No one Faults the Bees

Bees are elegant, unpretentious and serene. That is until another bee, even of the same species, enters the nest and isn’t recognized. Bees are racist and demonstrate suspicion of outsiders. We don’t fault the bees, we recognize it as a primitive need for self-preservation. If we lecture the bee, accuse and shame the bee for acting in its nature we would look foolish. Bees wisely recognize their beeness as correct in everything. 

Human beings also display prejudicial thinking with people we don’t know and see as different from us.  We have a primitive need for self-preservation and despite thousands of years of existence most of us have a rudimentary understanding of ourselves as a species. Instead of thinking critically and objectively about the dynamics of humanness we politicize and pick sides. However, as a thoughtful species, we may find it is possible to find solutions when we all come together with the knowledge that all people, like bees, experience prejudicial thinking that is natural, and nothing to be ashamed of. Albeit flawed people are inherently good with or without their natural biases.  We are no more wicked than bees; maybe even less so. A study done at Yale using infants from as young as three months of age demonstrated how when given the choice between a helper toy and a harming one, we choose helping. Our morality is built in. 

We are also tribal by nature. We naturally build communities through grouping with people with whom we have common interests, unfortunately this process comes with built in errors in thinking that are auto activated with social grouping. Errors in thinking we may be unwilling to address for fear of rejection. Rejection is death to our quivering precious hearts.  However, being woken to our natural tendencies toward group think and outgroup bias while adding grace, may aid in lowering societal biases overall and lift us as a nation to be a more informed and united people. 

A societal group is only useful when it serves a healthy need and does not heighten prejudicial feelings of outgroups or motivate us to undermine and move against those we don’t identify as group members. Our group cannot replace our identity as an individual if it serves us correctly. If we disindividuate, we are moving into cult territory. And while we may perceive some differences between us and others not in our group, exaggerating those differences is prejudicial and unrealistic. There is no way to know a thing about anyone based on a group construct. There are no exceptions to this rule. The shared traits we think we perceive in groups of people are delusional errors brought on by our tendency to create shortcuts in thinking called stereotypes. Values in common become values we don’t share with others, and we dehumanize people, becoming us and them. This is racism, religionism, and nationalism. This is gang warfare, Nazi ideology and 9/11. This is arrested or not arrested. Believed or disbelieved. Job  or no job. Personal power or none worldwide. 

If we are truly prepared to address our biases there is no more necessary place to begin than with our political identities. It is in the political sphere where we will feel the impact most acutely. If we have heard ourselves generalized about as a Conservative, Republican, Democrat or Liberal, we have faced a form of racism based on a superficial social identity. If we have generalized, demonized, or acted against a person based on a political group identification we have behaved in a racist manner toward another human being. If we have accused a person of being evil, unintelligent, or in some other way insufficiently human due to a group construct that is the heart of racism and our racist heart needs to be woke. Whether it is antisemitic, racial bias, culturally, politically or religiously driven, our racist ways have come to the fore to be examined by fire. Here we are in all our humanity, We are racist. We are bigoted. We are prejudiced. We are human. To create change we need to stop being afraid of ourselves. We need to embrace our racist hearts, fearlessly and forgivingly. We then can examine our motives and express our selves honestly admitting when we have made a mistake. 

“I erred and misjudged someone based on my shallow perception of a social construct. I’m sorry. I know better and I can do better.” 

We all can.