Do a Sherlock on stereotypes!

I've been living away from home the past few months, in Cairns. I often flee up there this time of year as the winter weather is divine and there's a lovely athletics track right near the CBD.

It seems my growth theme for the trip has been our very human mind-habit of stereotyping others.

Lately I've been listening to Sherlock Holmes stories as I go to sleep - he's the king of close observation, probability, and cause-and-effect. And I've found myself thinking of him when I inspect some element of my experience up close. I've started thinking of this close evidence-based inspection as doing a Sherlock.

So to my theme of stereotypes - we're probably all aware that they're not great. But if you were asked on the spot why they're problematic, could you articulate a clear and compelling answer? Have you done a Sherlock on this?

The issue first arose soon after I moved into the apartment where I've been renting a room. The owners, my flatmates, are older - a 60 year old woman and a 75 year old man. The older of them, let's call him Paul, would tell stories about aboriginal people that were only ever unflattering.

For example:

• they steal from the supermarket - just walk right out with whatever they want, bold as you like!

• they have an entitled attitude

• they're violent and dangerous

• they steal cars for fun

There are a lot of aboriginal people in Cairns. It's quite striking coming from a place like Sydney where you're more likely to come across an Icelander than an indigenous Australian. But in Cairns, they're a normal part of everyday society.

In the middle of my stay I went home to Sydney for a couple of weeks. I returned to Cairns and my female flatmate (let's call her Bernie) kindly picked me up from the airport.

We're driving back to the apartment with our windows down, enjoying the gorgeous 25 degree air, and we go through the centre of town. There's a point where the road crosses the pedestrian mall. It's a beautiful spot, there's a big ancient tree that shades the intersection on one side, and a landscaped garden on the other. It's a lovely place to hang out and sometimes there are groups of aboriginal people doing just that on either side of the road.

As we're approaching this area, Bernie hits the electronic window buttons in her Lexus and winds up our windows, saying to me: we'll just wind these up while we drive through the Bronx.

I've been coming to Cairns for 13 years. I've walked right through that area at least a hundred times, usually on my own. Sometimes there have been aboriginal people there (and often not) and I've never had a problem.

The tree in The Bronx

It's true that the indigenous people in Cairns are sometimes quite rowdy - they yell loudly and it can sound aggressive to my body-mind. It's certainly not normal communication in my social world.

But over the years, rather than just react to that on instinct, I've done a Sherlock on it. I've noticed that they are usually yelling to each other, not at passers-by. And I have never, ever seen them threaten anyone.

I've also exchanged greetings and friendly pleasantries sometimes - Hi, how are you going? Gorgeous day! Have a good day...the little expressions of friendliness that we give and receive in our worlds.

Fast forward a few days and we have some Airbnb guests renting the other bedroom for a week. I overhear Paul warning them to avoid this spot under the tree because it's unsafe due to our aboriginal friends.

I was also treated to stereotypes about Jewish people and young people while I was there, but indigenous people were most frequently 'othered' in this way.

Bernie had also told me of a time they drove around to Yarrabah - the aboriginal town behind the mountain on the other side of the river. She spoke of the burnt out cars, and dogs roaming everywhere. They got out of their car, walked around for a few minutes and were so scared that they jumped back in the car and left straight away.

The insidious thing about stereotypes is that they usually contain some truth. That is, they are true sometimes. I have in fact seen an aboriginal woman in the supermarket brazenly stuff an item into her bra and leave without paying. It's true that aboriginal people sometimes sound aggressive in public. It's true that you often encounter indigenous people sitting or lying on the street apparently drunk. It's true that youth crime is a problem in Cairns (only 4.6% of the Queensland population is indigenous, yet they comprise 62% of youth in detention). In the short time I was in Cairns I had a light stolen from my bicycle while I was in a café.

But if we allow fear and our natural tendency towards confirmation biases to run free (where we only attend to information that confirms our theories), we end up with generalised beliefs about people that are wrong much of the time. These views feed the us and them, in-group/out-group mindset, and we are now literally deluded about them.

From there, when we encounter a member of the out-group we don't actually see that human being in front of us. We see our concept about them. We see the stereotype. We've turned away from the possibility of human-to-human connection. We objectify them.

I've been on the receiving end of this myself and it's awful.

I've been seen as a stereotype of:

• a girl (given a doll for Christmas despite having no interest in them; not being asked to come and play sport with the boys - my brothers knew better, but not all boys did)

• a woman (assumptions about a love of shopping and gossip; expectations that I'll be agreeable)

• a mother (I'm not a mother, but because I'm a woman it's sometimes assumed that I am)

• a young woman (early in my career I noticed this seemed to limit the right I had to question things)

• a privileged woman (because of my skin colour and where I live - apparently I wouldn't know what it is to struggle despite having lived below the poverty line for several years)

• a sporty person (who is addicted to endorphins and doesn't know how to relax)

• an old person (when I trained with younger athletes I was often left out of conversations); and now,

• an older woman (where do I start? I fit almost none of this one!).

None of these stereotypes - the pre-packaged associations that were attached to those aspects of me - were accurate. All were detrimental to me in some way, damaging the opportunity for connection with the stereotype's bearer and sometimes limiting my freedom or inclusion.

In every case I wasn't seen. The judgments that were made about me had nothing to do with who I actually am in the world. It was like there was a cardboard cut-out caricature in front of me and that's what they saw.

This process right here is the starting point of all human atrocities!

Think of any death-zone around the world at the moment. Every one of those horrors germinated in this process - casting others as 'other' rather than as a human just like me.

