I Was Colorblind But Now I See

It was 1985, my Junior year at South High. Every time I walked on the school campus my skin crawled a little. Everyone said it was fine. “Rebel Pride!” was something we all were supposed to embrace. At the time, the student body to me seemed to be 40% white, 35% black and 25% other. I am not sure of the exact statistic. 

I would hear my white friends complain about how we couldn’t fly the General Lee/Confederate Flag anymore at football games. Political Correctness was robbing us of our heritage. I was at a total loss of what that meant. The North won the war. The South lost, why would anyone want to fly a flag as if something was a victory. I felt embarrassed for my black friends wondering if they were hearing any of it. Wondering why more fights on campus didn’t happen.

The mascots of our school were Jody and Johnny Rebel. Yup… That’s right. Jody wore the complete baby blue taffeta ballgown WITH, hoops. Johnny bedecked in the Rebel blue and a hat on top. Each football game I would wonder why no one was saying anything. How this could be ok with everyone! How it was possible Everyone embraced 

Rebel Pride.

I went along. I wanted to fit in. However, I didn’t grow up here. My early childhood years I listened to stories about my parents marching in Civil Rights marches. How my Mom related to discrimination because of the religious bias she encountered in her state. She was not LDS (Mormon) and in the 1950 thru 1960s that was a huge issue. No dates. Exclusions from social gatherings or babysitting jobs. Her empathetic stories would go on and on. I was raised to never exclude people because of their differences. I was raised to be Colorblind. If I didn’t see color, if I only saw people, there would be no racism.

Poof… it would be gone.  

No need for Affirmative Action. No need for Wage Equality. No need to change history. If we would treat people like people and not a color or a disability, the Parentals told me, the problem would be solved.

I believed them right up until the end of my Junior year. 

People told me I was moderately popular in high school. I heard a rumor that I was liked. It would be my Senior year so why not?

Why not run in an election to be part of the school mascot team. I was told I would be a cute Jody Rebel.

So I ran. I made posters. I campaigned. I didn’t go out for cheer leading because it was a potential scheduling conflict. As did a few other girls. One of the girls was black, Georgia. The other girl had the same name as mine, Becky.

It came down to a runoff. 

Becky 

Becky H. (Me)

Georgia.

The morning after the final vote I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to get to school and see who won. When I arrived, I saw the announcement, Georgia won. I was happy for her. Naturally a little disappointed, but Georgia was a huge soul. Everyone loved her. She would make a fantastic Jody Rebel. She definitely would be better at it than me.

I moved on with my day.

As the classes transitioned, I began to hear a murmur. Towards the end of the day it finally was reported to me through some acquaintances. They agreed with the rumor. They were mad at me too. What I had done was completely unjust. It was offensive. I should have known better.

I should have known that Becky C. was more popular than me.

I should have done the honorable thing and dropped out of the race.

I confused everyone because the underclassmen couldn’t tell the difference between us.

I had split the vote and allowed a black girl to win Jody Rebel.

Didn’t I know? Jody Rebel was supposed to be WHITE? I completely ruined our classes Senior year. How selfish I was. Blablabla.

Suddenly, I was no longer colorblind. I now understand what looked at me that day in the face was systemic racism. Many friendships silently ended for me that day. I was ok that they were mad at me. I was ok that their opinion was I somehow was an awful person for a day.

I felt proud. I, unknowingly, did my part. Yes! this school was racist. Yes! our mascot was racist. The whole premise of our high school celebrated oppression. Somehow, unwittingly I defied it. I made room for a change. I never apologized for staying in the race. I still don’t. I wanted to be Jody Rebel. Georgia won fair and square in that runoff.

More importantly,  

It was time we had Georgia as our Jody Rebel.

A Cycle of Truth

The first time my kids walked into California’s Lego Store at Downtown Disney, their feet stuck to the floor. Their eyes panned from wall to ceiling the bins of Legos. Slowly they turned to see tables filled with Legos. The floor allowed their feet to move as they began to explore the shelves stuffed with Lego kits to be purchased and blithely taken home to be constructed. 

Our relationship with the amount of information we have access to is similar. How to process it all? What is a conspiracy theory and what is truth? How to tell the difference. What to do if it Feels true? 

How did we even get to this reality of multiple truths?

Before The Plague our relationship with truth was based on nature. What we could see, taste and touch. Anything outside of that was ethereal. The Gods or Spirits were in control of it.  As plagues and natural disasters happened throughout history, our relationship with Nature changed. 

We asked questions. 

We developed answers.

Those answers worked until the next natural disaster or plague. 

Then…

We asked more questions.

We revised old answers.

