Forum: The long internal battle against our unrecognized bias

Published 1:30 am Saturday, February 14, 2026

By Sid Roberts / Herald Forum

When I was in the ninth grade, I had a crush on a girl named Debra. I was told that she liked me too. She was cute, had a bright smile and her nose was dotted with adorable freckles.

However, Debra and I never talked on the phone, and I never walked her home from school. In fact, this relationship was a non-starter. That was because Debra is black and I’m white.

The people of my midwestern hometown are kind and good folks. Notwithstanding, while it is hard for me to say and probably harder for them to hear, we treated people of color differently there. Truthfully, there was no way in 1968, in my hometown, I could have a girlfriend who was black. That just wasn’t going to happen then and mostly doesn’t happen there now.

In fact, practically speaking, my town was segregated. If you were black you lived in a certain section of town. If you were white, you lived anywhere else you liked. It wasn’t illegal for people of color to live outside of that area, but practical considerations kept those boundaries in place.

The cops in our town, usually white males, didn’t go to that mostly black neighborhood. Life, in my neighborhood just blocks away, was very different. Like the relationship between Tijuana and San Deigo, these neighborhoods were close in proximity, but worlds apart.

Black people in my town were treated differently. Implicit bias, i.e. automatically and unconsciously treating people differently primarily because of race or other differences, was culturally and involuntarily instilled in me as I grew up. Shaking off those associated stereotypes hasn’t been easy. As a child, I unknowingly accepted these conditioned racial attitudes, and I have spent most of my adult life working to unlearn and reverse that bias.

Sometimes, unaware of the discomfort it caused my black friends, I would invite one of them to my home after school to hang out. Unbeknownst to me, they were never comfortable being at my house in the “white” part of town. I was unaware of what should have been obvious to me. Everyday life was different for them, and they felt anxiety and alarm just being at my house and in my neighborhood.

It is just a fact that people of color were treated differently in the world I grew up in. Interestingly, if you suggested to the people in my town that there were issues with their behavior and racial attitudes, they would be shocked and defensive.

Today, I’m still worried about these hidden feelings of bias can cause many, including myself, to treat, and judge, those of another race or culture differently. I’m worried about the denial in white people that causes blindness to something that is so obvious and is tangibly felt by a person of color. I’m worried that our country might be going backward regarding racial equality.

Undocumented residents are being subjected to tyranny and fear by Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents primarily because of their color and national origin. These residents are being hunted and tracked like criminals and are being deported, presumably, to their country of origin. The ICE enforcers wear masks, use weapons and employ actions that resemble those of the Nazi brownshirts.

I’m wondering if we would feel the same about illegal immigration if the undocumented residents were white people from Canada or Norway.

I also wonder, since many of my white evangelical brethren approve of deporting undocumented residents, what Jesus would do with the issue? Is there ever a time that the Jesus of the Bible would support deporting undocumented neighbors? Didn’t Jesus teach his followers to treat their neighbor as themselves?

For me, I realize that I may always have to battle against unintentional and implicit bias. If you are white like me, and are conditioned to treat people of color differently, maybe you will too. This unconscious bias is subtle, but by first being honest and admitting to it, and then seeking to overcome it, you may possibly win a battle worth fighting.

Sid Roberts is Mayor of Stanwood.