The Illusion of Objectivity

Seeing other people’s biases is pretty easy. Seeing our own is hard.

I’m well tuned to the ways society unfairly stereotypes and undervalues someone who looks like me. When someone acts in a way that reinforces biases against women, Black people, or older people—unintentionally or not—it’s obvious to me. I’ve been there.

And even when we’re not the target of a microaggression, most of us can learn to notice when others commit them.

But somehow, seeing our own biases isn’t easy at all.

Our brains are set up to believe we are reasonably objective. We tend to trust our own snap judgments; they help us survive in the world without being paralyzed by uncertainty. But that means that biases settle into our thought patterns over time. Eventually they look to our brains like facts.

Recognizing those patterns is uncomfortable and upsetting. That’s why most of us don’t want to admit that we could be biased—even while we congratulate ourselves for spotting bias in others.

As important as it is to say something if you observe someone causing harm, I think it’s also valuable (and likely more effective) to focus on ourselves. After all, we can’t control other people’s behavior or their learning process—just our own. This is particularly important for those in a position to have an impact in other people's lives, like police officers, managers, doctors, or teachers. We may or may not influence someone else, but we can directly prevent harm by doing our own inner work.

But how do we break the hold that the myth of objectivity has on us? That’s a lifelong struggle for me.

I try to practice and build my skills, so that I can spot my own biases more quickly. Three approaches have been helpful for me:

• Look for red flags. When I find myself being surprised when I learn something about someone, that’s a tell. I was making an assumption, and assumptions indicate a bias might be at work. I’ve gotten better at pausing when I notice that feeling.

• See your biases from the outside. The Implicit Association Test measures your reaction times to suggest where your unconscious views favor some groups over others. When I took the IAT for age, I revealed a preference for younger people—which surprised me since I’m biased against the group I’m in! But that was helpful info. Am I likely to give the benefit of the doubt to younger people? Can I use that knowledge to mitigate that bias in situations where I have some power?

• Get a second opinion. We can hold each other accountable in a loving way. Ask a trusted friend to tell you when they notice any bias in you. It will be easier for them to spot than it is for you.

We’re always going to notice other people’s biases, but we can do more good by looking at our own. Standing in a place of judgment only reinforces the systemic biases at play.

Instead, let’s take care of our own stuff. As Vernā Myers likes to say, “Move boldly toward your biases.” They’re getting in the way of how we treat people. And if we don’t learn to see them, we can’t change them.

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An embarrassing example: my kids were in elementary school when I recognized that I had a bias against people who are overweight. We were at a big amusement park. I started to notice how many fat people were at the park. My brain seized on the fact that they had supersized drinks and were eating fried food. I found myself forming a pattern that reinforced familiar stereotypes, making negative judgments about people I didn’t know at all. Lazy. Undisciplined. Bad judgment.

At least for a few moments—then other parts of my brain kicked in. I realized that the park didn’t allow any outside food. We don’t have any choice about what we eat here. They also make it really cheap to supersize drinks, so it makes economic sense to get a huge cup for an extra 50 cents. The pattern I saw wasn’t a reflection of their character; it was a reflection of a structural setup by the managers of the amusement park.

The worst I may have done that day was to shoot my fellow park-goers a frowning glance. But if I were in a position of making decisions about one of them, like considering them for a job, I probably would have eliminated them based on that bias. After all, it seemed like an objective fact to me.

The realization came relatively quickly. But I still had the bias, and I was ashamed. You’d think I would be able to tap into some empathy—I know from experience that it’s not easy to control your body size, and it gets harder the older you get. And yet the millions of messages I’ve received from others and the media came to mind first, and I had to deliberately dislodge them.

In that instance, I noticed when I was making an assumption. But I know I don’t always catch it.

Should white people be leading DEI work?

Among the evaluations we received after a recent orientation workshop, a participant commented, with concern, on the fact that the facilitator of their group was white.

It brought up some complicated feelings for me.

At Fletcher Consulting, our workshop leaders usually facilitate in pairs, and we always try to find two people whose identities reflect meaningful diversity. This gives them the chance to use themselves as examples throughout the session. Doing this is both informative and illustrative—it shows participants what authentic conversations across difference can look like.

For shorter sessions, two hours or less, we often have one facilitator, as happened in this instance. The facilitator was among the most experienced of our line-up—someone I have known personally and professionally for decades and from whom I’ve learned a lot.

So, one part of me read the comment about her session and felt defensive. Her skill and knowledge weren’t in question—just her race. It felt unfair to deny her the chance to share them.

