Unconscious Bias

I wrote this blog post last year around this time. I have worked to recognize my own unconscious bias but I still have much to do. It isn’t enough to work silently. At a minimum, one needs to be an ally — better yet a partner in change.

June 1, 2020

Man. Just what we need, right? I mean, we already have this stupid virus cramping our style — and now we have to deal with riots and looting? Why can’t people understand that violence and destruction won’t change anything?

Real talk. It has been too easy for me to ask questions like this. I’m not saying that the question isn’t valid, but it’s not the right question for me — a white, privileged, employed, healthy, woman who lives in a safe neighborhood, has health insurance, and can walk in the park without being accused of threatening another person because of the color of my skin — to ask.

As I watched the events unfold in Atlanta on Friday, my emotions, like so many other people’s, went from pride to dismay as the sun dropped below the horizon. Early Facebook posts, Instagram posts, and news stories all celebrated the peaceful rally. “This is how Atlanta does it,” they said. “We have a history of peaceful protest,” they said. We were all so proud.

Then things changed. There are all sorts of theories about why: police who were too aggressive, rioters who were only intent on destruction, outside extremists working to further destabilize our country. I have no idea what happened. But I watched the destruction unfold through my white eyes and asked the question, “why can’t people understand that the violence and destruction won’t change anything?”

That evening, my daughter, Hannah, sent me a blog post titled Why Do They Riot? Rioting and the Overflow of Racial Trauma. I don’t know anything more about the author, Kyle J. Howard, than what is on his website, but his post hit me right in the center of my white privilege and white guilt.

“Generally speaking, white people tend to care more about the rioting itself than the overflow of trauma/pain that leads to such destruction… When black people have rioted, historically speaking, it has always been due to the overflow of trauma & the reactionary rage that occurs when a community has been squeezed too hard for too long.”

Howard goes on to say that “White America does not listen to the laments of Black people unless it’s forced to,” and that “power is rarely ever willfully relinquished.”

I was brought up in a household that was actively, vehemently, anti-racist. If I’m honest, I’ve always been kind of proud of myself in that regard. And yet…I know I am plagued with unconscious bias. Friday night, as I read Howard’s post, some of my biases were brought to the forefront — unconscious no more and insisting that I own them and face them head-on.

Let’s take a look back. “We were all so proud.”

What was I proud of, really? What did I even have a right to be proud of? Should the sentence have read, “We were all so proud of how peaceful our black people can be?” Ouch. Maybe. Maybe at least a teeny, teeny bit. And only for a nanosecond. But crap, even that is shameful. Unconscious bias brought to the forefront.

“Why can’t people understand that violence and destruction won’t change anything?”

Easy question for me to ask because I’ve never been suppressed, pulled out of a car and tazed for no reason, or followed in a store to make sure I’m not going to steal anything because of the color of my skin or the hoodie I’m wearing.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “…a riot is the language of the unheard.” Well, I’ve never been unheard. I haven’t lived in a pressure cooker my entire life — I have nothing to boil over. I don’t have any “overflow of pain/trauma” that would cause me to explode.

The question I should have asked is, “What can I do to help keep this from happening again.” Or maybe, “Why didn’t I do it sooner?”

I need to shut up and listen. I need to support and learn. I need to act.

I still have a lot of work to do. I didn’t know it, but I do. Honestly, I am ashamed of myself. I have many black and brown friends who I love dearly. I’m asking them to call me out when my unconscious bias is showing. Tell me how I can help and tell me when I am not helping. Be my cultural informant.

I realize that this post is all about me. But maybe some reader will recognize themselves in my struggle and start the hard process of admitting weakness and working to change.