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| Diversity Mask from Spiva |
Quite a few
things have come up in the past few weeks and months that have pulled my
attention back, again and again, to subtle and not so subtle examples of
discrimination in the workplace and in life.
With all that’s
going on in the US - in recent times especially easy to watch because of the
internet - the issue of white racism against blacks and Latin against blacks
and white against anyone non-white and Trump against anyone with an IQ over 40 …
well, it is not hard to see that discrimination is alive, well and kicking
serious ass in the US. The UK and many other nations are not so far behind when
it comes to the BIG issues of discrimination.
But that’s not what today’s post
is about. I’d like to take a look at the
more insidious, less famous kind…the kind you often don’t notice until a few
minutes past it happening…the kind that rarely makes the news but as it leaches
possibilities out of our lives, immensely impacts us all.
This kind of
discrimination takes many forms – it’s sometimes race based, sometimes accent
based, sometimes clothing based, sometimes geographically based, sometimes
looks based, sex based, newbie based, age based, faith based, makeup, too many
smiles, too few smiles, voice, mannerisms, shoes, hairstyle, car, no car….you
name it. Sure, some are more prevalent than others – race, sex, faith, appearance
being the biggest I think, but it’s not the tripping factor of discrimination that
interests me so much as the fact that it exists and what it does to our lives
and our potential.
Why do we so
often assume negative things about people? Judging potential not by examining
facts, but by an assumption that is based for instance, not on what is being
said, but some other characteristic of the speaker? Or even what will be said.
So many people
do it – you recognize something that you associate with being an inferior trait
– messy hair, darker skin, female, casual clothes…and your mind applies that
negative feeling to everything else that person does or says. Think about when
you’ve noticed a small shift in posture and an almost imperceptible change in
facial expression that comes across a person’s face. How often have you seen
that? A subtle, somewhat blank, ‘patient’ expression, or the slightly raised
eyebrows, just a little, and widened eyes that seems to say with an almost
imperceptible sneer, “Really, you think you are worth my time?”
I’m sure, if
you are sensitive to it, you’ve noticed people doing thing. And if you think
about it, you may find you also do this now and again…I suspect most of us do.
I’d like to say I don’t because I really was brought up to ‘give the benefit of
the doubt’ but my parents had their biases and they passed them on to us, as
did our teachers, friends, colleagues…so I know I am not free of this
shortcoming.
What is going
on here really and why? Judging value based on a measure that usually has
nothing to do with the ability of the person to contribute.
Yes, in some
cases, pre-judgements may be based on the person previously having said or done
something that was below par, but why is it that we often then let that
flourish and grow while we lose our ability to give benefit of the doubt and
perhaps act on an alternate assumption, for instance, that the person does have
worthwhile contributions but perhaps is nervous or just finding it hard to
articulate?
Think how much
you have learnt in life from the mistakes you’ve made (Hopefully!J) …why are we so hard on mistakes other’s
make?
“You don't
learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” Richard
Branson
Why is it then,
when we look at other people, that we so often default to locking down our ability
to hear and to process facts; lock out our faculties of genuine reasoning in
favour of our faculties to embrace negative bias?
I have heard so
many varied people talk about how society will judge you by the norms, so if
you are outside the norms, expect people to judge you for that. But really? Is
this the limit of humanity’s mental and empathetic capacity? Is this all we are
capable of?
Wasted
Potential
Just stop to
think of the wasted human potential of people with something to contribute
being shut off and cut off based on a trivial prejudice or a minor, or major,
previous stumble.
Just stop to
think how many times this has happened to you.
Just stop and
think how many times you have done this to someone else.
Why do we need
this layer of self-protection? What is it that we really are afraid of? Do we
actually have anything to lose by embracing people who have different ways or
appearances to us? We don’t have to be best friends, but why not entertain that
there may be more to gain from actively seeking to assist someone else to show
their potential; make their contribution than there is to writing them off
because of a trait that most often has nothing to do with the issue at hand?
Prejudices
It isn’t
anything about people who are less capable of contributing. It’s about our
prejudices and how they limit ourselves and by extension, limit our world. Limit
OUR world - not just that of the person we’re being prejudiced against. Think
about it for a moment. Think about how often you know your contribution would
have made things better if only people could have understood / listened / seen…not
pre-judged you.
Think about how
often you have let prejudice in when someone is trying to contribute. Why not
assume they, like you, may have had something really worthwhile to bring to the
table. Think about what you may have lost in that process.
And by ‘prejudices’
I mean all our ‘societal norms’; the many, seemingly innocuous, things we are
taught to judge people by that really are imperfect measures at best and
downright damaging at worst.
“First
impressions count”
Yes, indeed they do, but often they are counted so many times over instead of
being counted accurately, just once for their true - limited - value.
“Don’t judge
a book by its cover”
We are all taught this wonderful saying, but then we are taught in so many
ways, shapes and forms, to ignore this lovely simple core truth and judge cover
after cover after cover. Just think what we lose.
“Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you” We can’t change how others do things,
not directly. But we can change what we do. We can change our habit of judging
people by misleading measures; we can choose to listen and hear and to assume
value is there to be uncovered and so choose to be an agent of discovery rather
than an agent of oppression. Just think what you would prefer in every
situation you have been wrongly judged: Do that unto others and see if there is
not more than enough to go round if we just stop killing off each other’s
potential. See if life does not become better, fuller, and more successful…
Worth a try,
isn’t it? What do you think?
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