Читать книгу Leading Equity - Sheldon L. Eakins - Страница 16

Whenever I conduct a training on bias, I like to do an activity with the audience. Let's try this! Grab a pen and paper and list at least six people you trust. These should be nonfamily members, so they can't be your brother or sister, mom, and dad. This activity is a lot better when you have more people, so if you can list more than six people, that is even better.

Your definition of trust might be, “If I give this person $5, I trust that they will give me my money back.” It might be that you'd trust this person to babysit your children.

Next, put a check next to everyone who is the same race as you. Then I want you to put a check next to everyone who is the same gender as you. Ditto for religion—not denominational religion like Baptist or Lutheran or whatever, but if you're both Christian or atheist or Jewish or Hindu or Sikh or Muslim. Next, I want you to put a check next to everyone who is similar in age. Now, put a check next to everyone who shares your political views. Finally, I want you to put a check next to anyone who shares the same sexual preference as you.

Now, I want you to look at your list. Do you have a lot of checks?

Yes? Okay, guess what? My circle of trust would be the same. I would have lots and lots and lots of checks. Although I live in Idaho, I would still have a lot of checks next to those who I trust. This is called affinity bias. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

We typically like to hang around or interact with people who are like minded and who are similar in age, race, and gender. We typically gravitate toward that. Married people tend to hang around other married people. Married people with kids tend to hang around with married people with kids. Single folks tend to do the same. It's not a bad thing to have an affinity bias. We gravitate to or are attracted to things or people who are very similar to us. We can have a conversation with someone who shares a lot of the same political views as us or who shares the same interests that we have—that's fine. But let's consider ways to connect with people outside of our social circles.