By Peggy Kuhr
Miranda was a sorority girl in college. She had long blond hair, drank quadruple-espressos; and her favorite color was pink. She wore a pink fur vest (fake fur, of course).
George was also a college student. He had tattoos and wore a silver stud in his lower lip and silver hoops in each ear. Usually, you’d see him outside the back door to the classroom building, smoking cigarettes.
Based on these descriptions, you might think you know what George and Miranda were like in college. They fit stereotypical images many of us have.
Yet Miranda was the lead sports reporter who covered football and men’s basketball. And George took his silver jewelry off when he interviewed business executives.
Too often, we think we know someone based on where they come from, what they look like, what groups they belong to. These assumptions keep us from fully understanding people and their stories. They keep us from asking certain kinds of questions.
We can’t write accurate stories if we don’t know our own biases and preconceived notions about people and issues.
How can you discover your own biases and preconceived notions? Here are two ways to get the conversation going:
In a group or class:
The Silent Interview. This is an icebreaker that Arlene Morgan at Columbia University has written about and uses. It’s a great exercise, in a small group, or in a large class. It shows what kinds of assumptions we make about people based simply on their appearance.
You can do this exercise on your own:
Bias Survey (Printer Friendly Version - PDF). Although we may not realize it, each of us reacts to different people in different ways. Some people make us nervous; others, comfortable. Yet we can’t just report on those people who put us most at ease. In order to truly get in touch with our communities, we need to recognize that our responses to people differ. This bias survey is adapted from The Poynter Institute.