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| TURKISH AIR |
Definitely a better priced trip. On time, a good deal, and no luggage lost. At least not yet.
So I think I told you I’d be leaving on a jet plane. That happened, and it was fine. Jet lag, which didn’t affect me much my last trip, is murder only eight months later. I don’t even want to tell you how many time zones we skipped in a matter of 24 hours.
One of the things that happened on the way over provides us with a good example of IMPLICIT BIAS. Mine. My implicit bias. It isn’t something I’m proud of, but like anyone who takes the standardized test on racism, the Banaji-GreenwaldImplicit Association Test (IAT), I fail miserable at beneficence. Turns out I prefer white people, which feels wrong but the test is standardized and I believe the results are valid. The best I can aspire to is cultural humility, which refers to knowing how little we know about others, respecting the differences, recognizing that we share 98% of our DNA regardless of socialization. Humility is respect for difference, acknowledgement of our ignorance regarding acculturation.
Therapists know this intuitively. We are not raised the same, we do not share a world view, each of us is unique. But we're all human.
What makes me most humble is not even being able to predict my reactions in a culturally dissonant environment. I know I’m about to fly an airline headed for Turkey, yet somehow expect that skin color on the plane will be much more heterogenous than it is. Not that I mind, indeed embrace the 'experiment,' but there's a level of anxiety which to me is indicative of my explicit bias. A part of me is ready, knows my comfort zone is uncomfortable. A little uncomfortable.
Cognitively, like most of us probably, in my head I’m thinking I’m totally unbiased about people, but it isn’t true. Not expecting such a homogenous crowd is one indicator, not expecting to be uncomfortable, another. The feeling that my skin color sticks out like a sore thumb makes me conscious of my gold necklace, my ring. If that isn't bias, what is?
Knowing your bias makes it explicit, not implicit bias. That it is a surprise indicates it is implicit until it isn't. Not proud of this, it gets worse. I have to fight with myself to be charitable when someone tries to budge in front of me.
Let’s backtrack to Assertiveness 101. Somewhere on this blog there is the example—there has to be because it is my go to example of assertive behavior. Assertiveness lies on a continuum between passivity, saying nothing at all when someone tries to cut in line in front of you and aggressiveness, calling such a person terrible names or threatening to deck them for presuming they can skip the wait and push themselves ahead of you in line when you have already been waiting in line, along with those in front of you and behind, for some time.
Assertiveness looks like this. You get that person’s attention, perhaps with a tap on the shoulder, you point to the end of the line and say,
'The end of the line is way back there. Not here.'
Most people will walk away, pretend to walk toward the end of the line but they are really looking for a passive individual who will let them cut in. Budge, we used to call it.
We get to the airport in plenty of time, about three hours early for an international flight. The passengers in line are mostly of middle-eastern descent, and the language I’m hearing people speak sounds like none other. The dialect is not recognizable to me. I can only assume that I am in a crowd of about four hundred people going home to the motherland, to Turkey.
I feel like a minority, which is different, as I’ve already said (still working it out, feeling conspicuous). When an airline official leaves his post behind the rope to speak to us he directs his words to me. Why me? I think, privilege. It cuts like a knife, but is what it is. He tells me, glancing at the others in line only slightly as he speaks, that unfortunately the computers are down and only one is working. It will be quite a wait to check our bags. I feel the privilege, an odd mix of discomfort and flattery.
The line to check in grows and grows until finally the problem resolves and it begins to move. Just a little. Very slowly. A woman who is not in line pulls her son and husband along, intending to merge in front of me. She has chosen poorly. She does not know that I teach assertiveness and will have none of this. Yet a large part of me does not want to be culturally insensitive. Yet I feel this behavior is cross-culturally likely to be considered anti-social behavior. It has to be!
She had been standing there, next to us, outside the line representing her family, waiting for an opening. She does not know that this brings out the worst in me, that I hate this. I have done this as a younger person, cut in front of others, and hated myself when I grew up and realized how anti-social, how disrespectful it is. Now I’m older and disrespect others who do the very same thing I did. A superego is a dangerous thing. Being judgey isn't social, either.
As she begins to make her move I say, ‘Excuse me. Are you traveling with these people?’
I gesture toward the two fellows, a man and his older teenager who have been waiting with us about 45 minutes.
‘No, no,' she assures me, and steps back to try again somewhere else.
When I look back it appears she has found success, has managed to game the line only a few yards behind us. We don’t make eye contact.
I think, this is surely cross-cultural behavior. There’s at least one in every group and self-hate generalizes to hate, I get it.
But I am upset that she is representing her people, that she is potentially building implicit bias toward the Turks! But she is not doing that. The rest of us are commiserating about the wait, we are all making the best of a bad situation. Everyone is wonderfully kind and interesting, and I think—she must be, too. She simply has this need to be first without having to work for it.
I did not send her to the back of the end of the proverbial line. I did not say, 'The end of the line is back there,' the traditional assertive response. I just said, ' No, you can’t cut in front of me. Try again.' Then I work to not to judge, to think things like, maybe she or someone in her group has a medical condition and can’t stand for a long period of time.
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