Prejudices — Not As Bad As We May Think They Are
If you claim to have no prejudices, you are deluding yourself. Irrespective of your political leanings, your upbringing, your level of education, social status or your sexual orientation – you are prejudiced. And that’s OK – as long as you are in an environment which enables you to properly respond because exploring our prejudices is scary and painful.
Evolutionary psychologists think prejudices arose from adaptive psychological mechanisms that helped ancestors manage threats and opportunities for survival and reproduction. Hate is not innate but the tendency to think in terms of “us” vs. “them” is a normal human approach.
Out of Africa
I took a wrong turn in Mombasa harbor once. While that sounds like a great opening line for a novel, it was the moment I realized I was full of prejudices. This was in the mid-90s before anyone had really heard anything about unconscious bias, DEI and such things. There I was, suddenly facing a harbor dock, the only white guy surrounded by sub-Saharan Africans, a lot of them. My pulse started racing and so did my mind because it made me uncomfortable to realize I felt uncomfortable.
The easy explanation is I fell victim to unconscious bias against people who are not like me. But how was that possible? I was educated (three degrees and counting); I had a diverse set of friends; I had traveled all over – this was Africa for Pete’s sake; and let’s not forget I had married into a sub-continental family. Talk about culture shock for a white European. I had read all the right books. Feeling uncomfortable in the midst of a sea of Africans just wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did. It made me angry. Then came shame about my discomfort and for a long time, I did not talk about this incident.
The easy explanation is I fell victim to unconscious bias against people who are not like me. But how was that possible? I was educated (three degrees and counting); I had a diverse set of friends; I had traveled all over – this was Africa for Pete’s sake; and let’s not forget I had married into a sub-continental family. Talk about culture shock for a white European. I had read all the right books. Feeling uncomfortable in the midst of a sea of Africans just wasn’t supposed to happen. But it did. It made me angry. Then came shame about my discomfort and for a long time, I did not talk about this incident.
Make Harlem Black Again
Over the next decades, my wife and I moved around a lot. I am counting 21 addresses in 11 cities across five countries on three continents. That’s just including places where we actually lived and worked for a while. And guess what! Those prejudices don’t go away. For instance, during the 9/11 attacks I lived in Washington, DC and my office was just three blocks away from the White House. For a few hours it looked like the White House would be another target and we felt trapped. Wait and see what happens? Leave only to find out the roads were blocked?
A few days later I waited for my metro train and noticed a gentleman wearing shalwar-kameez, the traditional clothes predominantly worn by Muslim men in South Asia. My first thought was “Muslim”. It used to be “Pakistani” or it would have made me think of delicious South Asian desserts served by my in-laws, many of whom are Muslim by the way. And you can guess my next thought after “Muslim”. “Bombs”. That was new. A new prejudice generated by recent events.
And they tend to go both ways. As if to prove the point, I recently walked down Lenox Ave in Harlem where I live now only to run into an elderly African American gentleman who wore a hoodie with the slogan “Make Harlem Black Again”. There are days when I walk around the block and it is just like on that day in Mombasa harbor. The difference is I am not walking around a chaotic harbor in Africa. Rather, I am walking around a chaotic area I call my home. Do I still feel uncomfortable at times? You bet. Do I apply learned behavior to cope? Absolutely. There is one block I regularly walk eyes fixed on the ground, ears pricked. What I have also learned is prejudices are a normal psychological reaction to strangers. And you do not have to travel to distant places to be prejudiced.
A few days later I waited for my metro train and noticed a gentleman wearing shalwar-kameez, the traditional clothes predominantly worn by Muslim men in South Asia. My first thought was “Muslim”. It used to be “Pakistani” or it would have made me think of delicious South Asian desserts served by my in-laws, many of whom are Muslim by the way. And you can guess my next thought after “Muslim”. “Bombs”. That was new. A new prejudice generated by recent events.
And they tend to go both ways. As if to prove the point, I recently walked down Lenox Ave in Harlem where I live now only to run into an elderly African American gentleman who wore a hoodie with the slogan “Make Harlem Black Again”. There are days when I walk around the block and it is just like on that day in Mombasa harbor. The difference is I am not walking around a chaotic harbor in Africa. Rather, I am walking around a chaotic area I call my home. Do I still feel uncomfortable at times? You bet. Do I apply learned behavior to cope? Absolutely. There is one block I regularly walk eyes fixed on the ground, ears pricked. What I have also learned is prejudices are a normal psychological reaction to strangers. And you do not have to travel to distant places to be prejudiced.
