I spend many evenings tinkering on my computer.  My activities may range from composing blog posts (like this one) to 3D print projects, among others.  As I continue to pound away at the keys on my computer, I turn on the television for background noise.  I could easily turn on music or a YouTube channel.  Reflecting on it, I turned to television, at least partially, to account for the elapsed time.  The start and end of shows will mark the incremental hour or half-hour chunks.

I turned to Investigation Discovery, a channel that specializes in true crime stories.  The names of hosts like Tamron Hall, Joe Kenda, Paula Zahn, and Candice DeLong become familiar, and so do their styles.  Having studied both engineering and psychology, I am fascinated by both the how and why people commit crimes.  My wife often refers to it as ‘The Evil People Channel’.

Inevitably, they play an episode that I’ve already seen or one that I may not find that interesting.  When that happens, I turn to another channel for something else to watch.  It’s not unlike something we’ve done hundreds of times.

Confronting reality

The weeks pass, and I follow the above pattern.  I continue to pound away at the keys on my computer as I keep this channel tuned in the background.  A story comes in about a young, enterprising car salesperson.  He uncharacteristically neglects to show up for work one morning, and eventually, they call the police to perform a welfare check.  They, in turn, found that this young car salesperson had been murdered.  As the episode continued, I didn’t track the details of the case, nor did I find it interesting, so I changed the channel.

In a strangely meta moment, I reflected upon that one episode and why I turned the channel.  Had I watched that episode before?  No, it was new to me.  Something about that particular episode lacked appeal to me.  It became my own private mystery, where I was my own suspect.  And abruptly, in an instant, I found the answer.

You’ll find this kind of insight unsettling, even if within the quiet confines of your own mind.  Even when presented with all the evidence, my natural inclination was to deny it.  In the interest of ‘finding my imperfect self’, I’ll share it.  The main motivator for my turning the channel that day was that the murder victim was black, and I didn’t find that interesting.

Black Lives Matter

It’s a slogan that divides people.  Many will assert that we fixed racism.  They maintain that they don’t see color.  We have elected a black president; that proves that we are no longer racist.  We can now dismantle the Voting Rights Act because it is no longer necessary.  Do I believe that we eliminated most instances of blatant and egregious systemic racism?  Sure.  Klansmen do not wander the streets with impunity.  You don’t hear of burning crosses staked to people’s yards.  Black citizens are not kidnapped and beaten to discourage them from voting.

However, as someone who aspires to treat everyone as equitably as I can, I have to face the unsettling reality.  At least in this particular instance, a black life mattered a little less.  Some will respond by wanting to ‘let me off the hook’; that I behave honorably, and I’m not racist.  Others will reflect on their own behavior and want to believe that it’s not racist.

Though at the end of the day, here’s the bottom line.  Did you behave differently based on nothing but the color of the person’s skin?  If yes, then isn’t that the very definition of racism?  I mean, it may not rise to the level of dismissal from your job or even require sensitivity training, but the mere fact that you behaved differently based on someone’s race qualifies.

Here’s the real mindbender: you may not even realize that you’re biased.  There’s a show on Netflix called “100 Humans”; in episode 4, they tested for racial bias.  They took their test subjects through an active shooter drill where they played the role of law enforcement.  They found that everyone was more likely to shoot innocent bystanders who were black.  And by everyone, this includes test subjects who were black themselves.

Where else do we see bias?

Much like I did with the shows that I watched, we express our biases in the places where we choose to invest our time and attention.  We may not necessarily think of it as biased, but once we ask ourselves questions that are more than just superficial, then we start to get into uncomfortable questions.

We were all transfixed by the case of JonBenét Ramsey.  I can understand why; it’s an interesting case.  How many instances of children killed under mysterious circumstances exist?  Or more to the point, how many cases where the murder victim wasn’t a cute, white blonde girl?  Would we have been as interested if she were Asian, black, or Latino?  Though what was the cause and effect here?  Was our interest driven by the media coverage or was the media coverage driven by our interest?

Similarly, we all followed the story of Gabby Petito as she went missing.  Subsequently, we all wept when they found her body.  While I don’t suggest that Petito’s life has little value, does the life of a blonde Caucasian woman have higher value than the lives of nearly 50 missing and murdered Indigenous people in Montana?

Today, we’re meticulously watching for updates on the case of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Savannah Guthrie.  You can assert that this is different because Savannah Guthrie is a public figure.  Is she better known than Jennifer Hudson?  From American Idol?  Who won an Academy Award for Dreamgirls in 2007?  Who became a spokesperson for Weight Watchers?  Why do I ask?  How many people know that her mother and brother were murdered in 2008?