How Can We Defeat Stereotypes?
“Stereotypes fall in the face of humanity. We human beings are best understood one at a time."
-- Anna Quindlen
Last week we started our conversation on how to communicate more effectively across differences this election season. I talked about empathy and the crucial role empathy plays in seeing another person. But here's the thing about empathy and the perspectives you gain. It runs into several enormous often insurmountable barriers - stereotypes.
I spend much of my day talking to clients about how to overcome stereotypes. The easy categories we place people into, even though the logical, reasonable, rational part of our brain knows people who don't match those stereotypes. But the faster, automatic, and quite frankly, lazier part of our brain wants to go straight to the stereotype instead of pushing back and saying, "Hey, this person has multiple stories of which I'm not yet aware."
Multiple stories. The more we can hold multiple stories, multiple identities, and multiple perspectives in our own heads, the better our conversations will be. On the flip side, it's when we aren't able to do this, when we see someone as the embodiment of a belief we hold, rather than a person we would like to understand, that we are far more likely to believe they are only one thing - one single story.
The single story is a phrase I learned from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She has one of my favorite quotes about stereotypes in her TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story.
In her TED talk, she shares about her childhood, similar to mine. Growing up in a predominantly Black country, reading English nursery stories about spring and sailor hats and boarding schools with White English children because those were the books available to us as children of former British colonies. She talks about the many stories that made up their lives. And the single story that made up hers. The stereotype that people had about her as a Nigerian, people who weren’t aware of any other stories.
So Adichie says this about that single story.
"The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar."
(Were you expecting me to use her oft-quoted quote about the single story creating stereotypes? Watch her TED talk - there are multiple stories in there.)
One story. That’s what bias tells us. Even though we have years of experience and training, bias wants to make our lives easier by having us go straight to the stereotype, instead of having us ask, "Why?"
As you have your conversations this election season and beyond, ask yourself why do you hold this single story? What are the reasons I believe this about this other person? What does my assumption lead me to think they will say and do? How does my assumption of them affect how I talk to them? Start challenging yourself. Some stereotypes are true. Many are not. But every one of them is an incomplete story. Let's read the whole book instead.
Do the work
This week, I commit to recognizing when stereotypes I hold are challenged or corrected, and learning why my story of another person might be incomplete.
Spread the Word
Another book recommendation for you. Read or listen and let me know what you think and how your opinions, and stereotypes, shift.
Join me for a free webinar
Welcome to the next generation.
It's almost here! Join me next week for my free October webinar, From Woodstock to TikTok, and learn how to successfully navigate generational differences at work. In this highly interactive and engaging program, I use news clips, commercials, music, and cultural touchpoints to navigate attendees through a world of inter-generational communication and changing dialogue. We learn the history of the generations in the workplace, how each generation puts its own unique stamp on their organizations, and how best to recognize, engage with, and grow from the challenges presented by these differences. The goal, as always, is to build a workplace centered on inclusion and belonging for all of us.