We created new answers to new questions.

Our cycle of thought  continued until The Great Plague. It birthed the Renaissance, which  changed everything. By 1715-1789 the way we thought about the natural world bloomed into the Age of Enlightenment. All those questions and answers, the seeds of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Ptolmey fed Galileo, Newton, Freud, Jung, and the list goes on. 

Truth was no longer absolute. Truth became relevant to the facts presented. 

What was once a Brontosaurus is now an Apatosaurus body with a possible Camarasaurus head.  

Pluto was a planet. Then it wasn’t. Then it was.Tomorrow…?

The Enlightenment wove together centuries of philosophy, religion, science and art, birthed from the Renaissance, into a streamlined conclusion. It is a rubric we all still work from to this day. 

Our current Scientific Method.

Critical Thinking

Skepticism

Rationalizing 

Natural History

Liberalism

The Constitution

Separation of Church and State

I could go on, but it is a deep rabbit hole and that’s what you have the internet for.

With all of the political and social unrest of late, I keep hearing the terms “Critical Thinking” and “Bias” thrown around. It only adds to the information confusion. Why?

Because Truth is relative to the experience of the listener, based on the rules the Age of Enlightenment gave us. Truth is filtered through the lense of our own experiences, thoughts, philosophies, pain, pleasures and beliefs. These terms thrown around are meaningless words if no one takes the time to define them. 

For me, they sound like a long list of criticisms in a never ending argument:

“Check your bias.”

“Think critically.”

“Have common sense.”

“Ya Snowflake!”

“Ok Boomer!”

And scene.

It is right here that I, and most people, STOP. 

They walk away from the conversation.

Why? 

No one is listening.

The first rule of the Age of Enlightenment is forgotten: to be ENLIGHTENED. To be curious. To learn. Take a step back and weigh all the possibilities. The consequences of harm or benefit. During the 1700s, people would gather in Coffee Houses simply to talk about opposing views. Do openly discuss and disagree.

However, they did not argue. They debated. The difference?

An argument is when two people are talking to prove their own point and not listening to the other. They don’t agree and oftentimes walk away angry. 

A debate is when two people are exchanging ideas, listening and considering the other person’s point of view. They never have to agree, however they do walk away on friendly terms. 

In a debate, we learn. We expand our knowledge, empathy, and the ability to form relevant truth.

Add in the plethora of information in media, internet, podcasts, books, journalism, etc? How does anyone make any sense of it?

Here is where I start:

First I define terms:

What does Bias mean?

Bias a person’s view of the world. It is our nature for the world to bend to our senses. Our Ego desires everything to match up with how we think. 

“If everyone would just do what I tell them, life would be much better.”

The way we process information is the same way. Our Ego has an idea. It begins to look for evidence to support this idea. The more it looks for evidence, the more it sees, the more the Ego feels safer and stronger in it’s point of view. This process is called Confirmation Bias.

Confirmation Bias is the beginning of my Critical Thinking process. When a piece of information comes my way, I stop and consider. 

Do I immediately FEEL like it’s right? (red flag) 

Do I immediately agree with it? (yellow flag) 

Does it make me curious? (green flag)

How I respond determines how I investigate. If I respond in a Red or Yellow flag way, I know that my Confirmation Bias has kicked in. I need to take a step back and look at some facts. Sometimes that means looking into opposing viewpoints. However, I keep an eye out for emotional language and absolutes in their perspective. If I hear either one, I skip to the next piece of information. I try to set my Confirmation Bias, Emotions and Beliefs aside while I am information gathering.

What does Critical Thinking mean?

Once I have identified my personal Bias, I can apply Critical Thinking. My recipe for processing the information I gathered is this: 

Occam’s Razor: basically states, “the simplest solution is most likely the right one.”

Balanced with Newton’s Third Law: “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”

With a dash of Murphy’s Law “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

My Working Conclusion is the end result. I call it a Working Conclusion because it isn’t final. My conclusion can change based on new information. If I call it an absolute Conclusion I am giving into my Confirmation Bias and no longer thinking critically. I want to stay as far away from the  slippery slope to “Snowflake/ Ok Boomer” land, which leads absolutely nothing productive.

It is great to have ideas and think them all the way through to a working conclusion, but what then? How do I turn the idea into something productive? This is honestly the most important part for me. Whatever the end result of my Critical Thinking journey, it should help increase my empathy for others while learning to extend grace to myself. From that point I can create a plan of action.

It is a swamp of overwhelming information out there. The trickiest part is figuring out how to get through it all with sanity, while remembering to Love my neighbor as Myself.

That is what Tenacious Optimism looks like.