KidLit Crossing

9 Inspiring Speakers Reveal Our Hidden Biases

9 Inspiring Speakers Reveal Our Hidden Biases

Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Gay Pride and other civil rights movements, continue to beg the question: Are you part of the problem or part of the solution? So I turned to TED talks for answers.

Nine inspiring speakers reveal our hidden biases—why they go unchecked, how they harm, and ways we can do better.  

Without exception, everyone is biased. We have biases about race, religion, gender, sexuality and more. We might profess to feel one way but react otherwise.

Do these sound familiar? Africans are poor. All Asians love martial arts. Jewish mothers are overbearing. White men can’t dance. Gay guys are the best dressers. 

Did you agree, feel defensive or get annoyed? We’ve all absorbed stereotypes, but failing to challenge them runs a risk. A kernel of truth or a full-on falsehood can unconsciously influence our decisions, prompt assumptions about groups we don’t know, and steer expectations of others and ourselves. 

A Little Clueless?

Canwen Xu

College student Canwen Xu puts us in her shoes in this eye-opening TEDx talk, “I am not your Asian Stereotype,” At the age of two, Xu moved with her family from China to North Dakota, a place with little racial diversity. In grade school, she saw just two options: “Conform to the stereotype that was expected of me or conform to the whiteness that surrounded me. There was no in between.”

The majority of people she met were a little bit clueless, says Xu. “Not racist can sound like, I’m white and you’re not. Racist can sound like, I’m white, you’re not, and that makes me better than you. But clueless sounds like, I’m white, you’re not, and I don’t know how to deal with that.”

And clueless people ask annoying questions: You’re Chinese? Oh my goodness, I have a Chinese friend. Do you know him? To which Xu wanted to say, ” No, I don’t know him because contrary to your unrealistic expectations, I do not know every single one of the 1.35 billion Chinese people who live on planet Earth.”

Over time, Xu distanced herself from Asian stereotypes. But as she became more Americanized, white became her norm. Only years later did she realize that her fourteen year-old self had created “the perfect little mainstream white family” in a Sims video game. “Never once did I think to myself that I could actually make the characters look like me.”

Xu calls Asian Americans the model minority, and asserts, “Society uses our success to pit us against other people of color as justification that racism doesn’t exist…we aren’t quite similar enough to be accepted, but we aren’t different enough to be loathed…So they group us by the color of our skin. They tell us that we must reject our own heritages so we could fit in with the crowd.” 

Hidden Bias and the Brain

Valerie Alexander / 9 Inspiring Speakers Expose Our Hidden Biases / KidLit Crossing
Valerie Alexander

Tech firm CEO Valerie Alexander tells us, “the biggest stumbling block to achieving true equality is unexamined behavior” in the captivating TEDx talk, “How to Outsmart Your Own Unconscious Bias.” Alexander contends, we think we treat people equally when we don’t. We support certain concepts but resist it in reality. And it begins inside the brain.

When faced with something “fundamentally unexpected,” says Alexander, the amygdala, which helps to process fear and emotion, activates the release of stress hormones. “This instantaneous instinctive response triggers fight-or-flight” a reflex that keeps us alive but doesn’t leave time for debate.  

Alexander believes we can consciously change the unexpected into the expected by:

  1. Visualizing differently: Imagine other possibilities before you enter a place: a gay couple in the pediatrician’s office, a female CEO in the boardroom, a black pilot on the plane. 
  2. Examining your behavior: Ask if you’d handle an interaction in the same way if the person looked like you. 
  3. Normalizing the unexpected. Hire employees, patronize businesses, and vote for candidates that are worthy but challenge the norm.

“When we stop and examine our own behavior, we can catch ourselves having different reactions to and expectations of people simply because they don’t look like us…or worse because they do.”

Stereotype Threat

Russell McClain

Dean Russell McClain holds a cereal box in his thought-provoking TEDx talk, “Implicit Bias, Stereotype Threat and Higher Ed.” Of the many cartoons on the back, only one character is black, and he’s looking pretty shifty. On the fly, he explained why the illustration wasn’t fair to his daughters.  

We’re surrounded by stereotypes. “We see them in the news, in the movies, on TV,” says McClain. “They’re on the Internet, in video games, and they’re even on the backs of a cereal boxes.” These repeat images infiltrate our brains.