Being very evidence-based in my views however, I realised that Paul and Bernie have lived in Cairns for many years and I only visit. I felt like I needed more experience to go on. They have more data-points than I do.

During my psychology degree I learnt about a philosopher named Karl Popper who developed Falsification Theory. It defined a scientific theory as one that can be disproven using evidence and observation as opposed to a theory we try to prove. The practical upshot of this is the deliberate search for disconfirming evidence. Scientific principles are very powerful tools for slaying stereotypes!

I'd done my best, noticing deliberately that I saw almost all indigenous people paying for their groceries. Noticing that I walked past many many more indigenous people who were peacefully going about their business and not yelling at anyone.

But I wanted more in my Sherlock kit than just my wanderings around Cairns city. My only significant experience of indigenous people was decades ago in primary school in country South Australia, where I had indigenous classmates. I needed more recent data!

For years I'd been curious about that mountain on the other side of the river and the aboriginal town behind it. It's a 45 minute drive out to the highway and back to the coast to get there, there's no bridge from Cairns, so you don't incidentally find yourself there. I decided to go and see for myself.

The mountain (hill?) on the other side of the river at dawn.

In preparation I Googled Yarrabah and found a council document summarising the results of a community consultation with the local residents - almost exclusively indigenous people. Their key issues were alcohol and drugs, lack of jobs for young people, antisocial behaviour like loud all-night parties that were still going on the next morning, crime.

I found this good data to add to my Sherlock kit. Here were indigenous people expressing these concerns about their fellow indigenous residents - just like non-indigenous people do! Great data for dismantling any idea of them all being a certain way.

However I noticed that Bernie's story had planted a small seed of fear in me, and the council report also reinforced the idea that crime is an issue. What if it really was dangerous? My husband back home would be very upset with me if I went alone.

So I asked my friend from the track, André - a 6'2" black man (a well built javelin thrower) from Dominica - if he wanted to come for a drive. He's lived there for two years and had never been there either. I'd also connected well with our recent Airbnb guests (Rolf from Norway and Ayaka from Japan) who were still in town, so I offered for them to come too - a peek into a part of Australia they would be unlikely to get otherwise!

We got to the edge of town and took a wrong turn (the sign had been bent), ending up in a semi-rural area on the outskirts - there were junked cars in some front yards, dogs and even horses roaming across the road. Text

I could feel a little sense of caution as these data matched Bernie's story. But I had also brought my Sherlock lens with me. Not all houses were like this - some showed evidence of care.

We headed back to the intersection where we'd gone wrong and it was just a short drive into the centre of town.

It was empty. Not a soul in sight!

We found the store - bars on the front door, looking closed, as did the public toilet I wanted to use. We were about to drive on when a car pulled up and some people got out and went into the store. It was open!

We went in had a look, bought a drink, and asked the Indian shop attendant about the toilet. He directed us to one next to the café in the building behind (the video below is us walking there). That too was locked.

Back to the shop to ask the man if there was any way he could open one of them. No, sorry.

An aboriginal woman was standing nearby and overheard us. She gave us directions to a public toilet down the road on the beach front.

Data point 1: helpful friendly aboriginal person.

We drove as directed and used the small bessa-brick toilet. We stood admiring the ocean, beach and trees along it. Then, deciding there wasn't really much more to see, we started walking back to our car.

I turned towards the car and saw a man about 40m away, waving at me and yelling hello. At first I thought he might have been waving at someone behind me, but I turned around, saw no-one and realised he must be talking to me. He was there with an older woman, a younger woman and a baby gathered on a picnic blanket.

Hello! Where are you from? He yelled.

We began walking over and introduced ourselves. Danny was his name - an aboriginal man in his 50s.

We stayed for a half an hour and I had a lovely chat with him. He told me of how as parents they were worried about young people and their screens. How they used to go camping for fun but now all they want to do is sit inside on their phones.

He told me of a school group that came to Yarrabah from Cairns and how one kid's Dad had warned him that the aborigines there eat people. He responded by reaching over and squeezing his arm and saying ooh, yeah, I reckon you'd taste pretty good!

I learnt that he knew all of the 2000 people in town, and that while they'd always say hello to the indigenous people in Cairns when they visit, they don't know them.

He told me how the footy club is a social hub in the town and how at games they still receive abuse from non-indigenous spectators sometimes.

He told me of the young male sprinter from there who was running a sub 10 second 100m (this would get him into an Olympic final!) and was picked up by an American college, who came home, got a girlfriend and gave it up. Another young fella who was an AFL gun - did the same thing.

Danny told me that it was his wife on the picnic blanket who'd seen us wandering around and about to leave, who told him to come over and say hello - to welcome us.

A 30 minute conversation of data points. Yes!!

I'm so glad I did this!

It reinforced my belief that when we approach each other as fellow human beings rather than through the screen of pre-packaged associations, we can connect.

We can't help that stereotypes arise in our minds - in fact much of what arises in our minds comes unbidden. But we can decide what we do with them when they arrive. We can do a Sherlock Holmes on them, looking closely at when they are true and not and to what extent, ensuring that we see fellow humans, not cardboard caricatures.

About whom do you have stereotypes? Old people? Young people? Women, men, non-binary people, certain sexual orientations? People from certain cultures? People who look a certain way - haircuts, tattoos, clothing? People with certain professions? People who live in certain suburbs or cities/ towns? Rural or urban people?

We all develop stereotypes, we can't help it. Our minds are well-intended but only semi-skilled friends. They help us simplify the world in order to protect us. But this simplicity is not only delusional, it has a price and that price is often connection, peace, and sometimes even survival!

Can you spot stereotypes when they arise for you, and do a Sherlock on them?