Frank Somerville, a father from San Francisco who works as a news anchor, discovered something about himself that felt horrifying.
He has internal biases. He discovered they can creep up on you even when you’re convinced you don’t have any.
Let’s go back to August 2016 when Somerville saw a white woman sitting at a bus stop. About 30 feet away was a black man walking toward her. Somerville subconsciously made up his mind to keep watching just to make sure the woman was safe. At that moment, a little boy ran up to the black man and caught his daddy’s hand.
Somerville was angry with himself. He was embarrassed he assumed the man might harm the woman based solely on the color of his skin.
Here’s the thing: Somerville is the proud father of an 11-year-old black girl.
He and his wife adopted Callie in 2005. They also have a 17-year-old biological daughter named Sydney.
He tells Callie she may be treated differently in this world because of the color of her skin. That’s not OK. Then he realized he was doing the exact same thing by assuming the worst from a man based only on him being black. That’s also not OK.
He wrote about his realization in a Facebook post. Somerville said he was disappointed in himself, but wanted to use the experience as a way to teach others about internal biases we may not know we have.
