Elk Grove middle school hosts Smithsonian exhibit on prejudice and discrimination

One portion of the Smithsonian’s “The Bias Inside Us” traveling exhibit has visitors face to face with an individual who speaks about the discrimination he has faced because of his identity as a Black, queer man. The man shares his story via a video recording that is presented in life-size on a screen at eye level with the viewer. It feels as if he’s speaking directly to you.

“Bias is all around us,” he says in the video.

The exhibit, now being hosted at Elizabeth Pinkerton Middle School in Elk Grove, asks its participants to confront their own internal biases surrounding race, gender, sexuality and several other identities in similarly direct manners. Within the six sections of the exhibit are interactive elements where visitors can unveil information, play games and answer questions.

“The Bias Inside Us” walks people through bias from its inception as a psychological phenomenon in our brains to how unexamined prejudice can manifest in systemic discrimination at an institutional level. Examples of how systemic bias can play out include the redlining housing movement of the 20th century and negative attitude health care professionals can have against fat people that result in a poorer standard of care.

Importantly, the content of the exhibit may be direct, but it is not adversarial. It promotes the idea that having bias is a morally neutral, natural part of being a human while making the ramifications of unchecked prejudice clear.

“If you’re human, you’re biased,” the exhibit reads. ”But, the real question is: what do you do about it? Every brain develops its biases from the environment. But bias does not dictate our destiny. We can change the way we truly see ourselves and each other.”

Even the activities that ask participants to reflect on potentially problematic beliefs they hold or have held in the past do not invite people to feel shame, but to interrogate how and why they came to feel that way.

But the school administrators who partnered with the school district on the exhibit say it’s about more than just interrogating your own internal biases: the organizers want participants to see themselves represented in the content of the exhibit.

“I hope people are able to see themselves somewhere here, that there’s something here that honors who they are and then, best case scenario, learn something about somebody with a different background as well,” Elk Grove Unified superintendent Christopher Hoffman said.

The importance of hosting ‘The Bias Inside Us’ at a school

The traveling exhibit has been shown at institutions across the country, but this is the first time it has been held within a K-12 school district. Elk Grove Unified School District worked in partnership with the city of Elk Grove to bring the exhibit to their district, which ranks as the second most racially and economically diverse district in the state and sixth in the nation.

“I’m just excited that we get to have this here,” said Michael Vargas, vice president of the district’s Board of Education. “This opportunity for our district and our city, both of which are among the most diverse cities and school districts in the country, is such a great reflection of all of the work that we’ve done to embrace that to celebrate diversity and to help our community understand why there’s so much incredible value in that diversity.”

Organizers made use of the unique opportunity that being a public school agency offered them to augment the experience for school children and their families. Tables with social games and original artwork by Elk Grove Unified fourth-graders surrounded the main exhibit.

At the end of the self-guided tour, children and adults alike were encouraged to craft a paper “community quilt square.” Participants glued a hand-shaped cutout onto their square. Surrounding the cutout, they wrote something about themselves that most people could see from the outside, and on the hand they wrote something about their identity that could not be assumed by strangers. The final product went up on the wall alongside other squares to form a community quilt representing the diversity of the Elk Grove community.

On the outside of Edna Batey Elementary School sixth-grader Sophia Carter’s hand, she wrote that she is 12 years-old, is mixed race and loves dogs. On the inside, she wrote that she loves to read. Usually, people assume she is more of a jock than a bookworm.

“I’d rather be reading than watching TV or playing video games,” she said. “A lot of people think that I’m athletic and all that, maybe because I have my dad’s long legs. I do okay in PE, but it’s just not my thing.”

“The Bias Inside Us” exhibit is free to view 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day through July 14 at Elizabeth Pinkerton Middle School, 8365 Whitelock Parkway, Elk Grove. It will then leave the West Coast and travel to the Dallas Public Library in Texas.