Three months ago I was working at my desk in a busy office drafting my original blog on unconscious bias and how it is relevant to the legal sector.  At that time we were in the beginning stages of coronavirus – China was reaching its peak of the pandemic, Italy was just shutting down for tourists, and the virus was rapidly spreading across Europe.   In the western world, news channels and social media platforms were bombarding terrified citizens with horror stories about ‘wet markets’, daily death tolls, and conspiracy theories about the virus’ origin. To make matters worse, the President of the United States was repeatedly calling Coronavirus (Covid-19) the “Chinese Virus” on national television and Brazil’s education minister mockingly tweeted that Coronavirus was the Chinese Government’s “plan for world domination”.   The very topic I had been writing about was rearing its ugly head right before my eyes.

In a pandemic or epidemic, our brain bases its risk analysis and decision making off of the extreme stories being shared with us on the news and through media outlets.  As more of these explosive stories spread and mix with the enhanced stress of a killer virus, our brain is likely to suffer from sensory overload.  According to Dr. Bentley Gibson, our rational thoughts will be overwhelmed and our brain will begin using short cuts to make automatic judgements in a bid protect us.  In today’s Coronavirus pandemic our brain and bodies are undergoing this evolutionary response process which doesn’t necessarily fit into our highly diverse modern day life.  Humans are already “predisposed to not trust one another”; and fear and scepticism we hold deep within our unconscious minds is being triggered by Coronavirus scapegoating and racist narratives.  Sadly, in the U.K. ministers reported a 21% increase in hate crimes against South and East Asian communities.  In Australia, in the first two weeks alone of April, a Covid-19 related survey recorded 178 incidents of racist incidents against Asian-Australians.  However, even when the harassment ends, the consequences do not.  According to medical anthropologist Monica Schoch-Spana, “people in scapegoated groups can be more reluctant to seek out medical care when they’re symptomatic.”  This evidence shows that the virus has compromised more than just our immune system…it compromised our diversity, equality, and our humanity. 

The racist responses to Covid-19 may indicate that snap judgements and scapegoating of marginalised populations will continue to emerge in times of crisis and illness unless we take positive action to overcome our unconscious bias and minimize the effects of our immediate biological reactions. 

Addressing our unconscious thoughts will be uncomfortable and tough to do in our current media climate which is why I have provided the following tips to help get you started:

• Do not let panic guide your decision making -- stop, think, and question your response. Is it coming from a place of fear or rationality?
• Do not point fingers, instead focus on understanding
• Think before your ‘Share’ online, seek out and share from trusted sources of information
• Read about those who are suffering from the racism, try to understand the harassment their perspective
• Humanize instead of demonize; people of every race and nationality are suffering from the pain of Covid-19 related deaths

As the threat of a second wave of Coronavirus looms in the future, let’s try to encourage understanding and compassion, and be a part of the solution rather than the problem.