In my last newsletter I discussed “white privilege” and it reminded me of an interview and subsequent on-line article a local high school student wrote. The author has graduated and is off to college soon to begin her new life.
Meena contacted me a few months ago about the article she was writing on the unconscious mind and how it can affect the decisions we make — implicit bias. She wanted a law enforcement perspective and I agreed, partly because of her dogged determination to connect with me.
Before Meena stopped in, I remembered a book I read nearly ten years ago, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, by Malcom Gladwell. In the book, Gladwell discusses how humans instantly size up a situation and make decisions, offer opinions, “size up” someone, etc. in the blink of an eye. Also, the book is “about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant — in the blink of an eye — that actually aren’t as simple as they seem.”
I was secretly pleased that Meena already heard about Blink from another, much more scholarly source for her article.
After our interview, I learned that Meena was taking a plane trip soon, and I loaned her my copy of Blink to read on the plane. I had never met her before, and I was not worried she would not return it. Why? I sized her up based on our email conversations and personal interview and was confident it would be returned. It was.
I think Meena weaves implicit bias and being conscious of the unconscious mind very well in her article and hope you take time to read it along with the book, Blink.
This post was originally published as part of the June 9, 2018 edition of Chief Mathwig’s newsletter, One Chief’s Perspective.
