Talking with teens and tweens about implicit biases and Allyship. Parents this is for you too!
Kayla Reed: https://actionstl.org/the-team twitter handle: @ikaylareed
https://guidetoallyship.com/
Talking with teens part 2. Implicit bias and allyship
Hi Everyone, Welcome back to Awkwardness and Grace. I don’t know about you but in the last four years there have been a few things to keep me awake at night. I am not a fan of uncertainty but I also know on an intellectual level everything is uncertain. When things are really uncertain I feel out of control. So today we are going to talk about things we can have a little bit more control over. One of those things is talking to teens and yourself about implicit bias and allyship.
In the previous episode “Talking with Teens” I touched on stereotypes. Stereotypes are very similar to implicit biases except they tend to be more publicly expressed for example: You may have heard Asians are good at math. Or that Americans like baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. Or is it lemonade? I think I like lemonade:) Whereas implicit biases are more in the arena of unconscious perceptions which means we are not aware of them. Everyone has implicit biases and they are pervasive and unavoidable. If we all have implicit biases then how did they get into our minds and we didn’t even know it? Are they some alien force brainwashing us???
Well they are formed over time and are derived either directly or indirectly from family, media, friends or society and you are influenced by them from the minute you are born. As a baby your senses are honing into your new outer world. The most consistent people in your immediate environment are your first influencers of implicit biases. Their faces, smells, sounds and feel are imprinting into your brain and these imprints make you biased towards people that resemble them. As a new born you are not consciously thinking “Oh, these are my family and so I will only like people that look like them.” No, these biases are happening on a deep subconscious level. Your experiences, whether positive or negative, shape your biases and therefore, how you interact with the world. Sometimes having these biases can be a protective measure like when you were two and a dog barked aggressively at you and you fled to the safety of your parents legs. This can leave you with a negative bias towards dogs. But what about when you get older. You find you have a reaction or discomfort when a dog barks at you even though it is clear the dog seems friendly. You have to examine the discomfort and assess the truth of the situation.
This holds true also if you have biases that are in conflict with your outwardly declared beliefs. For example I may say that I am not racist but will lock my car door if I see a black man walking down the street. My implicit bias is that I'm racist because I think I need to protect myself from an assumed threat.
Don’t worry, We can change our biases but it takes very intentional conscious action to override them. Another words it takes daily work to undo what we have been storing in our brains since birth. You are not alone, groups can be biased too .
Today I will be focusing on racial implicit biases.
Visualize a picture of a white man with the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up over his head and slouchy jeans and we think he looks cool and hip. We think maybe he’s a skateboarder, a singer in a band or simply cold. Now picture a black man dressed the same exact way. Do you assume the same thing? I am not so sure. Some would assume he is a criminal. Maybe a rapper or maybe he is cold. I have seen many pictures that have sent the message that the black man dressed this way is someone I should fear. My son is more than aware of implicit biases. He won’t wear the hood of his sweatshirt on his head. Unless he is sure he is in a safe space to do so.
So we now know biases are part of normal human cognition but how do we undo the biases?
First we need to be aware of our biases. I mentioned the men in hoodies. Take a moment to think of other thoughts you have when you think of people that don’t look like you especially if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Discomfort or any emotion that comes up is a red flag to pay attention. The discomfort triggering you may be in conflict with what you want to think instead of what your subconscious is telling you.
If you can’t recall any now, then as you go about your day tune into what you are thinking when you see someone that doesn’t look like you. Here are a few ways to confront your biases.
Ask yourself about the situation...
What are your thoughts?
What are you feeling?
Is your body reacting?
Is your bias really true for every person in the biased group?
Do a mental check as to where you learned this bias.
Keep an account of how many times you are being biased whether racial or not.
Replace the implicit bias with an unbiased response and/or find an example, like a person or group, that negates your bias.
These biases are literally etched into your brain. By paying attention to the biases and re-writing the story you are telling yourself your brain will slowly rewire and it will be less reactive when you are in the situation again. This needs to be done daily especially with the saturation of media in our lives. There is no absolute solution to removing biases. Talking to people that you have a negative bias towards is helpful in diminishing your preconceived notions.
I remember when I was in India we took a camel ride and the guide took us to his village to meet his wife and children. They were Muslim and I realized during this ride that he is a father with a beautiful child that he was very proud of. His wife was just glowing at their new born baby. I had some preconceived ideas from the media that maybe Muslims are people I should be concerned about. But really they are human just like the rest of us.
