If someone asked you if you occasionally think about others in stereotypical ways, you\u2019d probably be insulted and deny ever having had even a moment of biased perception.\u00a0 And you\u2019d be full of prune juice.\u00a0 We all, in boundless imperfection, are periodically burdened by our unfair assessments.<\/p>\n
However, if you still insist that your thinking is always pure and noble, then I ask you to prove it.\u00a0 You can easily do so.\u00a0 Simply produce a document, handwritten by you and preferably at least a year old, that states the Olympic winner of the men\u2019s 110-meter high hurdles in Athens will be Chinese.\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019ll not only be Chinese, he\u2019ll be tall and skinny and only 21 years old.\u00a0 And of course he\u2019s going to trounce everyone while winning the race in 12.91 seconds, and tying one of the oldest and most impressive world records in track and field.<\/p>\n
You probably didn\u2019t predict that, did you?\u00a0 That would\u2019ve been pretty tough, even for a high-principled thinker.\u00a0 So let\u2019s try this one.\u00a0 Did you foretell that a 20-year old drug-free white guy from the United States would out-sprint a stellar field down the stretch and win the 400-meter gold with a scorching time of 44 seconds flat?\u00a0 Not likely.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll give you an easier one.\u00a0 Did you predict that the United States men\u2019s basketball team, laden with NBA stars, would get bombed by Puerto Rico, and also lose to Lithuania and Argentina, and have to settle for the bronze medal?\u00a0 Since the NBA stars have already been similarly clobbered this century in the World Championships, this recent struggle might have been foreseeable.\u00a0 You won\u2019t have to document any foreknowledge on this one.<\/p>\n
I suppose by leading with the examples above, I\u2019ve revealed some of my own biases.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not having biases that is damaging.\u00a0 What\u2019s insidious is acting as if the biases are insurmountable facts of nature and trying to limit what others can achieve.\u00a0 As a teacher, at conferences and conventions, I have often heard nonwhite teachers tell about experiences from their school years when instructors, based strictly on the students\u2019 skin color or the temporarily-limited English of new residents in this country, told them they weren\u2019t qualified to pursue a good education and would have to resign themselves to a life of unskilled work.<\/p>\n
The absurdity of that is belied by the legions of people from all continents and backgrounds who are moving up.\u00a0 They are doctors and attorneys and police chiefs and computer technicians and building contractors and entrepreneurs and politicians and media personalities, and everything else in the pantheon of professions.\u00a0 Many \u2013 and perhaps most \u2013 of them were once told they couldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0 They\u2019d have to limit themselves to what the stereotypes blared was their destiny.<\/p>\n
But they didn\u2019t listen, not forever.\u00a0 They worked at what they believed and began to realize: \u201cHey, I can do this.\u00a0 I can play with the big boys.\u201d\u00a0 So the kid born poor in Mexico can grow up to be a university president.\u00a0 The black lady raised in the inner city can have her own business.\u00a0 Stuff like that has never surprised me.\u00a0 My strongest biases are definitely related to sports.\u00a0 That\u2019s why for me it\u2019s so surprising a Chinese guy blew away the best in the 110-meter high hurdles, and a white guy out-kicked the world\u2019s swiftest for gold in the 400 meter dash.\u00a0 Hell, a humongous fellow from the Ukraine is the best of the alphabet soup heavyweight champs right now.\u00a0 Anyone looking for big-time inspiration about what the underdog can achieve has only to behold some of the most recent victors in sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If someone asked you if you occasionally think about others in stereotypical ways, you\u2019d probably be insulted and deny ever having had even a moment of biased perception.\u00a0 And you\u2019d be full of prune juice.\u00a0 We all, in boundless imperfection, are periodically burdened by our unfair assessments. However, if you still insist that your thinking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n