Bias affects quality of our interactions

We all get affected by stereotypes and biases, either our own or someone else's. Either way, we get affected. Nowadays, a vast amount of information is shared widely, without being verified for either its content or accuracy. People who receive this information use it as factual truth if it validates their bias and outright reject it if it even remotely challenges their bias, thereby making their bias even stronger. When such people interact with others around them their interactions are affected due to their prejudices and biases that are validated based on all the misinformation they received from various unverified sources. This is happening everywhere, one can see this happening in WhatsApp groups, on people's Facebook walls, and even when people interact personally during social or family functions. The spread of misinformation is so rampant that people don't even know from where they got the information they are sharing so confidently. This is why we are witnessing a highly misinformed and polarized society. We are living in a society where everyone's interactions are heavily influenced by their biases that are strongly validated by all the misinformation they consume. 

To be clear, polarization or bias is not a recent phenomenon, in the past also people used to have political disagreements and various biases, and there used to be heated debates on various sensitive topics, but rarely there used to be so much downpour of blatantly false information from both the sides. This is happening across society at each and every level, starting from top government officials to family dinner tables, thanks to the internet and social media. Surprisingly, most people who are doing this are neither aware of this nor are bothered by this. Everyone is convinced that the other person is misinformed but not them. I am amazed when people shart arguing based on unverified and blatantly false information and if someone points this out to them, they are not even surprised or apologetic about their behavior. The quality of people's interaction is so much dictated by their prejudices and biases that most people only communicate with people who agree with them, with others they just argue or don't even bother to communicate at all. This is where we are currently, everyone is siloed, living in echo chambers where they only hear their own voice, nothing else. Everyone is strongly opinionated and convinced about their opinions. Being opinionated is not a bad thing in itself, but forming those opinions only based on our prejudices and biases built on false information is a terrible mistake. I wonder why people don't try to verify the information they receive even if it validates their beliefs. I had to change so many of my beliefs when I discovered reliable and verified information contradicting them. It was tough but necessary. However, to my astonishment, there are many who still carry the same beliefs that I had to change even after the same information proving those beliefs wrong is available to them. So, this is not about the availability of information, but about willingness to challenge our own beliefs. Not many are ready to do this. Either they lack the courage to challenge their beliefs or they are not intelligent enough to understand that they are being fooled. I don't know how many after reading this blog will start verifying the truthfulness of the information on which they base their opinions. I wonder how many of them will review their own prejudices and biases to improve their interpersonal interactions. If you care about the people around you, if you want to have a supportive and loving atmosphere around you, please check your biases and be aware of them. Most of us cannot remove all our biases but at least we can be aware of them, this will definitely help us to improve the quality of our interaction with others.      

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

The difficulty of being GOOD.

The Difficulty of Being Good is the title of a book by Gurcharan Das. It is a philosophical book that discusses various moral issues humans face with reference to the characters from Mahabharat. I read this book a few years back and found it very engaging. The topic of the difficulty of being good, came to my mind while chatting with one of my friends on the issue of gender discrimination which is present in every religion. I was trying to convey the point that, we all have our own biases and prejudices, many times we don't even realize that, but we all need to introspect and analyze our own thinking to get rid of these things, and it is a very difficult process. It is not that easy to be good at all times. We all speak passionately about the issues or problems that we care about. We all speak in favor of some political figure or celebrity who we love, and against some who we don't like. However, many of us change our stance instantly if we come across the views from the other side. We are normally not that welcoming of the criticism directed toward people we love and we are not that welcoming of the alternate views about the issues about which we care. I am not saying that we need to agree with all those things that opponents say, but many of us get mad to see that people can even think like that. One ideal example is when Hilary supporters can't understand how anyone can support Mr. Trump and Trump supporters can't tolerate the fact that people are supporting Mrs. Clinton.  This is one simple example to demonstrate the point that I am trying to make, the difficulty of understanding the other side's point of view.

By "good" I don't mean nice or not mean or tolerant. I am using this term for being impartial or reasonable or someone who can recognize the differences and still try to look for commonality. I mean someone who can agree to disagree, someone who can see and appreciate that every issue can have two sides and sometimes there is no right or wrong. Someone who can appreciate the ambiguity and uncertainty of life. Someone who can understand the point of view of an atheist as well as a theist. I understand that I am asking for an ideal behavior, but we don't want to give this title of "good person" for doing trivial things, right? There should be some challenges associated with reaching the point where we can call ourselves "a good person."