Sharing your biases with a group of people you feel comfortable with helps to bring it out into the open and allows others to share their biases too. I have caught myself far too many times being implicitly biased. In fact just the other day I was at Marcus Books in Oakland. It is a Black owned bookstore that has been around for 60 years. Which amazes me at this day and age of online bookstores. Anyway as I was driving down the street I saw several homeless people and I felt cautious about where I was going to park my car. Also as I was leaving the bookstore a white man with a shaved head wearing a baseball cap, camo pants and an American flag mask entered the store. He didn’t “look” like the typical person that would be in a bookstore that catered to Black people. In fact he looked like some of the civilian militia I have seen on the news lately. I am embarrassed to admit both of these biases. These biases have been etched into my mind through the media. But the reality is I have not had any negative experiences with either one of these groups.
Let’s do some brain games to help you question your biases. There is a test you can take online called the Implicit Association Test. I found it pretty revealing. I will put a link to the Implicit Association test in the show notes.
Another way to test your biases, is to visualize a person in a specific role. For example: A CEO of a major company. A farm worker. A cheerleader at a football game. A nurse. A bus driver. A Principal at an urban high school. A pilot. The list is endless.
Then ask yourself…
What gender are they?
What does he or she look like?
What race is he or she?
Why do you think they look that way?
Here’s another exercise that I call Color Switch . Let’s say you see a picture of a white man in a suit. Switch out his features to be a black man. Try this with a person in a prison uniform. An olympic coach. A professional basketball player. A doctor. A concert pianist. Again it can go on forever. These exercises are intended to spark self reflection and expose your implicit biases. I hope you are intrigued enough to make it a daily task. You would be amazed how many biases we have!
While you're working on your implicit biases you can start thinking about finding your inner ally.
You're probably thinking, “An ally like when countries are banded together to fight against their enemies???” In a way yes, but when I talk about Allyship it is the context of being an ally to a person or group that has been oppressed. Wondering what that entails? Well It is fluid in relation to the group or situation. When it comes to racism I see it as taking an active role in listening and learning to understand what oppressed people are experiencing. Joining as a co- conspirator to crush racism. I also feel it is not a one-time gig. It is a constant process of learning how to stand with POC or anyone else that is oppressed.
As a teen you are probably focusing on school, activities and socializing. Thinking about some serious societal or environmental stuff has maybe touched your periphery. You can skate along and hear about protests and police brutality but it really doesn't directly affect you unless you have close friends that are POC. This is your privilege. You may have already witnessed racism. What did you do? What do you think? Do you know what an act of racism looks like? Educating yourself about racism and the systems that support it will give you a better foundation in navigating situations that require allyship.
As you move out of the house and into the world you will have many opportunities to choose to ignore racism or confront it and be an anti-racist ally. From what I am seeing in today's climate of racism the shell of white privilege may be cracking open just enough for white people to consider letting POC to live a life as privileged as White folks. In order for that to happen white people need to start taking the attention from themselves and looking at the world with a lens of what others are experiencing.
In my earlier podcasts I emphasize honing kids empathy which to me is cultivated from tapping into our own experiences to have empathy for others. If we are intouch with the emotions we feel from being treated unfairly then we can apply it to situations when we need to support others. As a white person you can never fully understand what it's like to be Black or a POC. But you can listen and connect on a human level to feel compassion for their struggle and take a stand to fight against their oppression and walk with them side by side in dismantling the policies and social and structural constructs that oppress them. It is about stepping aside and asking what they need. Let’s say, you are struggling with a math problem. You don’t need your parents to do the math problem for you. What you need is for your parents to empathize with you, give you the tools, education and space in order for you to do it on your own.
For younger children I encourage them to tap into their inner superhero powers to stand up against racism. As a teen and soon to be adult, Allyship is not about being a superhero savior of POC.
It is more about coming into the awareness of your white privilege and humbly using it to listen. To respond to the needs of POC and continuously learning how to be a co-conspirator with POC.
For example: Your African American friend Aisha and you are shopping for dresses for the prom. A white sales lady asks you what kind of dress you are looking for and ignores Aisha. There are many outcomes to this scenario. Some options are: Aisha can ask the sales lady to help her. If the sales lady continues to ignore Aisha she can choose to ask again. You can look the sales lady in the eye and say “Aisha is also looking for a prom dress. Please help her find a dress too.” The sales lady may be thrown off or even continue to ignore Aisha. If the sales lady continues to only talk to you then look at the sales lady and silently point to Aisha until the sales lady gets it or if she doesn’t get it leave and find another salesperson or another store. The saleslady loses the sale and you are inconvenienced. You could also go to the manager and file a complaint. Treating customers respectfully is really important and is part of a store's customer service policy. Something to remember is to stay polite and respectful so the sales person doesn’t get defensive or worse. You want to keep Aisha safe and if the sales lady gets even ruder it can make Aisha feel singled out and upset. This situation may make you really angry but it isn’t about you. Your role is to stay outwardly calm and support Aisha. This isn’t new to Aisha and you don’t need to be her hero. Check in with Aisha and ask her if she is ok. Keep in mind it is best to deflate the sales lady’s rudeness by leaving and complaining to her boss.
