I was tooling around the Internet yesterday and came across a statement that biases were based in facts while prejudice was not based on facts. That struck me as odd, so I decided to look around a bit more. I wanted other opinions on the differences between bias and prejudice.

I found these definitions from Southern Mississippi University the most succinct and informative-and considering their location in the Deep South, I assumed that they were pretty familiar with bias, prejudice and its consequences.

So here goes:

Bias

There are many definitions for the word “bias”. In human relationships, the most important of these connects bias with prejudice.Bias implies unfair judgment based on these arbitrary human characteristics. It’s also something we all do, whether through a systematic like or dislike of certain characteristics, or simply through lack of familiarity with the world of human difference.

Prejudice

Prejudice is a feeling we have about one another and our human characteristics: age, facial features, hair texture, body size and shape, gender, skin color, nationality, language, religious values, cultural values, sexual orientation … the list is endless!

Discrimination

When people act on their biased feelings — whether intentionally or unintentionally — then they are acting out “isms”, such as racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism … the list is endless and devastating to human potential. This is what is meant by terms such as “harassment” and “discrimination.”

When all is said and done, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck-then it is a duck. So, lets be honest and not get caught up in semantics. We need to own our biases, stereotypes and prejudices-and not let our kids imitate them.

With Respect,
Deb

Everyone can relate to this story….it came from http://www.all4humor.com/jokes/kids/index.html

A man observed a woman in the grocery store with a three year old girl in her basket. As they passed the cookie section, the child asked for cookies and her mother told her “no.” The little girl immediately began to whine and fuss, and the mother said quietly, “Now Ellen, we just have half of the aisles left to go through; don’t be upset. It won’t be long.”

He passed the Mother again in the candy aisle. Of course, the little girl began to shout for candy. When she was told she couldn’t have any, she began to cry. The mother said, “There, there, Ellen, don’t cry. Only two more aisles to go, and then we’ll be checking out.”

The man again happened to be behind the pair at the check-out, where the little girl immediately began to clamor for gum and burst into a terrible tantrum upon discovering there would be no gum purchased today. The mother patiently said, “Ellen, we’ll be through this check out stand in five minutes, and then you can go home and have a nice nap.”

The man followed them out to the parking lot and stopped the woman to compliment her. “I couldn’t help noticing how patient you were with little Ellen…”

The mother broke in, “My little girl’s name is Tammy… I’m Ellen.”

So the next time your child is whining and complaining, remember this story…and it might make you laugh.

With Respect
Deb

The battle over the appropriateness of a recent YouTube video depicting adoption from China is still raging-weeks after the video was first uploaded. This discussion followed hot on the heels of the controversy generated by O. Yang’s photos of white fathers and daughters born in China. Like everything, some people feel that it is satire and other think it is a horrendous and destructive and racist piece of ‘entertainment’.

Who is right? And do we have the right to make that decision?

Merriman-Webster Online dictionary defines satire as:
1 : a literary work holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn
2 : trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly

Franky, both the video and photo series meet the criteria as satire. Yet, members of the community were enraged that these artistic endeavors saw the light of day.
They want these types of things stricken from our collective memories? Other think that if something offends you then you should just not partake.

So what is a thinking person to do? Surely, ignoring the offensive material is one way. Censorship of offensive material may be desirable, but not realistic in our free speech society.

Thinking people have to come to grips with the fact that there will always be material, billed as entertainment, will sneak into our lives-and it will always create controversy. However, as time goes by, things that were once considered ok, become obsolete (think about Aunt Jemima Pancakes-Aunt Jemima was portrayed with a kerchief on her head, thick, full lips and curly, curly hair early on…and by the next generation her look had changed significantly because the earlier look was hopelessly stereotyped.) We can hope that what we find offensive will go the way of the original Aunt Jemima.

Until that happens, we might want to look at these things as opportunities to help our kids understand the role that the media plays in our points of view of what is ok and what isn’t. We can use these opportunities to discuss the ‘whys’ and ‘what ifs’ of our value systems.

It is a great opportunity for you to show your kids the difference between satire and racism-from your point of view. We should not give up the fight to eliminate bias and racism, but we should use what examples to show our kids the consequences of ’satire’.

With luck, by the time our kids get older, they will find hurtful satire has gone by the wayside because they don’t get the play they once had.

With respect,
Deb

Finally, families formed through adoption have something to cheer about in the media. For the first time in recent memory a media vehicle has hit on the facts and emotions about adoption on the nose!

Congratulations are in order to the team, lead by Executive Producer Pierre Valette, who created the Arthur episodes following Binky Barnes and his family as they expand their family with the adoption of a baby girl from China. This is one of the first shows featuring adoption that wasn’t demeaning or pandering. In fact, reviews indicate just the opposite-the show was able to accurately portray some of the feelings that a waiting sibling might have when facing the addition of a new family member. Binky Barnes’s emotions run the gamete from excitement to dismay-and fear of getting the dreaded inoculations needed to travel to China to meet his sister.