But beyond that first, personal reaction, I also felt disagreement with the commenter’s premise. I do believe there is a role for white people in antiracism work. They can model for participants what it looks like to go on the journey of unlearning biases, developing practices of allyship, and building relationships with people of color. They can take some of the emotional burden of this process off of the people of color who must navigate it every day, and even in real time play a kind of “buffer” role with other white people who are still learning about offensive vocabulary and harmful behavior. And, unfortunately, I’ve observed many times that some participants will listen and respect a message coming from a white speaker that they dismissed moments before from a speaker from a marginalized identity.

I shared the comments with the facilitator, a little hurt on her behalf. Her response was that she was surprised that more students hadn’t given similar feedback and that she agrees with the commenter. She has been questioning the most appropriate way she can contribute to this work for her whole career. She has an internal gauge for when she thinks her identity is an asset to the dialogue and she has stepped aside from opportunities and recommended peers of color when the criteria were not met.

It’s a crucial question, both for our consulting offering and for any organization looking to offer workshops to their employees. And clearly many points of view exist. What do you think? What is the role of white people in DEI workshops? How do you feel as a participant, or as a facilitator yourself, about this issue? We’d love to read your comments.

The right to interrupt

Recently, a participant in a workshop asked an important question: doesn’t speaking up to interrupt bias as a bystander take away the agency of the person being harmed? Shouldn’t we ask their permission before interrupting?

Of course, we can ask them—but often we have only a few seconds to decide what role to play in an interaction. Maybe we know the person well enough to pick up on their cues, or give a signal quickly that we are looking to speak up.

But in most cases, things are happening so quickly that we must act without complete information. The risk of not saying anything is that the behavior will go unacknowledged by anyone, causing harm without accountability.

I got some perspective on this challenge several years ago. I was talking to a man about a project I was leading. Halfway through, we were joined by another man on my team. From that point forward, the first man turned to my male colleague and directed his comments to him. Even when I spoke or asked a question, he directed his attention at the other man. I found myself becoming more and more infuriated as he stopped making eye contact with me completely.

I wish I could say that I leveraged my decades of legal negotiation skills to ask him why he wasn’t looking at me, and/or applied my knowledge of DEI to calmly prompt him to reflect on his gender bias (or was it racial bias, or the intersectional identity?). But instead I drove on, making my point—but louder, harsher, and angrier.

I don’t see myself as someone who needs rescuing. But in that moment, I would have appreciated it if my colleague had spoken up. He could have simply said, “Marguerite is the one who is making this decision. You should be speaking to her, not me.”

This bystander had some key advantages. He was directly involved in the interaction. And he had privilege that I lacked. It would have been nice if he had used that privilege to speak up, and call out the fact that he noticed something wrong. Since the offender already indicated at least an unconscious bias toward him, an interruption from another white man might have been received more readily by the offender. What’s more, when we are in a place of privilege, and therefore not in the target group of a microaggression, it’s likely that we aren’t emotionally triggered in the moment and it will cost us less emotional energy to respond.

So why didn’t he speak up? The participant in the recent workshop made me wonder if my colleague might have hesitated out of respect for me. Could he have felt he was taking away my agency? When practicing allyship, you don’t want to see yourself as a knight in shining armor trying to right a wrong for someone who is unable to do it for themselves. And we should make a practice of taking direction from people with lived experiences. If that’s what he was thinking, I certainly respect that. And it’s likely that I sent him no cues seeking assistance; I knew I would resolve the issue on my own later (which I did).

Yet, I would have appreciated the intervention. If I were standing with a colleague who identifies as queer, and someone made a homophobic comment, I would feel perfectly comfortable saying, “That comment is offensive to me”—because it’s true. I don’t have to be a member of a marginalized group to see how toxic bias toward a group is, and how important it is for me to discourage it whenever I can.

So in response to the workshop participant’s question, I suggest interrupting a harmful thing because the thing needs interrupting. If you observe a microaggression, ask yourself if it offends you, whether or not the apparent target is taking action. Don't think about yourself interrupting on behalf of anyone.

This approach eliminates the rescue or savior mentality. It makes it clear to the offender that their actions are outside of acceptable norms for all of us, not just a sensitivity that some people have.

It’s wonderful that more people are recognizing nuances of practicing allyship. After all, if you’re doing something to make yourself look better, that’s the wrong approach. But some people tie themselves in knots trying to figure out if they should speak up. They look for the “best way,” and may end up doing nothing.

The bottom line is: you have agency too. We all do. Let’s use it to build a better community.