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“We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the Listener to say—and to feel—‘Yes! That is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it. You are not as alone as you thought.’” John Steinbeck
Recently, I was asked to speak to a legal gathering about eliminating bias in the profession. I was cautioned that the 300 lawyers attending the program did not consider themselves to be biased. In other words, I should speak as if addressing other lawyers’ problems.
Hearing those words I was reminded of a one frame cartoon in The New Yorker magazine. Picture this: an elephant stretched out on a therapist’s couch is saying, “It was a nightmare! There I was in the middle of the room and no one is talking about me.” So, how do we talk about bias?
Let’s start from the beginning. Our word “bias” comes from the Middle French word “biais” meaning “to lean.” From this, we can conclude that bias is a leaning to one particular point of view or ideology. I believe that bias is not in and of itself an evil thing. Our biases inform us about our leanings in all the areas we care about—politics, society, religion, economics, and so on.
Understand The Difference Between Bias And Prejudice
However, prejudice is different. The word itself means to “pre-judge”—to make assumptions and assessments before we have all the facts. Many of our prejudices are formed early in life. I remember hearing my old world Polish grandmother warn me about the “choddneys”—a slang term she used for African Americans. I’m sure that if you look back in your own life, you’ll recall various prejudices that might have been expressed about people from different faiths, cultures, or walks of life. Over time, we learn to see those people as the “Other.”
Here’s a few of the prejudices many of us would recognize in our legal profession: Civil law is better than criminal. Large firms are better than mid-size. Mid-size firms are better than small shops. And everybody is better than a sole practitioner. Men are better than women. But single women are better than married women. And certainly married women are better than mothers. Whites are better than anyone of color. Transactional attorneys are better than litigators. And everybody is better than a public defender. Full-time law students are better than night students. Law Review is better than Moot Court. Attorneys are better than judges. Judges are better than mediators. And everybody is better than jurors.
Prejudice Can Prove Very Destructive
Let me tell you a story. I went to Holy Trinity Grammar School. When a holiday drew near, the children in the younger grades colored a picture celebrating the holiday—a Pilgrim with a turkey in honor of Thanksgiving, for example. For St. Patrick’s Day, everyone in my third grade class got a sheet of paper with the outline of a shamrock and the words Erin Go Braugh in an arch above it. It was time to color! My classmates hunted for various shades of green crayons in their Crayola boxes. I’d been experimenting with colors and discovered that if you colored first with the yellow crayon and then covered it with pink, you would get a color that was not in the box. This was the color I used for my shamrock. When the teacher picked up our papers she put mine on the top of the stack: I thought that meant that mine was special. Then she walked to the front of the room and showed everyone my picture. I held my breath. “Diane Wyzga does not seem to know that shamrocks are green—not this color,” she said. “Diane Wyzga cannot follow rules. Or maybe she’s just stupid.” (Something tells me this was the moment I began a lifetime of breaking rules; but that’s another story.)
When I think back on this story now, I realize that the teacher was right to have certain biases: she wanted her class to behave, to color the picture rather than the desk, to sit quietly rather than running around the room. However, when she singled me out for not coloring my shamrock green, her bias became destructive in terms of its impact on me.
Stories Help Us Become More Tolerant
Stories involve us in the life of the Other. By engaging our natural abilities to hear and tell stories, we begin to understand the Other. We begin to learn where we fit in another’s story, and where we might find some commonality. Stories are about relationships. Inclusive, they illustrate that there is more uniting us than dividing us. Stories evoke compassion for those of us who are different. Different stories can be generated from the same set of facts. If we learn to communicate our positions through our stories and life experiences, we just may see someone else’s point of view. Imagine this: with storytelling and regular potluck dinners, we could get to know our neighbors.
I realize that it’s unlikely that we can eliminate bias entirely. Yet once only free men could vote; women could not get a bank loan without having a cosignatory, or sit on a jury; blacks and whites couldn’t intermarry or drink from the same water fountain; gays couldn’t serve in the military. But, as Bob Dylan sang, “The times they are a changin.”
To shed more of our destructive biases—Why can’t a Muslim kid grow up to be President one day? The best we can do is become aware of our own leanings so we can better accommodate differences, encourage human decency, and create the freedom that will allow each of us to become who we truly are. These efforts must take place both in formal and informal settings—in courtrooms, classrooms, the workplace, and on the playground—all the places where we learn to be tolerant.