This episode-and its sequel go a long way in normalizing adoption bringing it out of the shadows and exposing children and their parents to family formation in the real world. Attention is even paid to proper adoption language (probably for the first time in TV history). This show is a far cry from other adoption-related shows including the infamous Who’s Your Daddy which served only to infuriate families all over the country and exploit the participants.

Thank you Pierre Valette, the entire team and the folks at PBS for making this happen. We just took a giant step in leveling the playing field for families formed by adoption.

With respect,
Deb

September is National Hispanic Heritage and National Literacy Month. This combination is a great opportunity to expose your kids to Hispanic culture and encourage them to read.

Each Thursday in September, the books highlighted showcase Hispanic culture-and are personal favorites.

Enjoy, The Day It Snowed Tortillas / El Dia Que Nevaron Tortillas, Folktales told in Spanish and English-we did.

Books are an easy, fun and inexpensive way to give your children some of the tools they need to respect, celebrate and appreciate cultures, choices and abilities.

For a few books with a bit broader cultural context try these:

With Respect:
Deb

From bad to worse!

Some people just don’t get it-or are so interested in making money that they don’t care if they profit by abusing others.

CBS joins the rarefied crowd of those that ‘don’t get it’. As difficult as it is to believe, they replaced the controversial Don Imus with an even more (is it even possible) controversial racist, sexist and ethnocentric ’shock jock’.

Yep! They did it again when they announced that Craig Carton who’s history includes, Operation Rat a Rat/La Cucha Gotcha-a ‘game’ to turn in undocumented immigrants, ‘outing’ politicians THOUGHT to be gay and mocking Asians by mimicking accents and traditions.

To be fair, Carton wasn’t always a jerk. He has done sports formatted programs across the country and has successfully increased ratings in many of the markets he broadcast in. And like Imus, he has generously supported children’s charities. CBS is pairing him with ex-football player Boomer Esiason-who one can only hope will be the voice of reason.

CBS must think that-despite the Imus flap that there is a market for sexist, racist and other offensive programming. It is up to us to convince them that we don’t agree. This is the time to step up to the plate and vote with your pocketbook. Don’t listen to Carton’s show, don’t support the advertisers that support the show. Make your feelings about this type of programming known in the only way that CBS will respond to. We need to hit them in the pocketbook.

If you are serious about raising great kids, the example you set by fighting bias, racism etc will be the best thing that you do. They will know that you don’t just talk about changing things-you do something. That is more powerful than anything else you can do.

With respect
Deb

I am fortunate to live in a beautiful area of the United States, surrounded by beautiful ocean beaches and calm bays. It is an area that is frequented by the ‘rich and famous’ (who don’t drop by for a bar-b-que, in case you are wondering). In the summer, our mellow community is not so mellow. The beaches are crowded,parking impossible, the stores raise their prices for the ‘city’ people, there is a lot of traffic and tables at restaurants are hard to come by. Tempers are short-I guess when you are paying $300,000 to rent a beach house for a month, you have high expectations. The locals take it in stride, counting down the days until Labor Day and we get our communities back.

The summer visitors, on the other hand, are trying to squeeze in the last bit of fun before they head back to work and school. When the weather is magnificent, the pursuit of fun is even more frenetic.

We were fortunate to go to the beach twice this weekend-once on Saturday:

And again on Monday:

So, I was relaxed and happy coming into this week, hoping to get lots of work done and get my daughter ready for school…

With respect
Deb

Eyes are the window of the soul.

And we also look at a person’s eyes and immediately assess what their race is. We automatically assume that a person with almond-shaped eyes is Asian. (By the way, rarely to Asians describe their eyes as almond-shaped. When asked the difference between their eyes and others, they are much more likely to refer to differences in color.)

Sometimes, Asian kids are teased because they have almond-shaped eyes. One Chinese woman recently told me that almond-shaped eyes are considered a sign of beauty as they are the same shape of the phoenix!

But looks can be deceiving.

Look carefully at Anjelina Jolie’s and Ben Affleck’s eyes. They are all beautifully almond-shaped-and I don’t think any of them are Asian!

The ‘take away’ for our kids is ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ or a person by the way they look. We want our kids to be able to appreciate each other. In
Families are Forever, Rain sums it up when she says,”I could see we looked different…..Our eyes were different, but we could both see. Our lips were different but we could both smile.”

So before you or your kids jump to conclusions, take a step back and remember what Rain said. You can’t go wrong that way.

With Respect,
Deb

Never one to miss the chance to ‘beat a dead horse’, even I was surprised to see the fervor which still surrounded the photo exhibit, Daddy and I by O.Zhang.

