Address biases

I contend that it is more than a coincidence that two articles, “Car driven into crowd as people protest nationalists” and “Two milestones,” share front page headlines (Aug. 13).

In two different parts of our country, Milwaukee and Charlottesville, recent racial problems are profiled. Of course, in Milwaukee, we don’t seem to have the “white nationalists” that were involved in the Charlottesville protests and deadly violence, but it is whites who hold the power to make things better.

It is hard-wired human nature to fear people different from our own “tribe.” However, as a psychiatrist, I also know that our cognitive thinking abilities can overcome this fear.

It is human nature to come together after crises or disasters, but then go back to everyday normality. However, it is also our conscious cognitive ability to set up ongoing programs so that some future disasters do not occur again, whether that be from racism or global warming.

Until our human nature and our unconscious implicit biases are recognized and better addressed, perhaps as we saw in Charleston when the Confederate flag was removed after the church killings, we may see some of the same headlines 50 years from now.

Just saying that such headline events are unacceptable is not enough and can be counterproductive.

H. Steven Moffic, M.D.

Milwaukee