Ring-Made Bias by Annika Rader

Why the Ring Should Face Outwards

            A Claddagh ring is an Irish tradition. It is a ring that has two hands holding a heart with a crown on it. When the tip of the heart faces outwards, it means you haven’t given your heart to someone. You are your own person. When the tip faces inwards, it means you’ve given your heart away. It now belongs to someone else.

            About three years ago, the ring faced inwards. The innocent one. He was a great guy. You were young, but he brought a light onto your life that no one had before. Between your best friend in a toxic relationship and the stress of being a freshman in high school, you were mostly on your own. Besides him. He was just one of those people that you could tell was just an amazingly good person. He made days seem just better. You both were innocent, but that’s what made it special. After the school year, he moved away to Arizona, but not before stealing your first kiss. Your heart shattered. How can you just get over someone who did no wrong to you? Life’s a bitch and how does a 14-year-old deal with that concept? The ring continued to face inwards for a very long time. But maybe, the ring should have been facing outwards the whole time. Then, life could go on much easier.

            About a year and half later, there was another boy. The angel in the devil’s costume. Now, he never actually made the ring face inwards, but he sure did make your heart flutter. Funny, attractive, but also taken. His girlfriend may have been basically Satan, but he was your friend. He was obviously with her for a reason and you cared about him enough to not say anything about your feelings. See the thing with him though is that his significance is not whether he made your ring face inwards. His significance is that he helped you grow up. He opened your eyes to that maybe the world isn’t as simple as it seems, and that judgement is not something that should be passed lightly. So yes, maybe he drank the occasional sip of alcohol, or smoked the occasional cigarette, but that didn’t change the fact that he’s a good person. He gave you hope that maybe it’s okay for the ring to face inwards. If someone did something you saw as bad could still be a good person, then maybe life isn’t as big of a bitch as you thought. There are good people all over the place, you just have to look for them.

            Then, six months later, the ring faced inwards again. The religious one. Now, at first, that’s not what you would consider his name to be. He was the funny one. Your best friend, even. It just felt like you got each other. He was there for you in some of your hardest times and some of your best. You never thought the ring would face outwards again. You worked together. You balanced each other. Yes, he had some communication issues, or he didn’t go to any of your events, or he even cheated on you once, but he made the ring face inwards. That’s what mattered. He did something you saw as bad, but he’s still a good person. Good people can do bad things, remember? The religion came in to play about three months later. He went to a church camp and when he came back, he was suddenly a child of God, despite doing some very “sinful” things throughout the past three months. He tried to convince you to be a Christian, as though you were uneducated and that’s why you were agnostic. But you both eventually agreed to respect each other’s beliefs. It was never a problem again. Until the night it all ended. “Does it benefit me to care about you? I chose you over God and I can’t do that anymore.” But he was never asked to choose. “Only God can fix my depression.” No, serotonin fixes depression. He decided that his ring could no longer face inwards. It wasn’t your fault, even though he made it sound that way. And after that night, you were stuck with your ring still facing inwards. It doesn’t just automatically switch back.

But perhaps, the ring never should’ve been facing inwards in the first place. With the innocent one, he did no wrong and yet you still ended up hurt. With the religious one, you lost your identity. You put so much into him and that relationship that you forgot who you were. You will probably never date a Christian boy again and you will probably hate the state or Arizona for the rest of your life. When the ring faces outwards, you know who you are. Perhaps, that’s what you were meant for. In a world where the ring points out, things are simpler. What’s the point in the ring facing inwards if you’re only going to get hurt?

Artist Statement

In my image, you can see that one of my fingers with a ring on it is in black and white, while everything else is in color. This illustrates that while everything in my life seems great and happy, my love life is a dark spot that has changed me a lot as a person. My flash fiction also shows the point that my love life is something that has evolved me and, in a way, hurt me as a person. I purposefully write my flash fiction in second person because I prefer to disconnect from myself and my emotions especially when it comes to my love life. The flash fiction is a lot of story-telling but all the stories have developed me into who I am today. Each boy really changed my view on life so I’m chronicling my change in personality over time. I know they have all changed my views on the world and my bias whether away from Christianity and Arizona, or towards people I may have previously viewed as "bad". That’s why I currently I have the attitude about love that I do which is that maybe I don’t need it since the two boys that made the ring face inwards. I purposefully never use the word love, even in my title of my project. Also, the second boy has a different nickname, because although he is important, he didn’t make the ring face inwards. My flash fiction and image work together to both show the theme of giving up on love and having a really dark spot in my otherwise enjoyable life. The concept of the ring comes from my ex-stepmom because she gave me it when I was young, and I’ve worn it since because I like the concept of it a lot. I also still have all of my other rings and bracelets on my hands in the image still because while I didn't write about them, they do represent my personality.