It is not that easy to be an unbiased person and criticize or praise everything objectively. It's not easy not to belong to any group. If we don't belong to any group, we don't get protection from any camp. When we don't belong to any herd where there are people who think like us and agree with us without any arguments and disagreements, this is not a very comfortable situation to be in. To avoid this discomfort and insecurity, we choose our sides, we either love or hate some political leader, or we get associated with a certain political party. We try to show that our religion or country is the best in the world and others are not that good. The drawbacks of our own religion are trivial, but other religions have terrible shortcomings. We expect others not to offend us, but we should be allowed to say whatever we want. When in a majority, we think that the minority should respect the majority's views and behave accordingly (a beef ban in India is an ideal example of this), but the same if group when in a minority, expects that their ideas and values should be protected and respected by the majority. I observed this last behavior among many Indians living in the USA. Many Indian Americans supported overwhelmingly Mr. Modi and his call for nationalism and majoritarianism during the last general elections of India but got very apprehensive about Mr. Trump when he said very similar things. These people feared that because of their minority status in the US, they might come under attack or suffer some angry reactions from the majority, but the same group was totally dismissive of similar fears expressed by the minorities of India. I am not trying to say that after Mr. Modi's victory in India minority is in a very perilous state or they are suffering at the hands of the majority, but his tone during the election campaign was not that different than Mr. Trump's tone, and I can see the different response by the same group of people, just because of their different strength in that society.

The desire to be good is very common and natural, but the willingness to make conscious efforts to become good is not that common. We all want to be good without making efforts to become good, and that is why it is very difficult to be good. It is tough, but we all can try to achieve it. I hope readers of this blog will try their best to be a "good person." We need more good people in this world, I don't think anyone will disagree with this statement. Let's first recognize the difficulty of being good and then try to overcome those very sincerely. I am trying my best, are you?

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Despite being a woman

During his Bangladesh visit in one of his speeches Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi said, "I am happy that Bangladesh prime minister, despite being a woman, has declared zero tolerance for terrorism." There is no doubt that he wanted to praise Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for doing a commendable job in dealing with terrorists in her own country. So, what is wrong with this statement of Mr. Modi which created some controversy in social media and became the subject of some TV debates? The use of the term "despite being a woman" is highly objectionable to many including me. I don't think there is any doubt that he should have chosen better words to praise her, and there was absolutely no need to mention her gender while complimenting her for her stance against terrorism. Special mention of her gender displays the typical patriarchal mindset of our society, even our PM did not think that it is wrong to compliment anyone by highlighting their gender. This also shows a stereotyping of women as gentle, nonaggressive, soft gender who can not deal with tough situations like terrorism the way men can. It would be unfair to say that Mr. Modi is the only politician or person who thinks like this, this mindset is present in many societies including many developed countries, even in India many politicians across party lines say insulting or derogatory comments about women regularly. Whenever there is a huge uproar against such comments they are brushed under the carpet by labeling them trivial remarks not to be taken seriously or they cite the usual excuse that they were taken out of context.

Why I am picking this statement? Does this single line diminish all other achievements of this foreign tour of Mr. Modi? This tour is very successful and I am sure there will be many media releases and advertisements by the Indian government to highlight these things, I don't have to do that. But the reason why I am picking up this statement is that this displays deep-rooted prejudice against women in our society. Mr. Modi's supporters will of course downplay this incident, actually not only his supporters but every political leader's supporters are very forgiving towards anything done by their own leader.

Now let's see how the following statements sound,
It is great that despite being a woman you learned how to drive. It is very admirable that despite being a woman you are doing an industrial job. It is nice that despite being a woman you earned a college degree. I am glad to see that despite being a woman you are in the military. It is good to see that despite being a woman you play football (soccer). I am happy to see that despite being a woman you are a writer. And so on.

Actually, I can go on offering these so-called compliments to women for the many achievements that they managed to achieve despite being a woman, but the question is, are these really compliments, or these are insults in a very subtle way exposing my patriarchial and misogynist mindset? Because of this deep-rooted bias, some people feel that women can only do a certain type of work and if they excel in any other field it is an exception and therefore it deserves special praise, this is why they specially mention their gender and use the phrase "despite being a woman" she did this or that. We need to ask these questions to expose this patriarchal mindset of our society. Why do some of us still think that being a woman is like having some sort of disadvantage? If any woman becomes successful then why do some of us feel that it is an exception and not a normal incident? Actually, because of such a mindset, women have to face many hostile situations in their day-to-day lives. Because of this narrow-mindedness, some people don't welcome women's presence in many professional spheres as they think they don't belong there. Women need to fight against this prejudice which is why it is not proper to compliment them like this. There are many examples of successful women from all fields including politics (both from present and past eras), we know many strong female political leaders, so, it is not a strange or unusual phenomenon anymore. The time has come to get rid of this narrow mindset and stop using phrases like despite being a woman you did this and you did that while praising the achievements of any woman. Women have fought hard and still fighting hard for equality in our society, they still face uphill battles and such statements don't help their cause. I hope we all realize this and next time complement any person and judge their achievements not based on their gender but purely based on the merit of their work and achievements.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Racial profiling - a very common mistake

