As I had mentioned previously in my first post - The beginning, we have different areas of target. The first area we are concentrating on is Self & Others (Self-Awareness & Relationships). As a part of that we had "homework" where we had to pick two from a total of 10 topics - one from Self Awareness, one from Diversity - and respond to them with our thoughts.
Here are my thoughts - as lame as they are.
Self & Others—Self Awareness
“Perception is the world we live in”. What does this mean? Do any two people live in the same world? If not, what separates them?
I love this topic because it's something that continually fascinates me. There is a theory some believe that we all create our own, very close, parallel universes and when we die everyone we know in our universe dies with us. Another version of us (we hope) and the people we know (they hope) live on in their own universe as well as others, but our version is gone.
I often think about how my reality is contained in my own bubble. When I drive down the street, I have no idea who is in the car next to me. They are in their own bubble of reality. They have their own thoughts, fears, desires, family, work, cravings, hates, likes, worries; everything that makes their own world. The people who are close to me will have their bubbles intertwine with mine, but we still do not fully mix. They see the world through their own eyes. Everyone has their own experiences that have shaped them to perceive things in their own way. My husband and I may see the same event but come back with two completely different takes on it because of our angle and perception.
I think what separates us is our minds. We have only a limited ability to fully communicate the vastness of how our minds work. Perhaps if we were able to live 100% inside the mind and thoughts of each other then we'd have the ability to meld worlds. But that wouldn't be nearly as interesting.
Self & Others—Diversity
Is bias innate (something we’re born with) or is it learned/acquired? Or is it both? If so, to what extent?
In 1968, the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, in Iowa Jane Elliott started an exercise with her third grade class to help them understand what it's like to be discriminated against. She separated the children into blue-eyed and dark-eyed groups. On day one the blue-eyed children received special treatment while the dark-eyed group were treated as inferior. The blues were bossy, teased and treated the other children poorly during the day. On day 2, the roles were reversed. While the dark eyed children were still mean to the blues, they were not nearly as cruel, according to Elliott. When the exercise was over the children were said to have learned "how discrimination feels" and all wrote letters to Coretta Scott King (Dr. King's widow).
I bring this up because prior to the exercise, the children had had no experience with discrimination. They had lived in town with no true experience with any person of color. Any bias they held towards groups of people who were different than them was not based off any experience but a learned behavior taught by others around them.
I believe and have seen for myself if you take two young children or babies of different skin colors or physical/mental abilities and let them play together, they will hold no bias against each other. It's only as they grow older and are taught to hate that they will "learn" they cannot be friends.
It's easy to fall into that bias-trap of seeing others as "different" and something to be feared, laughed at or discriminated against. Society makes it culturally acceptable to hate certain groups of people that are different. Take our current hated group: Muslims. But it's not just a learned behavior.
The question is, "is bias innate or is it learned/acquired". I think I've established how I believe it's learned. But the real question should be, why is it learned? Why does it happen in the first place? I believe that's because the core of the issue is we all have an innate bias to stick with others that are like us.
When our ancestors were all broken up in their own tribes, there was a danger in allowing "strangers" in. They could bring disease, death or war. They could also be there to steal your family, food and shelter from you. Anyone who looked different or was unknown would likely have been the enemy. That innate bias lives on in us even though we've grown beyond that and have mixed our tribes. We all, even if we don’t discriminate, have to fight that. I know that I have had to stop myself from thinking stereotypical thoughts about people I've just met before and have been glad for it.
Why wouldn't a small child from above care about the "different" child? My hypothesis is a baby or small child needs to survive and so will allow anyone who cares about them to take that responsibility. But as you grow older you can fend for yourself and that's when the tribe mentality kicks in.
Thankfully we can ALL overcome it. Yes, even people who are engulfed in hate. It would take a lot more than a small blue-eyed/dark-eyed exercise to teach them, but it can be done. It is mostly learned afterall. Even our ancestors had to get along when it suited them.
No comments:
Post a Comment