“In our society, we tend to view black as bad and white as good. We tend to see people of color as violent. We tend to see women in liberal arts careers but not math and science. We tend to form negative associations with people who are overweight, people of non-dominant religions and people of different sexuality and gender type than our heterosexual cisgender norm.”

McClain cites several research studies where “stereotype threat,” just mentioning a negative stereotype about the group before a test, impacted their performance. Fretting about confirming that negative prediction caused individuals to perform below potential.

Conversely, spinning expectations to the positive did the opposite. The theory of “growth mindset” says a person can set things straight, learn from mistakes, and will become more capable over time.

McClain says if we foster a growth mindset, we can prevent negative stereotypes from clouding our pre-judgement of others. And if we cultivate it in our kids, co-workers, employees, and students, “perhaps they can achieve their full potential because it’s hard sometimes being in the minority. It’s hard sometimes feeling like I’m the only black person in the room and whatever I say reflects not only on me but on my whole race.”

Implicit Bias Defined

Dushaw Hockett

Consultant Dushaw Hockett suggests a prevention approach to acts of prejudice in his informative TEDx talk, “We all have implicit biases – So what can we do about it?” Hockett makes this case: “The way we currently think about, talk about, and act on issues of racial bias and other lines of difference in this country is woefully inadequate and it’s incomplete.” But he feels we can reach a “radically different place” by attending to our implicit biases. 

“A bias is a preference for or a prejudice against a person or a group of people,” explains Hockett. Three characteristics make implicit:

  1. “Implicit biases operate on the subconscious level…we don’t know that we have them.” 
  2. “Implicit biases oftentimes run contrary to our conscious stated beliefs about who we are as human beings and what our values are.”
  3. “Implicit biases are triggered by rapid and automatic mental associations that we make between people, ideas and objects.”

These assessments can shape behaviors that are harmful to others and touchy to talk about. By focusing on the subconscious nature of our biases, Hockett believes we can lessen the shame and shaming tied to such discussions. An implicit bias approach shifts the conversation from: “Are you racist or not racist? Are you sexist or not sexist” to “How do we align our actions and behaviors with our consciously held egalitarian beliefs?”

Push Through Bias! 

Melanie Funchess

Mental health facilitator Melanie Funchess recalls how a medical team could have killed her husband in the rousing TEDx Talk, “Implicit Bias—how it affects us and how we push through,” Contrary to the history and lab results, the staff continued to test for HIV, until Funchess demanded they look for white people diseases in her black husband. They did, and he lived. “The implicit bias within these doctors said how much value they did and didn’t place on the information they received from the patient and his wife.”

Funchess shares a second scenario. Her daughter insisted that her math was right, while her teacher insisted her math was wrong—even when shown the calculator. Here’s why. “When faced with something that all her biases told her were impossible—could not possibly be—[the teacher] reacted from such a primal place to protect that worldview she held sacred till that time.”

We all have implicit biases, “even people with a vowed commitment to impartiality,” Funchess points out. She pushes us to question our impulsive reactions, to use privilege to create equity, and to engage with groups where not everyone’s the same.

What’s Normal Anyway?

Safwat Saleem /  9 Inspiring Speakers Reveal Our Hidden Biases / KidLit Crossing
Safwat Saleem

Visual artist Safwat Saleem speaks of using his own voice in his animated firms till YouTube commenters ridiculed his Pakistani accent in the entertaining TEDx talk, “Why I Keep Speaking Up When People Mock My Accent.” Then Saleem asks the question: “What is normal anyway?” 

“We know reviewers will find spelling errors in your writing if they think you’re black. We know that professors are less likely to help female or minority students. And we know that resumes with white sounding names get more callbacks than resumes with black sounding names. Why is that? Because of expectations of what is normal.”

Saleem explains why such behaviors may not be ill intended.  “Studies also show that discrimination of this kind in most cases is simply favoritism and results more from wanting to help people you can relate to than the desire to harm people that you can’t relate to.”

Who we relate to begins in early childhood. “In 2014 only about 11% of children’s books had a character of color…though half of American children come from minority backgrounds.” And Saleem breaks down the fallout. Kids of color are told that they can be anything but don’t see themselves in the books they read. And majority groups don’t get to see how they are similar to minorities: “Our everyday experiences, our hopes, our dreams, our fears and our mutual love for hummus. It’s delicious!”