Recently I read about George Zimmerman's trial and reactions to his acquittal from murder charges for killing Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African American high school student. This incident of fatal shooting took place on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, USA. The trial attracted a lot of media attention and the verdict to acquit Zimmerman resulted in a lot of protests and controversy. All this happened because many believe there is a racial aspect involved in this case. Many people think that Zimmerman got suspicious about Martin because of his skin color which subsequently resulted in an unfortunate incident of fatal shooting. I am surprised if this is true even though it will be impossible to prove it legally.

Racial profiling (I am using this as a general term where we try to label certain groups with certain characteristics) is a very common mistake many of us make consciously or unconsciously. I see that happening around me all the time. Actually, the issue of racial profiling is more complicated than it looks. I am not going to go into any historical accounts or produce any actual data (sometimes numbers don't give the actual picture) but want to say something based on my own personal experience in the US as well as in India. In India even though there is no issue of race, the issue is about caste, in both cases the mindset is the same, one race or caste feels superior to another.

When I was in India, I heard many things like how Muslims are not as patriotic as Hindus, how a particular caste doesn't deserve a white-collar job, or how people from some particular caste are not as intelligent (or brave or clean or honest one can use any criteria here) compared to people from so called upper caste and many things like this. The list can become very long if I include everything that I heard. People still say these things very casually without any regret or guilt. I also didn't feel any strange when I heard these things as a kid as this was discussed very openly and without any reservations, and very often as a kid when you hear these things again and again many times you start believing that they are true. Sometimes there are a few incidents that make you think that maybe whatever people around you are saying about others is true. We don't even understand when this habit of profiling people, that is judging people based on their religion, race, caste, or nationality is incorporated in our mindset. Even when I came to the US I found that there are very subtle currents of prejudice against some races. It's not very open here but one can feel that it's there. Some areas in every city or town are considered good neighborhoods and some are bad, one can easily look at ethnic groups living in those areas and understand that there is a strong racial connection to this labeling. Actually, the crime rate and other things that make some areas less safe than others are because of the economic condition of people living in those areas, not because of their race or nationality. People don't want to analyze the real problem they just see the symptoms and form their opinions based on crude observations.

Many times because of some historical social aspects (like years of suppression and negligence) people from certain castes (in India) or races (in the US and other countries) are deprived of good education and equal opportunities therefore they struggle economically which can sometimes lead to a high crime rate (due to the resulting poverty). But to blame it on their caste or race is unfair and wrong. Criminals are found in every society and ethnic group, there is no logic behind labeling a particular race or caste more criminal than another. But in reality, no one wants to think about these problems so seriously, most take the easier path of racial profiling. They label certain races or castes as good, and intelligent and some as criminals, not so intelligent or incompetent (many people do the same thing about gender also). Most of these people pass this flawed thinking to their kids, so even before kids know the world outside their home they are prejudiced about which people are good and which are bad, who are their own people (same caste, religion, race, or nationality) and who are others, so this vicious cycle continues.

I guess we all do some kind of people profiling at some stage. Some accept and some don't. The worst thing is that some don't even see anything wrong in doing this. I would be lying if I said that I have not done it myself and I am not at all proud of this, it doesn't really matter whether I did it intentionally or unintentionally. Society and our inner circle (friends and relatives) play a very big role in this. Many times we tend to follow their thinking, but when I saw the world through my own eyes removing all those prejudices and biases, then I realized how wrong I was. This was one of the important turning points of my life when I left that habit for good. We have progressed so much in science and technology, and we know many things about which our ancestors had no clue, but even today racial profiling is very common. People judge others based on their nationality, religion, or race. Many stand-up comedians love to make fun of people from particular races or nationalities and they are still very popular. I know that one should not take these things seriously, they are only for entertainment purposes but still, I don't like race or community-based jokes.

We all know that racial profiling is wrong. We don't like it when someone does it to us, but somehow many of us don't see anything wrong in doing it knowingly or unknowingly to others. Most of the time people do this without having proper knowledge about that race, religion, or country. Every culture is different, they all have some good and some bad aspects, no one is perfect, we all are humans with good and bad qualities. Our skin color, nationality, or race is just one part of our personality, we are much more than that so we should stop judging each other based on color, religion, or anything else. We all are humans and let's treat each other as humans.

Thanks for reading and please share your views about this topic. 

