How Can We Avoid Stereotyping and Judging With Bias?

Ever since the existence of civilization, the bias exists. The classic book Price and Prejudice talk about it in the late 1800s. People all around the world make efforts to call for diversification of cultures and social equality for all nations and races. Academic studies such as intersectionality are developed to examine how “various biological, social and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, age and other axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels”(Wikipedia). It always raises concern to me why in such a transparent, information-free age, discrimination and bias, consciously or unconsciously, still seem to exist on a massive scale of population. The world was called as an earth village decades ago and we folk people appear to have still a problem to have a proper understanding of our neighbors. Is there a way to eradicate stereotypes? Can people be educated not to have bias upon anything? After watching the lecture on “the danger of a single story” and “the moral bias behind your search results”, it seems we can draw answers to the questions.

The lecture of “the danger of a single story” is told by a Nigeria lady who expresses her childhood experience with no black people in children story book which resulted in her stereotypes of only white people in literature, and her experience as a foreigner in the America when the other fellow mates are surprised by her good English and education background, in a way reflecting how each of us are impacted by the single story to create an incomplete impression of something. She analyzes the phenomena and attributes the reason to be the “power structure of the world” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). Based on this lecture, it seems that the crude stereotypes are something man-made which can and should be eradicated. In the speech made by Andreas Ekström, he cites two examples of how google can have a decision on the information provided and searched by people for different purposes, which exemplifies, to a certain extent, “that idea of the unbiased search result is philosophically, almost an impossibility”(Andreas Ekström).

In order to stop something, we have to find out the root cause. Is “power structure of the world” the fundamental cause of any bias or stereotypes created among certain people? It may be part of the reason in the past, but not now. If we compare the power between certain two nations, it is possible that in a small nation, which neither politically nor economically have much power, but with its cultural willingness to open up and social transparency, its people can be comprehensively understood and unbiased commented by others. The power structure should not be a permanent issue. The lack of broadened communication is one of the reasons. What is the reason for that? Technology is continuing progressing, and it will soon end the problem of lack of a channel for communication. The cultural background of different people is the key impediment. Just like one never posts one’s family on FaceBook doesn’t mean one doesn’t have a family. There could be complicated cultural and social background for the language and action of an individual, which the other individuals can hardly speculate, especially when a gathering of people would add on the group effect to conceal or exaggerate certain facts.

Since human beings are born and brought up in a particular culture and community, the cultural and social imprint cannot be erased just like time past can never be retrieved. The only thing to counter-balance the possible bias is from our inside. It is human nature to be curious and find out how different we are. But it is also human nature to seek for friends and similarities. After the lecture, I would keep reminding myself that there is always a reason behind a behavior.