Diversity Does Not (Naturally) Make for Friendship
Distance only adds complexity and layers to an accumulating list of factors causing prejudices. Historically, the people living in the village the next valley over have always been the lunatics. I am paraphrasing evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar[1] who developed the idea of “Seven Pillars of Friendships”, including:
- Shared language or dialect
- Geographic proximity or shared history
- Similar educational experiences
- Shared hobbies and interests
- Similar moral, spiritual, or political views
- Shared sense of humor
- Musical taste
Are You A Racist or Just Arrogant?
Having that same experience in Kenya’s biggest harbor simply added more layers affecting my reaction: color of skin, difference in language, foreign country. Now that I come to think of it, my experience in Hamburg’s harbor would only differ from Mombasa with regard to the harbor workers’ skin color. Having grown up in the Lower Rhineland, I really do speak a different language although linguists would only refer to it as a different dialect; and let’s face it, Germany’s North can feel like a different country for guys like me.
Therein lies the challenge. Our jumping to conclusions about anyone is rooted in the same human reaction which can lead to racism if we do not explore it further. The important difference is what we do once we become aware of our own thoughts and emotions. I recently read a book where one sentence triggered a long session of self-reflection. Here is the sentence: “[…] a series of encounters between European colonists and North American intellectuals.”[2] Half a paragraph later I realized my brain was still processing that sentence because “shouldn’t it have been European intellectuals and North American tribes”? I re-read that sentence about North American intellectuals and my entire image of 18th century North American history shifted as I dealt with another prejudice I had discovered.
Therein lies the beauty of prejudices because they reveal the limitations we impose on ourselves if we dare to examine them deeper. We can redirect our thinking to non-judgmental curiosity about ourselves and just as importantly to other people.
Therein lies the challenge. Our jumping to conclusions about anyone is rooted in the same human reaction which can lead to racism if we do not explore it further. The important difference is what we do once we become aware of our own thoughts and emotions. I recently read a book where one sentence triggered a long session of self-reflection. Here is the sentence: “[…] a series of encounters between European colonists and North American intellectuals.”[2] Half a paragraph later I realized my brain was still processing that sentence because “shouldn’t it have been European intellectuals and North American tribes”? I re-read that sentence about North American intellectuals and my entire image of 18th century North American history shifted as I dealt with another prejudice I had discovered.
Therein lies the beauty of prejudices because they reveal the limitations we impose on ourselves if we dare to examine them deeper. We can redirect our thinking to non-judgmental curiosity about ourselves and just as importantly to other people.
Accept You Are Prejudiced and Work With It
Just pushing away our discomfort will not allow us to accept a thought as prejudiced and then ask a question which may lead to a transformation. For example, what is the basis for my assumption? How can I be sure this information is even true? Why not ask the person myself and start a conversation? What would it take for me to feel brave enough to ask that question? How can I make sure the person I want to ask will feel safe when I do ask that question?
Trust and Safety
It does not take much for an environment to be diverse. Forget a global organization with teams from all over the world working at HQ. Remember the guys from the village the next valley over? I just had to leave my hometown in the Lower Rhineland for university in Westphalia to notice “diversity” — and to make fun of my German compatriots because they talked funny. There were different and in that case, they really ate horses.
To be able to explore how you feel as a new team member and how the team feels about you when you are different from them in whatever shape or form requires us to explore our prejudices. As a manager you have some levers to allow your team members to take a hard look at themselves and admit first and foremost to themselves their own prejudices against colleagues and behavioral patterns they notice. That in itself is uncomfortable enough.
On another level, you may have to think about how you will deal with colleagues who may realize they are prejudiced against you? Are you ready to have a meeting about prejudices where your team – even when well established – goes through the normal forming, storming, norming journey again because they become aware of prejudices? Are you as manager prepared to share uncomfortable truths about your own insights with your team?
A good coach is in a great position to prepare and guide your organization through a team building workshop where feeling uncomfortable won’t be unsafe. Such a workshop will make your team stronger not because they will never have any prejudices anymore but because they will be better placed to work through them improving their team and individual performance.
To be able to explore how you feel as a new team member and how the team feels about you when you are different from them in whatever shape or form requires us to explore our prejudices. As a manager you have some levers to allow your team members to take a hard look at themselves and admit first and foremost to themselves their own prejudices against colleagues and behavioral patterns they notice. That in itself is uncomfortable enough.
On another level, you may have to think about how you will deal with colleagues who may realize they are prejudiced against you? Are you ready to have a meeting about prejudices where your team – even when well established – goes through the normal forming, storming, norming journey again because they become aware of prejudices? Are you as manager prepared to share uncomfortable truths about your own insights with your team?
A good coach is in a great position to prepare and guide your organization through a team building workshop where feeling uncomfortable won’t be unsafe. Such a workshop will make your team stronger not because they will never have any prejudices anymore but because they will be better placed to work through them improving their team and individual performance.
posted by Peter at 7:31 PM
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