When unconscious bias isn't so unconscious anymore.
Unconscious bias effects our lives in so many ways: the people we gravitate toward or away from on public transport, the opportunities we offer to people, or don’t and the way we interact with others around us, perhaps smiling or avoiding eye contact. Thing about unconscious bias is that it happens without us being aware of it (the clue’s kinda in the name there…) Without intentionally looking for it you won’t see it.
On a recent trip to LA I realised I had an unconscious bias. I was leaving Union Station to catch a bus when someone walked past me and commented on the number of people lined up to get cabs. This person also mentioned they were taking the bus… the same bus that I was headed for. Rather than think, “Oh, that’s happy coincidence, they can help me find the bus stop” my thoughts went more like this “Oh my gosh, they overheard me asking for directions to the bus stop and now they are trying to engage me in conversation so they can steal my bags.”
— For context, I’d just got off a 15+ hour flight from Australia. I was visibly tired and not sure where I was going, I was also carrying luggage and clearly not able to run anywhere fast. (Ok, so part of me explaining that is to give you context, but another part is me still making excuses to myself…) —
Back to the story and, surprise, it turned out that this person just happened to be getting the same bus that I was headed for. They had no sinister motive at all. They had walked faster than me so they caught the bus that was just about to leave. I, along with all my bags, my unconscious bias and my suspicion, were purposely walking slowly so we could get the next bus.
I didn’t think too much about it until a few minutes later. I arrived at the bus stop and someone else arrived… someone of a similar appearance to the person who had made the comment about the people getting cabs. Rather than sit down to wait for the bus they were alternately leaning on the bus shelter and wondering around. Now I wasn’t sat down either, I was stood a little way from the bus shelter but in my head, in my view of the world, it was ok for me to stand up while I was waiting, it wasn’t ok for this other person to do the same….
We both got on the bus and after a while I noticed this person looking at me. I remember becoming really aware of where all my bags were and making sure I was holding onto them. I was also making up a story in my head (check out Dr Brene Brown for more on how and why we do that) that this person was going to wait until I got off the bus, get off immediately behind me and grab me. What actually happened was that a few stops before mine, this person stood up to get off the bus, looked me in the eye, smiled kindly and softly wished me a good day.
That was when the penny dropped. It dropped so hard it hit me hard in my heart. Unconscious bias. Oh eff-it! I felt awful, I wanted to run after this person and apologise for judging them.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t me. It was my unconscious bias!”
I’m pretty sure they had noticed my “Where are my bags?” behaviour and I thought about how they might feel if that’s the sort of reaction they experience often. I also thought about how experiencing that, repeatedly, over a period of time might impact them.
Realising you have an unconscious bias can be confronting and it was particularly confronting for me. I like to think I treat everyone fairly and that I don’t discriminate based on age, skin colour, country of origin, appearance or anything else. I grew up a multi-cultural area of the UK, I went to school and was friends with kids from all sorts of religions, cultural backgrounds, kids who spoke different languages, ate different food and whose belief systems were different to mine. Learning that I had an unconscious bias, and realising that I wasn’t treating everyone as fairly as I thought did was, quite frankly, a bit of a slap in the face.
We rarely enjoy finding out things about ourselves that challenge our self-view but it’s only by diving into those shadows and shining a light that we can we start to make the unconscious conscious and, from there, start to change.
Unconscious bias stems from making assumptions about people. One way to reduce your unconscious bias is to learn more, to look for examples where the group you may be biased against are reflected in a way that contrasts with your bias. Sometimes we shy away from the unknown so looking for opportunities to be around different people, and maybe even have a conversation, can help widen our perspectives — it certainly did mine.
[First shared on Medium, 27th May 2020]
