Bias, and My Incredibly Closed Minded Take On It

There's an article recently posted on Scientific American online "Buried Prejudice: The Bigot in Your Brain". This seems like pretty disturbing stuff, but at the same time I feel like I've kind of already known this.

People, it seems, are very judgemental and categorize things simplistically. This is necessary, however, for people to easily interact and predict reactions in the world they live in. One of the steps in the development of a childs mind which make the leap from arbitrary shapes to existence of "things". The child then quickly rationalizes cause and effect with everything they can do and experience. According to psychologists at Harvard and UC Merced, children commonly develop their racial biases around 4-6 years of age. The extent of their biases are influenced, it seems, by parents. Though simplistic categorization is an entirely natural developmental process, the irrational race based assumptions may very well be galvanized in someone's mind by the time they enter kindergarten.

Now, I have to raise my hand and ask, is this bias thing something that is inherent in humans as a whole, or are we seeing some social construct which is imparted on someone. To this question, it seems the article's answer is "Both".

There is something fundamental in the understanding of 'we' and 'them'. There is an obvious pro 'us' bias and a negative 'them' bias. If a person identifies themself very solidly in a racial or ethnic community, there is certainly a chance for them having this arbitrary group bias. You can see something similar by looking at any rabid (*insert local sports team here*) fan and tell them that their favorite star player can go eat shit. Go up to a French person, and tell them to stick their stinky cheese where the sun doesn't shine. The reaction you'd get to this line of discussion is a pretty clear indication that people, generally like, associate with, and will defend many of their arbitrary associations.

Florida Spring break trip many moons ago (roughly 4am):
College Age Mississippi Douchebag (MSDB): Woooooooooooo! Ain't no party like a Mississippi party!
Me (DB): Why won't these bastards go to sleep! I need to get up early tomorrow to drink.
MSDB: Woooooooooooo! Who wants to fight a Mississippi boy! Who wants to?!
(*5 minutes later police arrive*)

It's obviously stupid, but had this kid been born in Tennessee he'd probably be saying the same stupid shit just about Tennessee instead of Mississippi.

This desire to associate with a like group, and to ascribe positive attributes to this group, I would argue, must be nature based because of its obvious benefits to tribal, nomadic, and BDSM societies. Believing that people have a desire to group does not mean we have to live with racist bias forever. Eventually we could get to a point, due to inter-racial marriage, we'll slowly bring society to a middle ground in which race is less of an issue. This could be due in no small part to the fact that the idea of race will become more muddled and less cut and dry. I think people will be less able to judge based on appearance alone because there will be too much middle ground. Any perceived differentiations of race will soften and overlap.

So, if we as human beings have this fundamental desire to experience, divide, and judge based on our simplistic distinctions, is that a bad thing? In my opinion it is bad in that negative stereotypes can be perpetuated, they're more difficult to overcome if it's what's expected of you. On the other hand, it's pretty obvious that positive stereotypes are a benefit. There are immigrant societies in America that seem to have a culture of hard work because that is who they are, and they won't accept anything less from themselves or their children. From what I see, communities that parent well, expect the best from their kids, and delineate good/bad repercussions to those kids' actions, in general beat the shit out of the statistical "rest of society".

So what's the freakin' point. What am I trying to get at? Stereotypes in and of themselves are what they are: (many times) irrational impulses which must be subverted and overcome based on rational judgement and what is expected of polite society today (sorry Nazis). These impulses can be seen in the same context as sexual urges after commiting yourself to a monogamous relationship; they'll exist, but you can conciously decide against them. To be a respected member of society today, judgements and actions must be based on moral and rational grounds, not irrational emotions and biases.

This brings me to an even bigger point to which I confuse myself on. So, let's say that media as a whole is a giant circle-jerk perpetuating and encouraging these arbitrary distinctions on what it means to be cool, connected, loved, a part of society, or what it means to be a true (*insert ethniticy/community here*) person. On one side of the coin I say we should never put down ridiculous media like hip-hop or death metal, because I love it for the ridiculousness of it. Anyone wanting to ban Eminem or Rammstein will have to pry it out of my cold dead fingers. It's just too entertaining to me. But it's truly disturbing when people take their social cues from this stuff. When people decide and interact based on their interpretations of these media caricatures, those people have a problem.

We need to look in the mirror and realize that, like this article in Scientific American states, we each have our own irrational biases. We must face these biases for what they are, and push everyone to be the best they can be regardless of arbitrary skin tone, distinctions. We cannot hold back constructive criticism for fear we will offend someone, we must push, help, celebrate people for what is out there for anyone to achieve.

We, as a people, need to cock-punch in the face those who are acting based on bias, but at the same time renounce anyone who holds themselves back based on bias. In America, in 2008, there is no racial, ethnic, or socio-economic reason for laziness, apathy, or rotting your brain behind a TV for hours every day.

People should rot their brain like me, by looking at engadget.com, fark.com, monster-a-day, digg.com, reason.com/blog, and a million other things that make me just as bad as the laziest of lazies. Well, I better go grab the windex, it looks like my glass house needs some cleaning.