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)

Links:
1. After Zimmerman verdict, can nation heal racial rift?
2. Shooting of Trayvon Martin
3. A Perspective On George Zimmerman That Every Person Should Hear

Why I named my daughter "Sara"?

Chandrakant uncle asked me this question a few days back. I never shared my intention or reasons for giving this particular name to my daughter with many people outside my immediate circle, but I think it will be interesting to share it on my blog. Naming your child can be a very complicated and sometimes stressful process and in today's world of the internet, it's becoming a very elaborate activity. There are many resources at people's disposal to get name suggestions. I was not very familiar with the world of the internet when my first child was born so I had very limited resources at my disposal to find a suitable name.

I was very happy to know that our first baby was a girl. I really wanted to have a daughter, not that I didn't want to have a son or was biased towards a particular gender. Any child is a child its gender really doesn't matter much. There was a very personal reason for my wish to have a daughter. I was tired of listening to comments or taunts like, 'It's easy to talk about feminism but difficult to practice," "You don't know how difficult it is to raise a daughter in today's world," "Maybe one day you will realize what it means to have a daughter" (said in a tone like it's some type of curse 'to have a daughter), "You talk like this because you don't have a daughter," etc. So, it was a big relief for me when I heard that my wife gave birth to a girl. When I heard that the first thought that came to my mind was that maybe now I don't have to listen to any of these comments or taunts. No doubt that I was happy, becoming a parent is one of the nicest feelings in the world. It's a pleasure as well as a huge responsibility and like any other parent it was one of the happiest days of my life.

The next task was to name our daughter. Normally people select names appropriate to their own religion, culture, caste, etc. Many things contribute to the selection of the name of a child in India (or anywhere in the world). People who suggest names always try to suggest names according to your religion and this practice is very common all over the world. I also got some suggestions on similar lines. I and my wife had some of our own choices and they all were strictly according to all guidelines most parents follow, we were not any different. At that time I was also reading a lot about the anti-superstition (अन्धश्रधा निर्मूलन) movement in Maharashtra. I also read about Dr. Shriram Lagoo, a very celebrated actor on the Marathi stage and a popular character artist from Hindi cinema. I read about why he gave his son a Muslim name, he and Deepa Lagoo named their only child "Tanveer" a Muslim name, even though they both were born in Hindu families. There are not many examples like this (I know only this one). I read somewhere that they gave their child a name from a different religion, that to the religion with which their own religion has a history of bitter rivalry, because they wanted their child to understand that people can judge you as a person based on your name. They wanted their child not to judge others based on their name or religion. 

People indeed can form many prejudices just based on your name. From your name, they come to know about your religion, and caste (in India). They can guess from which region or country you belong and then based on their own assumptions about these things they can form certain opinions about you. We all do it, it's a very common thing. This might be the reason why many parents do not want to name their kids Osama, Adolf, or Duryodhan just because of the negative image associated with these names. It induces fear in parents' minds that their child might subjected to some trauma or torture just because of his/her name and they want to avoid it.

So, when I decided to name my first child my intention was to convey my belief to her that it's not your name that gives you a character or meaning to you rather it's you who give some meaning to your name. It doesn't matter what your name is, or from which religion or region it belongs, a name is just a name. But frankly speaking at the same time I was not as brave as Lagoos to give clearly a Muslim or Christian name. I knew that no one in my family would accept it and clearly, it would be a matter of argument and discomfort for many people in my family. I wanted to avoid this scenario as I was already causing enough trouble. I didn't want my newborn daughter to be a reason for family fights right from her entry into this world. Then I came across the name "Sara." I don't remember where I read it for the first time but maybe I came across it for the first time while reading about Sachin's family life. I know now that his daughter's name is Sara but I am not that type of crazy fan to name my daughter or son after people I like. I realized that the name "Sara" perfectly fits my bill. It's not from my own religion, my family had no clue which religion or region it belongs to as it was not a very common name in India). Honestly, I didn't have any clue at that time about the meaning of this name but I liked it. Fortunately, my wife also agreed to it and no one else protested (once she agreed anyway other's protests didn't matter). So, we named her Sara.

It's a very simple story but I thought it's worth sharing. Thanks to Chandu uncle for asking me this question which took me back to my memory lane to remember those wonderful days. My daughter is now old enough to understand how people name their kids and what logic normally people follow while naming their kids. She also knows which part of the world her name originated in and what it means. I told her the story behind her own naming process and she is totally cool with it. I am glad that both kids understand the limited importance and significance of people's names and they don't judge people just based on their name, race, religion, or nationality. After all, name, religion, and country of origin don't really matter, all that matters is how we behave with others and how well we treat the people around us. Remember, our name doesn't give any meaning to us, but we can definitely give some meaning to our name.

Thanks for reading and please share your opinion.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)