It is interesting to see how people have become experts-in photography, East-West relations, father/daughter relationships and even ESP! The flap over the appropriateness of the photos and their ‘true’ meaning’ continues unabated-particularly in the adoption community.

As of yesterday, some of the more skeevy photos were taken off of O.Zhang’s site. This morning, one adoption group member reported that the photographer had taken note of the derision the photos were causing and reacted by re-arranging her website.

I am not sure if this is the effect that is most beneficial-in the long run-for our kids. On the positive side a group of people joined together and had their voices heard. Our kids can see democracy in action which is a great thing.

However, I wonder if this is the best course of action for kids long term. Intentional or not, O.Zhang’s photos made people think about their biases and stereotypes. Some people were uncomfortable and (some oblivious, too) with the feelings that came up. It’s ok to be uncomfortable, right? Sometimes changing oneself takes time and courage. Shouldn’t we be thanking O.Zhang for pushing bias to the front burner? Isn’t owning our biases the way to keep them to ourselves and not pass them on to our kids?

Of course, it is. But like any problem, the first step is recognizing that there is a problem. Zhang’s photos forced us to remember that our biases are alive and well, albeit, deeply buried. As the old saying goes, “Da Nile, isn’t just a river in Egypt.”

The question is what are we going to to about it. Here are some thoughts:

1. Give yourself a break for feeling biases-we all do, no matter what.

2. You have a choice whether or not to pass your biases onto your children. That involves being as present and aware as you can be. When your child hears you mutter, “go faster you little old lady” when you are driving behind a senior citizen, they will pick up that there is something wrong with being old. They will file that away and pull it out when they ‘need’ to.

3. Your language matters. You have probably tried to limit your use of four-letter words around your kids, but you might not have thought about other labels that serve to cement biases. Labels like ‘illegal alien or immigrant’ are not only divisive, they are not accurate. People are in the US without paperwork-which is illegal, but people themselves are not illegal. Don’t dismiss language as ‘political correctness’ and wait for it to wane. Respectful ways to talk about people who are different than you are makes a BIG impression on your kids. It is the first step in raising kids that are respectful-and successful.

Anything that makes us stop, think and react is a good thing-especially as it relates to how we raise our kids.

While I was not so crazy about the photos-I think that they are doing a good job of making us talk about some of our racial, sexual and cultural issues.

I welcome things that make me think and challenge me to be a better parent-even if it makes me crazy.

With Respect,
Deb

Lots of talk about photographer O Zhang’s exhibit Daddy and I (http://web.mac.com/zhang_o/iWeb/Site/Daddy%20&%20I%20.html) has been bubbling up in blogs and Internet chat groups over the past week or so.

The exhibit is a series of photographs of girls who joined their families via adoption from China and their Caucasian fathers. Sounds good so far, right?

The artist’s statement about the photos indicates that he was trying to “capture the affection between a female child an an adult male”-especially when different racial and cultural groups are part of the mix. Zhang further writes, “through the relationship of the emerging feminine power of the adolescent girl to the mature father, each image explores the relation of the two often divided cultures: East and West.”

Sounds reasonable, right?

Why, then, are the photos creating such a stir? Maybe it is about the vague sense of unease we get when we look at the photos? We ask ourselves, “Are these poses appropriate for a father and daughter?” or “Are these photos suggestive?”. Are they intentionally provocative? What would your reaction be if you didn’t know they were fathers and daughters?

Our reactions are largely based on our own internal wiring and the ever present biases and stereotypes that are part of what makes us human.

And maybe, despite the photographers ’statement’ about the images, that is what the photos are supposed to do. Instead of simply exploring the relationships between fathers and daughters in a trans-racial family, the photos force us to come to grips with some long-held biases relating to older men and young girls, sexual stereotypes and the ‘right-ness’ of trans-racial families to name just a few.

Whatever the photographer’s intent, the result is that people are looking at these photos and reacting-viscerally. Some are appalled, shocked and angry. Others think that the images do show the love and respect between fathers and daughters that transcend race and culture.

But, the important thing is your reaction to the photos? Do it make you feel warm and fuzzy or creepy? Maybe you think that the brouhaha is a just another publicity stunt to help the artist sell more photos and stage more shows. Whatever, you think-the point is you did think.

Thinking is the first step to identifying our biases and stereotypes. We don’t have to get rid of them if we don’t want to. We just have to choose whether or not we want to pass them on to our kids.

Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, once said, “we need to view reality as it is and not as we want it to be.”

Bigotry and bias have no place in the 21st century-the world is too diverse-and dangerous for us not to figure out how we can find our place without stepping on someone else’s place.

And just so you know, I did think the photos were skeevy. They had a big yuck factor for me.

With respect,
Deb