Inherent Bias

I want to talk about implicit and systemic bias. My own.

I'm a small brown woman, a feminist, and a liberal.  I've appreciated the things I've read about Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.  I've loved reading her speeches and writing.

Yet, when I saw this video.....

When I actually *listened* to her speaking, I thought "She sounds so young, like a little girl"

The very pitch of her voice seemed to reduce her gravitas.
How she sounded distracted me from what she was actually saying.

If this is how *I* respond to someone I already appreciate, someone who I agree with on many points, can you imagine how an old white man would respond?

That is implicit, inherit, bias.  That's one thing that can lead to systemic bias.  If the very sound or sight of a person triggers you, how can you be thinking clearly about what they're actually saying or doing?

This is a reason that so many black and brown men are shot by police.  Why the justice system has a higher percentage of  black and brown bodies than their percentage in the general population.  If just seeing someone makes you feel afraid, aggressive, threatened, of course you're going to be more defensive around them.

It's not that most police are intentionally racist.  It's not that they want to treat people unequally. 
It's that they can't help their own reactions, anymore than I can help my reaction to AOC's voice.

We may never be able to not have these reactions.  It could be it's part of being human.

But here's something we can do.

We can notice it.  Notice how you react to people, especially when they're different from you and what you're used to.  Notice when they're in positions that seem unusual to you, a confident woman in power, a quiet man caring for a child, a black man in a white space.  We can be aware of this inherit bias. 

We can choose to openly acknowledge it.

We can choose not to act on it.

We can choose, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., to judge not based on color of skin (or pitch of voice), but on character.