“Normal is simply a construction of what we’ve been exposed to and how visible it is around us.” 

[See the 2019 diversity statistics from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center ]

The Cost of Homophobia

Eli Weinger

High school student Eli Weinger presents three staggering statistics about LGBTQ people in America in this impressive TEDxYouth talk, “Heteronormativity – Today’s Homophobia.”

  1. “Almost 1 in 10 young people are LGBTQ, but…we still raise our kids to believe that heterosexuality is the norm.” 
  2. “25% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer youth attempted suicide in the past year alone, more than four times more likely than their heterosexual peers.”
  3. “35% of these lesbian gay and bisexual students had planned a suicide in the past year.”

Weinger contends the most widespread discrimination against non-heterosexuals in our society is the collective act of omission. Our movies, books and magazines portray heterosexual romance. And everyone assumes you’re straight without even asking. 

To change this culture of heteronormativity, Weinger recommends that we use inclusive terminology, support inclusive shows, resist predetermined expectations, and educate our children. “No one should feel so hopeless that they want to die. WE can do better.”

Our Default Biases

Vernā Myers

Diversity advocate Vernā Myers asks us to acknowledge our “default biases” and to revise our thinking about black men in her impassioned TEDx talk, “How to Overcome Our Biases? Walk Boldly Towards Them.”

Meyers recounts a horror story and urges us to change the narrative. “Ferguson, Missouri, Michael Brown, 18-year-old black man, unarmed, shot by a white police officer, laid on the ground dead, blood running for four hours… this violence, this brutality against black men has been going on for centuries. I mean, it’s the same story. It’s just different names.”

Stereotyping and bias is within all of us, but if we are willing to do the work, Meyers believes we can be agents for change:

  1. Denial: Accept the fact that we all lean on biases we don’t know we have. “Stop trying to be good people. We need real people.”
  2. Expand your Circle: Move toward groups that are different from you. “It’s not about perfection. It’s about connection.”  
  3. Speak Up: Is Grandma a bigot? Muster the courage to challenge that talk. “Don’t shelter your children from the ugliness of racism when black people don’t have that luxury.” 

Many Stories Matter

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

And finally the Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In her legendary TED talk, “The Danger of the Single Story”,Adichie dismantles the stereotype of one place-one story and eloquently demonstrates why many stories matter.

At the age seven, Adichie was writing stories that mirrored the foreign books she was first raised on. The characters were white, loved the snow, and ate apples…though her friends and family were black, enjoyed the sun, and ate mangoes.    

When Adichie left Nigeria to study in a U.S. university, her roommate was baffled by her flawless English, love of Mariah Carey, and ability to operate a stove. “Her default position toward me, as an African,” says Adichie, “was a kind of patronizing, well-meaning pity. My roommate had a single story of Africa: a single story of catastrophe…there was no possibility of Africans being similar to her in any way, no possibility of feelings more complex than pity, no possibility of a connection as human equals.” 

By sharing narrow assumptions of her own, she further aligns her listeners. When she visited the poor village of her housekeeper, Adichie was startled by the intricate crafts they made. “All I had heard about them was how poor they were, so it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them. Later on, during a stay in Guadalajara, she was surprised by the vitality of the people: “going to work, rolling up tortillas in the marketplace, smoking, laughing.” Adichie had bought into the single story about Mexicans repeated in the media—the abject immigrant. 

“The single story creates stereotypes,” says Adichie. “And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

9 Inspiring Speakers Expose Our Hidden Biases / KidLit Crossing

Read about TED conferences and TEDx events.

*Vector Images by Open Clipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Join the discussion by leaving a comment!

Comments

  • Tom F
    August 5, 2020

    Awesome article Teri. A must read for everyone. So beneficial in the world we live in. Thanks.

  • Steve Daniels
    August 6, 2020

    So many wonderful insights in these talks. Challenging my biases has helped open me to so many new experiences and perspectives. Thank you!

  • August 9, 2020

    Such an important topic. We must all challenge ourselves and those around us. It’s important to really listen to ourselves when we speak/write and think about potential interpretations of what we have to say. Are we inclusive? Are we presenting old ideas, ones we were brought up in, or what we truly believe? And we must also call out what we hear from others. Brilliant.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.