     There is a difference between direct, active biases and prejudices and indirect, passive biases and prejudices. The difference is largely one of being conscious of the situation. If you are aware that you have biases and prejudices and you take no action to eliminate, or reduce, them then you are actively encouraging them. Certainly, there are people and groups in this category.

     But there are many more situations of passive bias and prejudices. Being passive and indirect, and part of everyday life, these types of biases and prejudices become part of the general environment. It is necessary to recognize these situations and bring them to the conscious level in order to struggle against, and eliminate, them.

     How can this be done? One method that I suggest is that of substitution. This is another way of saying "walk in their shoes" but it is more of a general exercise than a specific example. No matter how much it might be desired, it is truly impossible to be part of the society, the history, and the world,  of another person. There is no way to live another's life.

     The best that we can do is to recognize that we treat others differently. In the case of substitution, we take a situation and "substitute" various factors to determine whether it changes the way we think about it.

     Changing the use of the word "mailman" to "postal carrier" was ridiculed. But, in the years since that change was made, we now have a large number of female postal carriers in addition to male postal carriers. The change of word did not matter but the change in thought did. Language directly affects the way we think.

     In other areas, if a person uses a pronoun for a position or job category, what happens if you substitute a different pronoun? If you are used to saying "he did a good job", how does it change the way you think about it if it is now "she did a good job"? Does the change in pronoun make you uncomfortable? Do you find it hard to visualize someone different in that role? Once upon a time, in the U.S., nurses were mostly men. Then they became female. Then we started to consciously make it a position for men and women. The same is true for secretaries (now, often, administrative assistants).

     Doctors, CEOs, department heads, directors, business owners -- substitute the pronoun used and see if you look at the position differently. Note that changing the title to a non-genderized form is not sufficient. CEO is not a gender specific word, but people do not sufficiently use "she" or "her" with the title. Since, in English, pronouns are what specifies gender, use of alternating genders is needed to retrain expectations. In other languages, the gender is often directly part of the title but not always.

     Substitution methods do not stop at pronouns, language, and gender. You see a group of young people doing something in a store or on a street. Change their skin color, or external religious symbolism, or the way they are clothed within your mind. If you make that change, do you react, or think about them, differently? If you find yourself reacting differently, you can notice it. Once consciously aware, it is a situation you can now address.

     This is not just a mind game. Studies have been performed showing photos of people in various normal activities and situations. The photos have people in the driver's seat of a car, shopping, walking in a high-priced neighborhood (or low-end neighborhood), talking with a teacher, and so forth. When the researchers kept all other factors the same and just changed one in the photos (it might be the way they are dressed or their skin color or external religious indication or whatever), there were significant differences in the way people described the people in the photos.

     Recently, the same tests were performed with police officers of several cities. In spite of being aware of the general subject of the tests, the description of the people in the photos differed dependent on skin color, gender, and other aspects.

     When job applications are stripped of identification markers, the pool of acceptable candidates change. Things such as names, addresses, specific affiliations are removed or substituted with generic items. The person reading the application cannot determine gender or ethnic or religious heritage. And it makes a difference.

     Photos, of course, make a considerable difference. Since face to face interaction is a large part of being able to perform most jobs, it is difficult to know just how this factor can be made generic within in-person job interviews. It is necessary to know how they speak, how they listen, their body language, and general conduct.

     Perhaps the best we can do, at present, is to keep the first levels of applications, which are not in person,  generic. Any suggestions?

Race: The Invented Divider

The definition of race is primarily that of running as the word comes from the Middle English word ras meaning "to rush". However, although it may be one of the lesser definitions of the word, if one talks about "race" -- without article or pronoun -- the definition that comes to mind is often that of a division of humanity into different groups.

This idea first came into being to separate groups based on observable physical traits in the 1600s and continued in increasing use, and refined definition, through the early 1800s. Although some of the scientists had neutral goals for the use of the division, it was primarily used as a method of justifying colonization and subjugation of one group over another. It is largely discredited as a useful methodology within science at the present time.

In the elementary school that my children attended, there were about 850 children. If you lined up the children according to skin pigmentation, you would have a long continually varying set of shades and colors from near alabaster to ebony. If you lined them up on a summer day, you would get a different ordering of people from that on a winter day. The same thing holds true for color of eyes, or hair, or width of nose. Each physical characteristic varies on a continuous stream -- although there are certainly areas of the world that are more homogenous (similar between individuals) than others. This is why it has been abandoned by science -- it makes no sense to have discrete classifications.

Just because race has no reasonable definition does not mean there is not racism -- bias and prejudice based on observable (or known familial) physical traits. Racism, sexism, religionism, and other bias/prejudice are forms of xenophobia (fear of "the other"). It has existed since the beginning of recorded history and most likely since the rise of consciousness. The only cure for the syndrome is knowledge -- understanding of "the other" such that the similarities become more obvious than the differences. During periods of antagonism and preparation for war, differences are accentuated (made to seem greater) by governments in order to inflame xenophobia and the inclination to distrust and fear.

Some people say that an ism can only take place by the group in greater power toward the group having less power. Thus, there can be no sexism by women having bias or prejudice about men and there can be no bias or prejudice by pigmentally enhanced people towards those who are pigmentally challenged. This makes as much sense as the original xenophobic reaction. If there exists bias or prejudice based on an observable (or known association with a group who DOES have such observable) physical traits then the relation of power makes no difference.

In summary, the best way to work with, and reduce, xenophobia in all of its forms is knowledge and understanding.