If Aisha gets offended and mad, which she has every right to because it is hurtful to be ignored, then let her defend herself and encourage her to leave and go see the manager. You may be shocked at Aisha’s quick anger but this is where you get to start to understand what it is like to be oppressed. Aisha has lived her whole life being ignored and treated disrespectfully because she is black. She has lived with people implicity and explicitly being racist towards her. She has lived with this abuse and it is painful and degrading. I would be mad too if I was treated indecently every day! Aisha may not get mad. She may just walk away. I know My friends that are black have told me “Sometimes you handle it well and other times you don’t.”
Here is another scenario:
You are hanging out with a group of white friends and someone in the group says “ I doubt Trey will go camping with us. Black people don’t camp.” You can step up and say “Camping has nothing to do with the color of your skin. If someone doesn’t want to camp then they don’t have to.” Even if Trey isn’t hearing your response, it is about letting your white friends know that they are making a racist assumption about a group of people. You may be hesitant or even be scared to speak up to your friends but you would be surprised to find that others may also feel the same way as you do and may not have the courage to speak up. By speaking up you give them permission to also speak up against racism and be an anti-racist accomplice. As for Trey, there can be many reasons he doesn’t want to go camping. He may have not been camping before so he could feel uncomfortable not knowing the ropes. You can offer him some encouragement by saying “If you have never camped before, Maybe we can share a tent and I can give you some camping tips.” When you engage him he may feel more trusting of you and tell you the reason why he doesn’t want to camp. It could be because he doesn’t want to be the only black guy. He may have had a bad experience with a group of white guys on another camping trip. It is tough being the only black person in a group of white people especially if he is out of his element. If he chooses to confide in you please listen and do not downplay his experiences. Acknowledge what he says and see his point of view. Again you don’t have to save him. Hopefully by opening the door to truly listening and by trying to sincerely find understanding he can slowly build his trust for you. In general, Black people and POC are used to being treated insensitively by white people. So establishing trust takes concerted effort from a white person to prove they are trustworthy.
These are seemingly small examples but they are very common and if we confront them one by one we can set a new course to make a big difference. They can also make us feel uncomfortable to navigate. It is going take practice to build that discomfort muscle. When we start to over come the discomfort we shift to comfort and therefore feeds our courage to be an ally to our friends and fellow human beings.
Just like studying a new subject in school. You will make mistakes. Or as my 9 year old son says, “ It is like when you are playing basketball and you accidently hit someone in the head”. You fumble, bump, and step on some toes. Then you pull yourself up, do the right thing and sincerely apologize. It is humbling and messy. It is about getting down and dirty in fighting against racism, making decisions and taking action that will create results that are equitable to all. I have had several moments of regret where I was clueless as to how to be an ally to a friend. I am very grateful for the resources available to all of us. Learning on the shoulders of others has allowed me to move along this path of antiracism. Other than learning by mistakes I have found some resources to share with you.
Kayla reed Co-founder of ACTION STL (Saint Louis) her twitter handle is @ikaylareed
breaks down the word ALLY as
A- always center the impacted
L- listen & learn from those who live in the oppression
L- leverage your privilege
Y-yield the floor
She also has a fantastic analogy called “boot and sandal”, a guide on how to handle mistakes. You can find it on the website created by Amelie Lamont, https://guidetoallyship.com/#what-is-an-ally It also has other clear examples of do’s and don'ts of being an ally.
Here is the boot and sandal….
Imagine your privilege is a heavy boot that keeps you from feeling when you’re stepping on someone’s feet or they’re stepping on yours, while oppressed people have only sandals. If someone says, “ouch! You’re stepping on my toes,” how do you react?
Because we can think more clearly about stepping on someone’s literal toes than we usually do when it comes to oppression, the problems with many common responses are obvious:
In reality, most of us naturally know the right way to react when we step on someone’s toes, and we can use that to help us learn how to react when we commit microaggressions.
Wow! That is a lot to digest. If we take one bite at a time and really savor the outcome the change can be so nourishing to all people. Thanks for listening and Please subscribe so you won’t miss out when next Awkwardness and Grace hits the airways. Until then have a hope filled day!