Where Do We Start?
Like most of the world this week, I have been wrestling with my own battle with racism. If we are really honest with ourselves, we all have racist’s thoughts. We have all minimized groups of people. We have drawn lines, dividing us against them. We have developed our own implicit biases, creating blind spots in how we interact with the world. If we are going to change the world, we must start with ourselves. So, where should we start?
A major place to begin is to understand some underlying factors about the way we think. Several books and articles I have read recently point out one important concept to comprehend: the fundamental attribution error. From the SimplyPsychology’s website, FAE is defined this way:
The fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or over-attribution effect) is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional, or personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing situational explanations.
In other words, people have a cognitive bias to assume that a person's actions depend on what "kind" of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces that influence the person.
Here is a simple example that might reveal FAE a little better. Your favorite sports team is playing their biggest rival. The game is fierce. There are multiple fouls or penalties called throughout the battle. It is “certainly obvious” that the rival team is taking cheap shots, playing dirty, and fundamentally a “bad” program. On the other hand, your team is just playing hard and tenaciously. They are just responding to the aggressiveness of the other team. They are a “good” team that occasionally gets caught up in the heat of the moment.
The fundamental attribution error has been playing out all across our nation these past few days. For us to move forward in breaking down barriers and bridging the gaps, we have to acknowledge that none of us thinks and reacts appropriately all the time. We all make mistakes, many of which are substantial. Did we personally falter because we are inherently “bad” or “broken”? Most of us would answer, “No!” When it comes to our own failures or those people who are “like us”, we can create multiple reasons and conditions that explain our behaviors. Yet, we are quick to judge and condemn others by another standard when “they” are on the other side of our defined lines. When we proclaim that their actions derive from “the way they are”, we create a wall that diminishes our common humanity. We must see that every human being is one of us and deserves to be seen through the same lens as we see ourselves.
It must be said that when individuals commit grievous actions, they must be held accountable for their behavior. Likewise, we need to dismantle systemic policies and procedures in place that have perpetuated minimization of groups of people. We must be vigilant to establish fairness, equity, and justice for all individuals. For us to do this, though, we have to look in the mirror and truly embrace that we are all responsible for the way we think and act. When we can expose our own cognitive distortions, our own underlying prejudices, and our own blind spots, we enable ourselves to come to the table with an open mind and heart to do the work that is required for us to truly address the issues at hand.