How "They" Holds Us Back

 

Like many people, I will turn on the local and national news channels to see what is going on in our world. This habit likely started when I was young. After school each day, my brother and I would head to my maternal grandparents while my mom was working until after dinner. Dinner would take place around 6:00 pm. That meant that the TV in the kitchen was turned to the local news.  If we weren’t finished with dinner by 6:30, Dan Rather would come on next for the national news. I did pay attention even if I didn’t understand all that was being talked about. As it was the 80’s, there always seemed to be a story about the Soviet Union, how “they” were communists, and a threat to our way of life. Over the past 30 years the “they” has been replaced with Russia, China, terrorists, and many others.

I guess I never really thought about how far too often we refer to people that are different than us as “they”.  Our brains are wired to chunk information into more manageable pieces as a way to help us process and understand the constant bombardment of sensory information. We only pay attention to a small portion of all the sensory information that we are exposed to. If the sensory information is expected, we rarely pay attention to it.  Has anyone ever had the experience of driving home with time flying by until we pull into our driveway and realize we are home? Maybe you were planning to go somewhere out of the ordinary. Without thinking you turn onto the road that you would normally travel but in the opposite direction you really want to go. This all happens because our brain would prefer to be on autopilot.  It takes energy to think and make decisions.  Even the smallest decisions like what to eat for breakfast, what to wear, did I feed the dog, and so on require energy. This energy requirement is why the likes of Steve Jobs, Simon Cowell and others often wear the same outfits day after day.  Why waste time, energy and gray matter thinking about what to wear? It’s also the reason we place people and things into groups.

When we come across new sensory information, our brain wants to place it in categories or groups that we have already established through prior experiences. Each group has certain characteristics in common. How each person organizes what goes into each of the groups depends on what characteristics stand out to the individual. When we place someone in a group that we don’t include ourselves in, this is where the “they” comes into play.  We don’t identify with them so what could have been “us” instead becomes “they”.  One common example might be the fans of different sports team. If you are a Boston Red Sox fan, every fan of another team becomes “they”, especially if it’s the New York Yankees. Far too often, we make judgments about people we put in these other categories.  This might be fine when its fans of competing teams, but it becomes a problem when we make unfounded judgments just because of our differences.

It seems our country and world has become more obsessed with “those” that aren’t like us. If you are a Democrat, you are expected to think of Republicans as “those people” and vice versa. If you are worried about getting a COVID vaccine or wearing a mask, then anyone that does is one of “them.” The list can go on and on. This kind of thing happens in our schools. As an educator, I’ve had parents argue for their child while in the same breath say “those children” when referring to children in another elementary building.  The other elementary school just happened to be in a poorer part of town with an ENL population. I’ve had a couple teachers tell me they don’t want “those kids” in their class because they aren’t ready for such an advanced course.  I could never figure out what they meant by “those kids” or why the only way to get into certain courses is with a teacher recommendation.  Sadly, this seems to be happening more and more as each group looks to separate itself from any groups that are different all because different makes us uncomfortable.  Differences make us challenge who we are and why we believe what we believe.  Differences are only differences because we lack the understanding to see how we are all the same. Each of our stories might be different but we can’t isolate from “others”. We need to do the opposite. We must talk to and learn from “others” we consider different. We must listen to each other’s life and cultural stories and see one another for who we are. When that happens, there will be no more “they” or “those” or “others”.  There will just be us.