Bias

            People would often like to think that they have minimal to no biases. Things like “colorblind” or “gender-equality” are commonly said as though people don’t see gender or color. It is also often assumed that you don’t form a bias about a person from your first impression of them. Many also believe that biases aren't necessary and that is why they have minimal to none. However, I believe that we have plenty of biases. Our world is built on biases and they are probably always going to be there.

In the NPR podcast Hidden Brain during the episode “Researchers Examine Whether 1^st Impressions are Lasting”, special guest Cornell University psychologist Vivian Zayas discusses how seeing a picture of someone before actually meeting them can possibly permanently affect our opinions of that person. According to her, “Most of us know that photos have a very powerful effect on us, but most believe we can update our initial impressions drawn from the photo when we actually meet the person,”(Zayas). However, she did a study where she had a group of people look at a picture of someone and draw a first impression. Then, unknowingly, they met that person a month later and without even realizing it, they drew the exact same conclusions and acted in a way to make the conclusions become true. Based on this study, first impressions may in fact be lasting.

According to Verna Meyers, a famous diversity advocate, in the TED Talk “How do we overcome bias? Walk boldly towards them.”, we can get rid of bias. She discusses the bias towards black men in our society. She references racial based shootings such as in Ferguson. She explains how we often associate negative words with those of color, often without even realizing it: “Biases are stories we make up about people before we even know who they are”(Meyers). She states that in order to overcome these stories, we must be willing to see our own biases and then move past them. Without biases towards black men, maybe not so many would’ve been killed.

In the episode “Can a Child Be Raised Free of Gender Stereotypes? This Family Tried” of the NPR podcast Hidden Brain, a couple, Jessica and Royce James, discuss how they wanted their child to live without bias surrounding who they should and shouldn’t be. Since they were a mixed couple, him being African American and her being white, they were used to bias and weird looks. They didn’t want their child to grow up being told what they can and cannot do just because of social influences. However, raising their child against societal norms became very difficult at times. Isis, their daughter, was often bullied for not looking like “how a girl should” or Jessica and James even cut several people off from their life who didn’t understand the need for gender neutral. While it was a struggle at times, Isis eventually grew up to be a strong, self-confident girl and that’s all that her parents ever wanted for her. She was free to grow up being herself and not be put into a box society made for her: “Gender, like race, is an accident of birth. So why does it define so much of what we can and cannot do?”(Child).

I believe that biases are necessary in our society. Without biases, we would all have the same perspective. Biases can be as simple as I know that I may never be able to date a devoted Christian again. This bias helps shape who I am. I believe that that type of thinking can be necessary in our society because otherwise, how would we have something as simple as elections? Moreover, biases are what help shape our view of the world. Without my biases, I may not be able to write this paper. Also, while some biases may be easier to get rid of, some, such as gender roles and or first impressions, would be much more difficult. The concept of gender roles has been around for a very, very long time and the concept of trying to rid ourselves of that bias could take just as long as it’s been around. Even in the United States which claims to have equality, men are paid more than women for the exact same job. While what the James’ did was admirable and very fascinating, I feel our world would struggle to switch to raising our children in gender neutral ways, just as they did. Also, how do we easily get rid of an automatic switch in our brain that draws conclusions about someone just based off a picture? We don’t even realize we do these things, but they impact our lives every day. These biases are much more ingrained and complex, and I feel we would never truly rid ourselves of them.

However, I do agree with Verna Meyers in that deadly biases are ones we should rid ourselves of.  Biases towards people just because of their skin color is what makes bias a big problem, in my opinion. The concept that the color of your skin somehow changes you from a good to a “bad” person just makes no sense to me. We, as a society, have too many biases towards those of color and I feel we should do exactly as Verna Meyers said and rid ourselves of them. While some biases may be necessary or hard to get rid of, we should do exactly as Verna Meyers says and walk boldly towards this bias to prevent more deadly violence towards those of color.While I feel biases are the backbone of our society and many would be difficult to get rid of, we should strive to rid ourselves of bias towards those of color.