My Experience with Bias

I’ve always heard the “bias” this word in many different occasions, but I never imagined that one day I would experience it.

I was born and grew up in Wuhan, and this city is quite unknown until the outbreak of COVID-19. When people heard the news that the first confirmed case was from Wuhan, the bias towards Wuhan and people who live in Wuhan started growing up in their minds. On many social media platforms, I saw all kinds of mean words about Wuhan people, and all the words were like sharp knives stabbing into my hearts. Even after things getting better in Wuhan, some people still assumed that people who came Wuhan are unsafe virus carriers.

The outbreak of COVID-19 taught me how terrifying biases and rumors are, and it’s so hard to fight against them. At first, when I saw someone publishing wrong and ridiculous comments, I would argue with him/her and try to explain the truth to them, but no matter how hard I explained, it’s always useless. Then, I gave up. For people who believe in the rumor and have biases, they barely know the things they comment on, and all they know probably is just a piece of authoritative news. I think there was a paradox: the way to eliminate bias is to know the truth, but for people who have s bias, they are reluctant to know the truth.