Recently I have been visiting a local hospital to get some physiotherapy done on my ankle.
I noticed, there is a security guard at the entrance who checks people who come in.
He does frisking and uses a metal detector both.
Interestingly I saw him using different protocol for different people.
I have seen him frisk people - mostly poor local people of the area as well as use the metal detector on them. I usually used to visit the hospital directly after my office and he used to use only the metal detector on me.
I did not notice this preferential treatment I was being given till one day I visited the hospital on a weekend. Being a weekend, I was very casually dressed, rather shabbily dressed. And when I reached the hospital, the security guy used the complete protocol - frisking and metal detector. When he frisked me, that is when I realized the difference.
I walked in smiling to myself and wondering how our biases are deeply ingrained in our society. A security guard - due to whatever reasons, has learnt that there is a class difference who need to be treated differently. I am not sure if he himself is aware of his own behavioral pattern. I also began to realize how there would be / are so many people in various roles and positions in organizations and society in general, who live these biases unconsciously.
I was also left wondering, what it would be doing to the receivers of these biases. For me, being frisked was an interesting amusing discovery. Am not too sure if the impact on the poor people, for whom this would be a norm, this would be as interesting or amusing. Maybe they are oblivious to this bias or they won't be minding it, since it is a part of their existential reality.
Other day, I was visiting the hospital again after my office. And this time I had my driver with me and he drove me right up to the porch of the hospital. The security guard saw me getting of the car. And guess what happened to the security protocol - no frisking, no metal detector!
May 29, 2013 at 10:06pm
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