The Real Reason Why Nobody Can Ever Just Get Along
“How Stereotypical Of You 🫵”
“Watch out, that man might try to rob you.”
“Why?”
“His skin is as dark as night and his pockets look vacant. Even a few crisp dollar bills brought within his vicinity are a death wish and a half.”
“Have you even met the guy? Do you even know anything about him to thunder out these bold allegations?”
“I know enough just from looking at him.”
But the thing is, you don’t. People don’t. And as much as society has tried to squander stereotypes over and over again, one sole factor has kept them planted in our membranes like a tree sprawling out its octopus-legged roots in a lawn of fresh soil. Enter: implicit bias.
To keep it brief, implicit bias is a type of subconscious bigotry in which people, using the media and their own personal experiences with the world around them, form biases regarding different groups and elements that can build up over time and stir directed responses which would normally be exempt from their behavior towards peers. Implicit bias severely restricts and segregates human relationships, and is one of the reasons why statistics like “blacks represented 13.2% of the total population in the United States, but 23.8% of the poverty population” exist today.
This past summer, it was evident that Europe was facing a few problems. France had its hands tied up with an onslaught of ongoing protests, and everyone was sending out warnings to protect your belongings in Italy as robbers were as scarce as oxygen in the air. Yet upon arriving there and traveling for three and a half weeks amidst scintillating heat and tourism, the locks, security storage, anticipation, and bodyguarding I had perpetually established proved to be starkly unnecessary, as not a single person had a care in the world for my valuables. So why did this stereotype originate in the first place?
One staggering reason for the existence of implicit bias within our populations lies in its ability to float under the radar and stow itself away in even the most subtle of pores on the skin of our day to day lives. For instance, in a video entitled “Peanut Butter, Jelly and Racism,” Dolly Chugh from New York University mentioned that whenever she heard the words “peanut butter”, her mind immediately associated them with the word “jelly” almost by default, and she didn’t even realize that these connections were being made in her mind due to how ingrained they had been since her childhood. Yet for other foreign nations or families that hadn’t had standard American dishes like the PB&J, this concept would seem distant and likely quite peculiar as their cultures have other associations with the two concepts(like peanut butter and ham or jelly and cheese). Thus, from this example and many more, it can be seen that these seemingly mindless and habitual connections are made in people’s minds over the course of their ;oves, molded by their experiences and so integrated like the beat of a heart or motion of breathing that they don’t even seem to notice them, yet they still rise to the surface in creating biases in the long term. This lack of formal recognition is one of the most important reasons why implicit bias is able to have such a lasting effect on society.
Another reason showcasing how implicit bias affects our lives comes from the fact the biases are only shown in certain motives of ours over others. In accordance with the video “Check Our Bias To Wreck Our Bias,” an anonymous male voiceover employee from the New York Times claimed that people were more likely to showcase their biases in the “pros” than the “cons” of another organization or entity. This means that, especially coupled with the fact that implicit bias is practically undetectable at anywhere but a subconscious level, you cannot actually tell by analyzing all of your tasks if you have a bias. For example, if you were to decide who to lay off at your company, the racial distribution of your victims might be suitably scattered, but as soon as it comes to hiring new people, you may shift to one race or another if qualifications are on par across the board. This makes it even more challenging for people to actually tell if they are having a bias because for most of their day to day lives, they aren’t explicitly exhibiting signs of racism, while implicit bias is indirectly playing a role and cutting short a lot of the potential that could have been.
So back to Italy. Why were such antagonistic impressions handed out laterally on the part of Italians? Well, similar to the PB&J case, many tourists were used to completely safe and crime-free traveling and living. So when even one bad experience or event went astray, say in the suburban parts of Florence or the streets of Naples, it sent a ripple effect and spread exaggerated news like wildfire, causing almost everyone in the world to panic. Coming from the safest city in America, Italy certainly was a step in the shadows for me, but when I simply changed my perspective as the employee from the New York Times mentioned, then the unanimously condemned thornbush started to unveil just a few roses to me and my fellow visitors. And that was all I needed.
“Okay, thanks for that lecture and all, now could you please pay for the drink that we just bought.”
“Oh shoot, where’s my wallet? I swear I brought it with me.”
“My god, don’t tell me someone stole it.”
“Um… Not to sound sheepish, but could you please pay this time? P-l-e-a-s-e-?”
“Sure… but would you look at that? This is why you should never discount a possibility just for the sake of remaining politically correct.”
“Okay, okay, duly noted. Now where were we? Ah yes, stereotypes. Stereotypes, stereotypes, stereotypes…”
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/pbs. “Implicit Bias: Peanut Butter, Jelly and Racism.” PBS.org, PBS.org, 10 Mar. 2017, www.pbs.org/video/pov-implicit-bias-peanut-butter-jelly-and-racism/.
“Check Our Bias to Wreck Our Bias.” The New York Times, 2019, www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000004818668/check-our-bias-to-wreck-our-bias.html.
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